Disclaimer: This story was inspired by the characters created by Edward Stratemeyer, "Carolyn Keene" and "Franklin W. Dixon", and the Her Interactive Nancy Drew games. I own no rights to any of these characters. The contents of this story take place during "Danger on Deception Island."

"Hello?"

"Hi, Joe, it's me!"

"Frank!" called Joe Hardy to his older brother. "Get over here, it's Nancy!"

"Hey, Nancy," said Frank, as Joe put the phone on speaker. "How are you?"

"I better be going!" Nancy replied cheerfully. Joe and Frank shared a brief look of concern.

"Call us if you need anything," said Joe.

"And be careful," warned Frank.

After the Hardy boys heard the click of Nancy hanging up the phone, Joe said, "Well, that was weird…"

"Yeah," replied Frank.

"Why do you think she does that?"

"How should I know?" asked Frank.

"You know her better than I do," Joe replied, wiggling his eyebrows as he gave his brother a teasing, knowing look.

Frank's eyes widened and as his face flushed. "I-I don't know what you're talking about," he sputtered finally. "Nancy and I are just friends. You know her just as well as I do, Joe.—She probably just called to ask for advice about her case, figured it out before I got to the phone, and went off to see her plan through. You know how distracted she can be sometimes."

"Whatever you say, Frank," said Joe, rolling his eyes.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Bess, it's Nancy!"

"Hi, Nancy!"

"George here, too!" chirped Bess' cousin. "Hey!"

"Hi! What are you up to?" asked Nancy.

"George is here helping me paint my room," replied Bess.

"'Helping' is a loose term," said George. "It's more like I'm doing all the work while Bess spills paint all over me, that is when she's not leaving the task at hand completely to cook more recipes from that new cooking show she's been watching."

"Hey," started Bess, "Chef Bob is a highly esteemed chef known worldwide for his organic, easy-to-make recipes."

"You're just watching the show because you think he's cute," accused George playfully.

Bess mocked offense and scoffed, "I'll have you know that that's only one benefit of watching his cooking show, thank you very much! I happened to enjoy cooking."

"Sure, sure," said George, giving up the fight. "So, Nancy, tell us about your case."

"Yeah, Nance, what's going on? Did you find out anything more about the orca or that shipwreck in the harbor?" asked Bess.

"I'll talk to you later," answered Nancy with a smile that was evident in her voice.

"Whale be seein' ya!"

"Bess…" said George, exasperated with her cousin.

"What'd I do?" asked Bess, as Nancy hung up the phone. "I was uncomfortable. What did you expect me to say?" Bess sighed in frustration and said, "You know, that's the fourth time she's done that this morning. Before you got here, she called me three times within an hour to talk, but had nothing to say when I asked her if there was anything I could do to help her with her case."

"Maybe she just doesn't want your advice, because the case isn't about cooking low-budget gumbo."

"George, come on, I'm serious!" said Bess. "Maybe Ned knows something we don't. Let's give him a call, just to be sure."

"Alright," George agreed.

Bess dialed Ned's number. "It's busy," said the blonde to her cousin. "Maybe Nancy's called him. I'll try again later."

"Or just wait two minutes," quipped George, disappointed by the practicality of her advice.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Ned, it's Nancy!"

"Nancy! Hi! It's so good to hear your voice… again!" said Ned. This was already the titian-haired detective's sixth time calling her boyfriend since reaching Snake Horse Harbor last night. Ned had known Nancy for several years through school. They had been dating for the better of the last two years, so Ned had come to expect this from Nancy, especially when she was away solving some mystery or another, but the conversations never seemed any less bizarre to him. "So, what can I do for ya?"

"How about a hint?" asked Nancy, not bothering with small talk. It was so like her, thought Ned with a low chuckle.

"Sure, what's going on?" asked Ned. There was a pause. "Hello?" asked Ned, checking the signal on his phone. The call was still going through.

"Hi, Ned, it's Nancy!"

"Hi, Nancy!" replied the young man. "Good, I thought we lost connection or something. So, what kind of a hint do you need?"

