1. MUTINY ON THE AMAZON

"What did you do then?" asked Susan.

"We had a bit of an argument," said Nancy

"A bit?" said Peggy. "It was a whole one and a half!"

Swallows and Amazons, Chp. XXII

"Peggy, you donkey, you let her drift away!"

"I never!"

"You must have done. If she'd been tied up properly she wouldn't have drifted."

"I did tie her up properly. Right there to the stump same as always."

"If you had, she'd still be here. I expect your knot slipped."

The unfairness of this was such that, for a moment, Peggy was unable to come up with a reply. Her knots never slipped and Nancy knew it. They had practiced knots all winter, stealing away from the others at school, snatching fleeting hints of summer whenever they could. She could tie them all with her eyes closed and some of them one-handed, same as Nancy, maybe better. She finally got it out through clenched jaws and past the lump of rage in her throat that threatened to choke her.

"My knots – do – not – slip!"

Peggy turned away as she said it, not wanting to show the tears that were going to come any moment now. As she did she felt the wind on her cheek. It suddenly dawned on her what this meant, and she turned around in triumph. Theatrically, she wet her finger in her mouth and held it up.

"Wind's in the south, Captain."

She managed to say it in an almost normal voice, a fact of which she was very proud.

It took Nancy a moment to understand what her mate meant by this sudden change in topic, but she got there soon enough. A huge grin split her face.

"Barbequed Billy-Goats! You're right. She can't have drifted to windward."

Peggy nodded emphatically, not trusting herself to speak. This was, she thought, all the apology she was likely ever to get. As far as Nancy was concerned, the question was closed and it was on to the next thing and to Hell with hurt feelings. That was just the way she was. Peggy marched herself back to the Swallows' camp, pointedly not looking around to see if Nancy was following. Once there, she busied herself gathering wood and getting the fire going as a good mate should, however unreasonable her captain.

As it happened, Peggy was wrong. It took a while, but after an uncharacteristically long silence, Nancy came up holding what proved to be a large seed cake.

"I found this. Do you suppose it would be all right if we ate it?"

The cake was a peace offering; actually asking her opinion was an even greater one. Peggy knew this full well, but wasn't quite ready to let go of her anger just yet. She answered curtly.

"I suppose so."

Another long silence followed, during which no cake was eaten.

"Peggy … "

"Yes?"

"What do you suppose really happened? To Amazon, I mean."

Coming from Captain Nancy, this was surrender with full honors of war. Peggy couldn't help but accept it. That was the thing about Nancy, really. However hard one tried, it was impossible to stay angry with her.

"They must have taken her."

"Well, they'd jolly well better bring her back soon."

There was nothing to say to this. If they weren't home in time for breakfast they were in for it. They both knew it, and it couldn't be helped.

"Let's have that cake here."

2. TWO-VOLUME NOVEL

Nancy loosened her grip on John's arm, and John, in the darkness, knowing that she could not see, allowed himself to rub the place.

Peter Duck, Chp. XI

In the warm and well lit cabin of the wherry, Captain Nancy rolled her eyes at this latest indignity. Titty was enjoying it all far too much, knowing full well that when it came to storytelling she was the quickest of all of them, that her plot twists and turns, once she said them out loud, seemed obvious and would be agreed to by everyone, even if they meant that her elders and betters were once again made to look foolish. This was even worse than being seasick, which could, after all, happen to anyone. Clutching John's arm indeed, as if she would ever do such a thing.

Across the table from her, Captain John, quite unconsciously, was rubbing his arm. Nancy's scowl when she noticed this would have shivered a timber at twenty paces.

The two mates caught each other's eye. Both were past masters at observing their captains, at gauging their moods, and neither had missed the silent interchange. Susan smiled at Peggy, and wondered why Peggy didn't smile back.

3. THE WRECK OF THE SWALLOW

"I only squeaked once," said Peggy indignantly, "and anybody might have squeaked."

Swallowdale, Chp. X

"He should have reefed."

Nancy's comment, as they watched the Swallow come nearer, was detached, almost clinical. She wasn't finding fault, exactly. After all, she hadn't reefed herself when Amazon had made the same journey, an hour earlier, but the wind hadn't been quite as strong then. Still, it didn't look right to her and, being Nancy, she wasn't about to keep it to herself.

