The Case of Aunt Adelaide

Today we got down to the river in the morning again. We have such fun playing Nense Jroo (which is how Fidget spells Nancy Drew, for the uninitiated) there. We are always on a case. The past few months we've been taken with the idea that Nense and her friends George Fayne (who is an athletic girl, I often play this part when I am not pretending to be Ned Nickerson) and Bess Marvin all have an Aunt Adelaide who went missing in the late 1800's, leaving her fortune to the three girls. Never mind that the girls would not have been born yet so dear auntie could not have known their names. Do not bog us down in details like that! Apparently pirates who posed as fishermen sank Aunt Adelaide's boat, so they could get her fortune. She had a trunk of gold doubloons. We often find bits of pottery from auntie's boat, or glass, or undeveloped film that Nense swirls in the water to develop so we can just make out the shadowy figure of a man...

You always have to be ready with Fidget. Even if you woke up in the middle of the night with nightmares and lost a lot of sleep, be prepared. She will probably wake up at 6am with another case brewing before you can even get your first cup of tea down. When this happens, I find the best thing to clear the head is a run to the river.