Nancy Clancy, Secret of the Silver Key

by Jane O'Connor

  As soon as they walked into the front hall, Bree’s dad snapped his fingers. “It just hit me.” He shook his head and chuckled. “I knew you looked familiar, and now I recognize the voice—you’re on Channel Three News.”

  Olivia La Salle laughed merrily. “Guilty as charged.” She spread both arms out. “Olivia La Salle—your Channel Three Weather Gal.”

  Nancy, who was following behind the grown-ups, couldn’t help letting out a gasp. She turned to Bree. She looked equally stunned.

  This was almost too good to be true. Not only did Nancy’s desk come with a mystery, it used to belong to a celebrity! A television personality!

  They were shown into a room with the largest flat-screen TV Nancy had ever seen.

  “So, ladies, shall we get down to business?” Olivia La Salle said. While she searched through a cabinet, Nancy took the silver key from her pocket. What would it unlock? Probably something important from Olivia La Salle’s past. Maybe a keepsake box with memories of her first sweetheart—stuff like dead flowers, photos, and love letters. Or a diary that Olivia La Salle had kept when she was a young girl with big dreams of becoming a Weather Gal.

  Olivia La Salle turned. She was holding a jewelry box. It was pink fake leather with a gold design around the rim. Nancy had one just like it. It was a birthday present from her grandma.

  “So open it! What are you waiting for?” Olivia La Salle laughed her merry laugh again. But then she took a closer look at the key in Nancy’s hand. Everyone could see it was much too big to fit into the tiny lock on the jewelry box. “Aw, gee. And I was so sure I had stashed the key in the desk you have now—to keep my jewelry safe from my sister.”

  “In the desk drawer with the secret compartment?” Nancy asked.

  “Secret compartment? No, I never knew about any secret compartment.” When the lady shook her head, her hairdo didn’t move. “Gee, I’m sorry. You came all the way over here, and I haven’t been any help solving your mystery.” Then the lady made a goofy face with her lower lip pooched out, like a baby about to cry.

  Bree’s dad laughed. “That’s the face you make on TV when bad weather’s coming!”

  “At least let me show you what happens when the jewelry box is opened. It’s so cute. All I need is a paper clip.” She went over to a big desk in the corner.

  Nancy and Bree both knew what they’d see. Still, they pretended to act surprised when a little plastic ballerina popped up from the top tray. The little ballerina twirled around to the same music as Nancy’s did.

  “That’s very enchanting,” Nancy said to be polite. “Enchanting” was a more interesting word than “lovely.”

  Five minutes later, the GPS lady was directing them home. Sad to say, the mystery had reached a dead end. Still, meeting a genuine celebrity wasn’t something that happened every day. Before they left, Olivia La Salle had presented both Nancy and Bree with a photograph of herself. She had written, Here’s to blue skies! From Olivia La Salle, your Channel 3 Weather Gal.

  Nancy was writing at her alabaster-white desk. Her story about Lucette Fromage was almost finished. Nancy was 100 percent positive that writing at a desk rather than at a play table gave her more inspired ideas.

  At this point Nancy had to decide whether Lucette would reveal to the queen of France that she was going to get her head chopped off! Perhaps it would make a better story if Queen Marie wasn’t told and decided, all on her own, to be kinder to the poor people of France. Yes! That was how Nancy would end it.

  Done and done! Nancy put her story in her backpack. But mystery was kind of like a mosquito bite. It was hard not to keep scratching it. The photo of Olivia La Salle was now taped on the wall right above Nancy’s desk.

  The Weather Gal had not revealed the secret to the silver key. But maybe the problem was that Nancy and Bree had not asked enough questions.

  Suddenly Nancy wished she could snap her fingers the way Bree’s dad could, because something occurred to her. They hadn’t asked Olivia La Salle a very basic question.

  Nancy scooted over to Bree’s house. Maybe they hadn’t hit a dead end after all.

  A message on Olivia La Salle’s telephone:

  “Hello, Ms. La Salle. It’s Nancy and Bree. We forgot one thing to ask you. Would you please call this number at your earliest convenience? Thank you.”

