Nancy Drew and the Mystery of the Funny Little Girl
Well, I'm going to tell you a story about a little girl named Alice Merck. Alice was born on November the 2nd, 1972. She was a funny little thing. She liked to amuse others. But then she died. The doctors didn't know why she died. One day she just got sick and within 24 hours she was gone. Alice was my mum's next-door-neighbour. My mum and Alice were good friends until she died. Alice was only ten years old, but what she did with those ten years was a mystery to everyone but her parents. She was a friendly and nice person. She had lots of friends but she never seemed to want to let herself open up to anyone. Except for Jane.
Jane Ellen and Alice were best friends. They sat next to each other in school. They ate lunch together, planned parties together, they did everything together. Until her last dying day, Alice remained a loyal friend to Jane. Jane knew all of Alice's secrets and Alice knew all of Jane's. Not even her parents knew Alice as well as Jane.
When Alice, the town's comedian, died, Jane was distraught. She stayed in her house for days, not talking to anybody, not eating. She never did see the sunlight again after the day she and Alice played for the last time because she was murdered. When she went to the outside toilet that night, she never expected to be joining Alice. She never expected that there would be someone so horrible to kill an innocent child of ten. She never expected. But you should expect the unexpected.
No one heard anything until the next morning. Not a scream, no sound at all. Jane's parents tried to hush it up. They said Jane had died the way Alice did. But my mum knew different. She saw the whole thing. She witnessed the murder of Jane Eeryie, but she didn't tell anyone. Anyone she told ended up dead. The local butcher, a shop assistant, even mum's brother. But for some reason, the person behind all of these murders could never get their hands on mum. She didn't tell anyone about the murder again. Until that one rainy day when she told me. I was only three years old and that was my last memory of her before she died.
Now, I'm not saying that that was a problem. I didn't mind that she told me. So what if it put my life in danger? I'm going to solve the mystery of Alice and Jane, and there's no one who could stop me. Sorry, I should introduce myself first. My name is Nancy Drew. My father, Carson Drew, is a lawyer. My two best friends are Bess Marvin and George Fayne. They are cousins but they are so different. Bess is a girly-girl, while George is a tomboy.
I love to solve mysteries. Call me a detective if you like, but most of it is just instinct.
I started off by putting the newspaper clippings that mum had saved from 1982. Two Deaths within Forty-Eight Hours one said. I read it through. It said the murder was a disease, and she had died at two o'clock in the morning. I checked the other one. Beloved Alice and Jane Dead it saidThat was the local paper, so of course everyone knew who Alice and Jane were. That one said she died of a heart attack at midnight. The detail on the story seemed a little bit dodgy. I decided I would invite Bess and George over the next day to help me solve the mystery but for now, I was going to get some sleep.