"I need help figuring out how to unlock the trapdoor that's under the lighthouse."

"There's a trapdoor? Seems like you find those all over the place, leading you to one secret passage way or another. When it comes to you, they shouldn't even bother with the term and just call them regular passage ways," said Ned, amused. "What does the room look like? Maybe we can figure out where you might have overlooked a secret latch or something."

There was another pause.

"I need help figuring out how to unlock the trapdoor under the lighthouse," Nancy repeated.

"Yeah, okay," said Ned, shaking off his attempt at a joke. Nancy could be so scripted sometimes, he thought. "Tell me what the room is like. If I remember correctly, this trapdoor is already in another secret room, right?"

"I need help figuring out how to unlock the trapdoor under the lighthouse," repeated Nancy for a third time.

"Yeah, I know," said Ned, growing concerned and confused. "You've said that, but, Nan, I can't help you if you don't tell me more. I'm not there. I don't know how to help you, if you won't tell me more details."

"Talk to you later!" said Nancy, again with a smile that showed in her voice.

"Right back at ya," replied Ned, hanging up the phone, blinking in confusion. A few minutes later his phone rang again. "Nancy?"

"Hi," replied a different voice. "No, it's Bess—."

"And George!"

"Hi Bess, hi, George," Ned replied.

"We need to talk to you about something," said Bess, hesitantly.

"Sure, what is it?" asked Ned.

"It's… Well…"

"It's about Nancy," finished George for her cousin, taking hold of the phone. "We're getting concerned about her."

"Does she seem a little off to you?" asked Bess.

"You'd have to be a little bit more specific, Bess," said Ned. "This is Nancy we're talking about, after all. She's sharp as a whip but quirky to boot."

"Well, like, does she ever call you, acting like something is really important, but then just ends the conversation with no apparent resolution or purpose of calling?"

"All the time," replied Ned. "Ever since I've known her. Especially when she's away working on a mystery."

"Doesn't that strike you as a little odd?" asked George. "Bess was just telling me how Nancy'd already called three times doing that-."

"Four," said Bess, interrupting her cousin, "including the one we just tried to have with her.—And that was just this morning!"

"How many times has she called you, Ned?" asked George.

"Well, since starting her case last night, I've gotten six calls," Ned answered, "and…"

"And when she's called, she seems aimless?" asked Bess.

"With every single one of her phone calls," said Ned. "Well, except for her first call to bring me up to speed and explain the case. But after that, she kind of just assumes I know what's going on. Who she's met. What she's doing. Obviously, I'm not there, so I couldn't possibly know, but even when I try to explain that, she goes into autopilot."

"I know exactly what you mean!" said George. "I've heard of tunnel vision, but the way she talks can be pretty ridiculous. I wonder if she does this with everybody or just us lucky few who've known her forever."

"We could always call the Hardy boys," suggested Bess, becoming distracted with thoughts of Joe Hardy.

Ned made a face and said, "How about let's not?"

"But they're so dreamy!" insisted Bess. "If she's still her weird self with them, too, we can definitely just write this off as a quirk."

"Are you sure 'quirk' is the right word for this?"

"They have collaborated on more cases with her in person than any of us ever have," offered George. "Maybe something happened to Nancy during one their cases that we don't know about."

"But don't you think that they or Mr. Drew, or even Nancy, would have said something to us, if that really were the case?" asked Ned, hoping to avoid calling the two brothers. "Why would any of them hide something like that from us?"

"If that's really what's going on here," said Bess, preparing her cell for a three-way call with Joe Hardy, "then there's only one way to find out."

"… Two ways," said George in small voice.

"I'm sorry, what?" shot Bess, her neck cracking as she turned to face her cousin.

"There would be two ways to find out," repeated George, her voice trailing. "If the Hardys don't know anyway, her father, or even her housekeeper Hannah, might… know… if anything happened… So, technically, three ways…"

For the first time in her life, Bess was left truly speechless. Her mouth hung open; her eyes were glazing over as she proclaimed, "Oh my god¸ George, you are so weird!" Her hands immediately went to the sides of her face to express the full extent of her exaggeration, but instead the blonde cried out in pain and dropped her phone with a loud thud.