  “I didn’t expect her to be home,” Bree said, glancing at the clock on her desk. “She’s probably at the TV station, getting ready for the weather report. The news goes on in half an hour.”

  “You’re right.” Nancy blew through her lips and fell back on Bree’s bed. “It’ll be ages before she calls back . . . if she even bothers to.”

  Waiting was one of Nancy’s absolute least-favorite things to do.

  “I know!” Nancy sat up. “Let’s call her at the TV station.”

  Bree scrunched up her nose. She was more patient than Nancy was. But not by much. She looked over at her photo of Olivia La Salle. It was already in a frame on her bedside table. “What if she starts thinking we’re pests?”

  “She won’t. Remember how she said we were enterprising to track her down?” Then Nancy reminded Bree that a good sleuth needed to be persistent. That meant being stubborn, but in a good way.

  “That’s true,” Bree said, considering Nancy’s point. “Okay! Let’s do it!”

  The telephone book was in the kitchen. It was decided that Bree would make the call because her voice sounded more mature than Nancy’s. They held the phone between them while Bree punched in the number.

  “Good evening. This is WJIM. How may I help you?” a voice said. It sounded a lot like the voice of the GPS lady.

  Bree squeezed Nancy’s hand hard. “Hello. May I please speak to Olivia La Salle, the Weather Gal?”

  There was a pause on the other end of the line. “Who is calling, please?”

  “My name is Bree James.”

  “Ms. La Salle is in makeup now. Is she expecting your call?”

  “Not exactly. My friend and I visited her yesterday. Please, it’ll only take a second.”

  Another pause.

  “Hold on while I see if she is available.”

  With their free hands, both Nancy and Bree crossed their fingers.

  It was only a moment later before they heard the jolly voice of Olivia La Salle asking, “Hi there. What’s up?”

  “Ms. La Salle, we forgot to ask something.”

  “Fire away, Bree.”

  “Was the desk brand-new when you got it?”

  “No, it wasn’t. It used to belong to my aunt Elizabeth.”

  Ooh la la! The trail was no longer at a dead end!

  “Would your aunt mind if we got in touch with her?” Bree asked.

  It took just a minute for Olivia La Salle to find her aunt’s email address.

  Nancy raced to get a pen and paper for Bree.

  “My aunt is going to get a real kick out of you girls,” Olivia La Salle said, and then before she hung up, she added, “Here’s a little weather tip: Wear raincoats tomorrow!”

  The time capsule was filling up. Mr. Dudeny had brought in a campaign button from the last time people voted for president. Nola had a bunch of stamps in an envelope, which she claimed would be worth a bundle of money in fifty years. Grace brought in stubs from movie tickets and a photo of the shopping mall. “The titles of the movies are on the stubs so kids of the future can see what was popular with kids of the past.”

  “Hold on! That’s us you’re talking about! We’re not the past. Not yet,” Tamar pointed out.

  Nancy still hadn’t settled on what to add to the time capsule. And tomorrow was the deadline. So far it was between a yellow felt pennant that said Ada M. Draezel Elementary School or the 3D class picture, which her parents were not eager to part with. Neither really seemed that special.

  At lunch Grace asked in a sarcastic voice, “So how is your little investigation going?”

  “Very well, merci beaucoup,” Nancy said. Since Grace had been ab
sent yesterday when Bree and Nancy had shown the class their photos of Olivia La Salle, Nancy had the pleasure of repeating the whole story for Grace.

  “We’re waiting to hear from her aunt Elizabeth now,” Bree said.

  Grace just kept eating her sandwich and didn’t reply.

  When Nancy got home that afternoon, her mom said, “You and Bree can expect a visitor in about forty-five minutes.” It turned out that Olivia La Salle’s aunt Elizabeth lived in the retirement community downtown.

  Nancy and Bree had cookies and lemonade waiting in the clubhouse for their guest, who arrived right on time. A very tall lady, taller even than Nancy’s dad, hopped out of a blue sports car.

  Nancy figured Aunt Elizabeth would be old. And she was. But Nancy hadn’t expected her to be wearing a Beatles T-shirt, neon-green tights, or orange high tops. Her gray hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she had a bag with a rolled-up gym mat slung over her shoulder.