Her sister, standing next to her, was unconcerned.

"They'll be fine. It's Captain John. "

She said it as if it were self evident, which for her it was. John would see them through. He always did.

Nancy wasn't so sure; she grew visibly agitated, her hands moving unconsciously to tiller and ropes.

"Come about, you galoot, bring her about now."

She muttered the order between clenched teeth, not realizing that she had spoken out loud. In her mind, she there on Swallow, in command.

Peggy smiled to herself at this foolishness and remained serene in anticipation of John's inevitable triumph.

And then came the crash and her world turned upside down. It was the surprise, really, that tore a shriek from her, surprise and maybe just a bit more.

Captain John Walker, sole master after God of the sailing ship Swallow and Commodore of the Fleet, was a fallible mortal after all, just like everyone else. For reasons she couldn't begin to understand, that thought made Peggy quite cheerful as she skipped down to assist with salvage operations.

4. THE PIRATE QUEEN (By D. Callum)

Dorothea, for once, was inventing no stories. She was living in one.

Winter Holiday, Chp. IV

The train ride home felt to Dorothea like waking from a dream. She glanced over a Dick and saw that he felt the same. He smiled at her wistful gaze.

"Cheer up, Dot, I expect it's even harder for them, especially for her. She thinks it's all real."

Dorothea knew exactly what – and who – he meant. It was odd, really, they'd spent less time with Nancy than with any of the others, but it was her they both thought of now. The intensity of Nancy's excitement when she heard the story of their journey to the North Pole was fresh in her mind. "Capsized! Mast gone by the board! Oh you lucky, lucky beasts …"

It wasn't just the polar exploration. Dorothea remembered Peggy's stories of their career as the dreaded Amazon Pirates. Peggy took it all seriously too, but it wasn't the same. Dorothea opened her notebook to a fresh clean page and started to write. The title was easy to find.

'The Pirate Queen' by D. Callum.

She paused, thinking of how to start. A passage came unbidden to her mind; she remembered it from a fairy story written by one of her father's Oxford friends. "She was beautiful and terrible as the morning and the night, fair as the sea and dreadful as the storm. All men loved her and despaired." Dorothea's literary ethics were not above a bit of judicious borrowing, and this seemed a fine beginning for the tale of the Terror of the Seas. She considered it a while longer, and crossed out the word 'men.'

5. THE GIRL WITH THE DANCING EYES

Mrs. Blackett had turned suddenly off the path and was walking across the lawn to the tents. Nancy, with dancing eyes, as if she knew that victory was won, was close behind her.

Pigeon Post, Chp. IV

For years afterwards, this is how Susan remembers her, how she thinks of her in the most private moments – the girl with the dancing eyes, bending he world to her will. They all follow her. Peggy is her faithful shadow. For the younger ones, Nancy is a force of nature, unpredictable as the wind and irresistible as the tides. Even John is Commodore only when she remembers to let him be.

Nancy says "If it wasn't for Susan, we wouldn't be going," and her heart soars even if she has doubts about what they are all doing. Should they really be taking Dick and Roger and the others into those hot parched hills, away from water and help? And the worst of it is that it's all for nothing, and Susan knows it. Nancy thinks that if they only find gold, her uncle will stay with her always, but this isn't how the world works. In Susan's world, men never stay. Her father is off to sea for months at a time, years even. Soon John will go, and someday Roger. All the gallons of gold in the world won't keep Uncle Jim from leaving Nancy behind the next time he has a mind to go. It's what they do, men; they aren't to be relied on. Nancy doesn't know this, or doesn't care, or thinks that she can change it. She's wrong and Susan knows it and none of it matters in the end, because in the end she will follow her, the girl with the dancing eyes, leading her into tomorrow.

AUTHOR'S NOTES

1. "Two—Volume Novel" is the title of a very short poem by Dorothy Parker, which goes, in its entirety, like this: "The sun's gone dim and the moon's turned black; For I loved him and he didn't love back." Yes, Peggy, I'm looking at you. But why is Susan smiling?

2. Dorothea's quote is, of course, from J.R.R. Tolkien. The dates make it just plausible that he might have sketched out this bit of what eventually became Lord of the Rings by then, and we know that he read his drafts out loud to groups of friends, so why not… ?. Needless to say Dot doesn't get it quite right – and Tolkien left out 'men' too.