"Is everything okay over there?" asked Ned, wondering whom he should be most concerned about: Nancy, Bess, or George.

"I'm—fine!" said Bess unconvincingly as she dropped to the floor, bending over her folded legs in pain.

"Bess!" cried George, kneeling down to her cousin. She placed her hands onto Bess' wrists, tugging at them between the words, "You—need—to remove—your hands—from your face!—We need—to see—if—you—have—a black eye!"

"A what?" cried out three male voices in unison.

"Babe, what's wrong? Are you hurt? Is somebody there? Do I need to come over?" called out one of the voices worriedly.

"Hi, Joe," said George to the phone on the floor, as she continued to wrestle with her cousin, still clutching at Bess' wrists. "And hello to you, too, Frank.—No, you don't need to come over. Bess just smacked herself with her phone—"

"YOU ATTACKED ME!" cried Bess, removing her hands from her face to reveal a swelling left eye. Unfortunately for George, Bess caused George to hit her knuckles on a nearby forgotten can of paint, making her wince in pain. Forgetting her own distress, Bess said, "Omigosh, George, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean it! Let me get us some ice while you fill the boys in."

George inhaled sharply. "You three still there?"

All at once the boys replied.

"Yes," said Ned.

"Of course," replied Joe.

"Unfortunate but true. I am here," said Frank, earning him a menacing look from his younger brother. "What?"

"Nothing…" said Joe, sighing heavily as he rolled his eyes. "See, this is nobody likes you," continued Joe, taking one last jab at his older brother before asking, "Is Bess okay?"

"Are both of you okay?" asked Frank, glancing sideways at Joe.

"We're both fine," replied Bess, returning with ice packets for herself and George.

"Glad to hear it, pumpkin," said Joe. "But if anybody asks about what happened, let's just agree to say that you two got into a brawl helping Nancy out on a case or something. And make sure you mention that neither Frank nor I were there to protect you. We just got back from a case of our own anyway, and it might make me look like a bad boyfriend if I weren't there to protect you, Bess. Not that I'm concerned with what people think about me.-Quite the contrary!-But just know that I would lay down my life to-"

"Joe—," started Frank, covering an eye with his palm.

"—PROTECT THE WOMAN I LOVE!" proclaimed Joe, extending his arms out through the imaginary heavenly glow he saw before him, nearly smacking his own brother ("Hey, watch it, Joe!") in the face.

There was another pause. Joe's mind had not yet come down from the clouds.

"Thanks for the concern towards me," George said with a small laugh, breaking the silence.

"Oops," said Joe. "Sorry, George. BUT SO YOU KNOW I WOULD ALSO DO ANYTHING I COULD TO PROTE—."

"Joe," said Frank, covering his brother's mouth with his hand in a failing attempt to get Joe to finally stop talking. "Enough. We've all been distracted long enough. Bess, George, why did you call?"

"Would you let go of me? I can't breathe," said Joe, pushing his brother's hand away. He cleared his throat. "So. Ladies.—And Ned. Hello, there. Don't think I managed to get a decent greeting in there before. My apologies. Your complimentary fruit basket as a token of my respect is already on its way via express mail to make amends.—To what do we owe the pleasure of your call?"

Now Ned was beginning to think that he and Frank were the only two sane ones of their entire Clue Crew. "Well," he said, "it's about Nancy. We're all kind of concerned about her, about the way she talks. When she calls you during a case," asked Ned begrudgingly, "does she ever seem a little… disorganized in her thought process?"

"Calling without purpose?" asked George.

"Assuming you know everything about her case and asking for hints, even if she's never mentioned the thing she needs help with beforehand?" asked Bess.

The brothers turned to each other and shared the same look of concern as before. "I wish we could say that we had no idea what you're talking about…" said Joe.

"Except we know exactly what you're talking about," said Frank.

"Then we'll need your help," said Bess. "We need to help Nancy."

"You can count on us," replied Frank. "Just tell us what you think we should do."