  Aunt Elizabeth—who introduced herself as Miss Simon—explained that she was on her way to yoga class. “But your message sounded urgent, so here I am.”

  Urgent? Nancy had never heard that word before, but she could tell it meant serious and important.

  “Yes. It’s most urgent,” Nancy agreed.

  The girls led Miss Simon to Nancy’s room.

  “Wow! It certainly looks a lot fancier now,” she said upon seeing the desk. She went straight to the drawer with the secret compartment and opened it. “This was the niftiest thing about the desk. It was like something in a Nancy Drew mystery.”

  “You liked Nancy Drew?” Nancy and Bree both exclaimed.

  “Well, of course I did!”

  Now came the all-important question. “Do you know what the silver key opens?” Nancy asked.

  Miss Simon took the key from the secret compartment and held it her hand. The way she just kept staring at it, not saying a word, began to get a little spooky. Finally she spoke. “The key doesn’t open anything.”

  Say what?! That was definitely not the right answer!

  But then Miss Simon continued. “I used to wear this key on a long chain around my neck. My best friend had one exactly like it. We bought them together and swore never to take them off. It meant our friendship would last forever.”

  “But you did take it off. It was in the drawer,” Bree pointed out.

  “My family moved to a new town, and after a while I stopped wearing it. The two of us meant to stay best friends, but that didn’t happen.” Miss Simon shook her head, then shrugged. “Still, the key was important to me, so I kept it in the secret compartment. . . . I haven’t seen it in—well, it must be close to fifty years.”

  There was no time for refreshments because Miss Simon didn’t want to be late for her yoga class. Nancy gave her back the silver key and Miss Simon took off in her car, leaving Nancy and Bree in the clubhouse eating cookies and drinking lemonade. They weren’t despondent, which was way, way sadder than sad. But they were both very let down.

  “At least we solved the mystery,” Bree said, sighing. Then she scraped off all the white part of an Oreo with her teeth. “But I wanted a happy, exciting ending.”

  “Me too,” Nancy said. “In a book it would have turned out much better.”

  After Bree left, Nancy stayed to polish off the last cookie.

  Then she stood and dusted off cookie crumbs. That’s when she noticed the red spiral-bound album. The one Mrs. DeVine had brought over the other day.

  Nancy took it back to her room for safekeeping. On most Saturdays Nancy and Bree were invited to tea at Mrs. DeVine’s. She would return it then.

  Sitting cross-legged on her bed, Nancy leafed through the album. Mrs. DeVine, who was Marjorie or Margie back then, had pasted in postcards from places her family had visited on vacations as well as lots of photos of people Nancy figured were relatives.

  On one page was a strip of three photos of Mrs. DeVine and her old best friend, which had been taken in a photo booth. In each photo, the two girls were making goofy faces. Nancy was impressed at how Mrs. DeVine could make her eyes go completely crossed. But that wasn’t what caught Nancy’s attention. In the last picture the friends were each holding something up to the camera. Nancy swallowed hard. She was pretty sure she could make out what was in their hands, but she wanted to be 100 percent positive. So she got out her magnifying glass, the special one for sleuthing that had rhinestones on it.

  Oui, oui, oui! She definitely was seeing what she thought she saw.

  She dashed off a message to Bree and sent it off in the mail basket.

  Come tout de suite! it said.

  But Bree didn’t show up until after dinner. And she wasn’t all that astonished when Nancy held the magnifying glass over the photo.

  “See what they’re holding, Bree? Keys! Silver keys that are on long chains around their necks!”

  “So you think that proves Aunt Elizabeth—I mean, Miss Simon—used to be Mrs. DeVine’s best friend?” Bree looked skeptical.

  Nancy nodded. “I’m almost positive.” Actually she wasn’t, but she wanted it to be true.

  Bree was shaking her head. “You can’t even tell if the keys are silver. The pictures are in black-and-white.”

  “That’s true. But you can’t tell that they aren’t silver.”

  “I know how to get to the bottom of this,” Bree said.

  They went downstairs to use the computer. Bree fired off an email to Miss Simon. All it said was, We forgot to ask something. When you were a kid, did you have a nickname?

  Later that evening, Nancy was reading one of her new Nancy Drew books when her mom looked up from the computer and said, “Sweetie, there’s an email for you.”

  The moment Nancy finished reading it, she started screaming and hopping up and down.

  “Did we just win the lottery?” her dad asked.

  Nancy didn’t answer. She was already halfway up the stairs.

  This is what her message to Bree said:

  Chérie. Miss Simon had a nickname!

  It was Bitsy!!!!!!!!!!!!

  “You’re putting a friendship bracelet in the time capsule?” Grace looked at Nancy and rolled her eyes. “That’s dumb.”

  Mr. Dudeny heard her. “Grace, remember how you and I have talked—several times—about treating classmates with respect?”

  Grace didn’t answer. Mr. D stood staring at her, waiting.

  Finally Grace said, “Sorry, Nancy.”

  Nancy didn’t care whether Grace thought the friendship bracelet was dumb. Attached to it were instructions for making a friendship bracelet, in case kids of the future didn’t know how, as well as a photo of Bree and herself. On the back she had written the date, their names, and the words “Best friends forever.” When the time capsule would be opened, she and Bree would be old ladies, as old as Mrs. DeVine and—Nancy stopped, because she could feel her brain getting all twisted up in that weird way again.

  At lunch Nancy and Bree explained to their friends how they had solved the secret of the silver key and what they were planning for Saturday.

  “I must say, you girls are acting awfully mysterious,” Mrs. DeVine said as they took their seats in a booth at Cohen’s Ice Cream Shoppe.

  Nancy and Bree giggled but didn’t answer. Nancy was so excited she couldn’t sit still. Neither could Bree. She was squirming around as if she had ants in her pants.

  It was 2:58, according to the giant clock that had hands in the shape of ice cream cones. Nancy pretended to look at the menu when actually her eyes were trained on the front door.

  At 3:01, Aunt Elizabeth or Miss Simon or Bitsy, as she used to be called, walked in.

  “Over here!” Bree stood up, waving.

  Miss Simon smiled and headed for their booth. Then all of a sudden she stopped and blinked. Her hand flew to her mouth. Nancy looked across the table at Mrs. DeVine. She had the same startled expression. Her hand was pressed against her chest.

  “No! It can’t be!” Mrs. DeVine cried. Her eyes were
open as wide as a doll’s. “Bitsy?”

  “Margie?”

  Nancy and Bree bounced in their seats triumphantly as Mrs. DeVine rose with her arms outstretched.

  Oui! Oui! Oui! Nancy and Bree had pulled it off. A surprise reunion!

  The old friends hugged and kissed and cried a little.

  “Oh, look. I got lipstick smeared all over you!” Mrs. DeVine said, sitting down. She took a napkin from the dispenser and began rubbing Miss Simon’s cheek.

  “And your mascara is running! You have raccoon eyes!” Miss Simon said.

  Then they turned to each other and hugged and kissed and cried some more.

  When the ladies finally settled down, Mrs. DeVine asked Nancy and Bree, “How on earth did you find Bitsy?”

  So they went through the whole story, step by step. “It all started with a silver key that I found in my desk.”

  “Your desk? What was it doing there?” Mrs. DeVine looked puzzled.

  “The desk used to belong to Miss Simon. It wound up at a tag sale. That’s where Nancy got it,” Bree explained.

  “Your rolltop desk?” Mrs. DeVine asked Miss Simon. Then she addressed Nancy and Bree. “Oh, was I jealous. My desk didn’t have a secret compartment.”

  “Do you still have yours?” Miss Simon wanted to know. “The silver key, I mean?”

  “Oh yes!” Mrs. DeVine replied. “In my jewelry box.”

  It turned out that the ladies now lived only ten minutes away from each other.

  “I was living in Mexico for years, but the hot weather got to be too much for me,” Miss Simon explained. “So I moved back here of all places. To the Geezers’ Palace.”

  Mrs. DeVine laughed. “I assume you are talking about Elwood Retirement Community.”

  Right away the ladies began updating each other on the facts of their lives.