How Nancy Drew Saved My Life

What Would Nancy Drew Do? I wondered frantically.

I pictured that titian-haired retro girl and suddenly I knew exactly what she’d do: she’d remain calm on the outside, no matter what thoughts were going through her head, and she’d offer comfort to anyone who needed it.

I put my hand over George’s wrinkled one.

“It’s going to be okay,” I said.

George was still muttering, saying tearful goodbyes to his grandchildren.

“Really,” I said. “I’ve been through this kind of thing a hundred times.”

That stopped him. “You have?” he asked.

“Yes,” I lied, wondering if Nancy Drew ever lied to make someone else feel better. Probably not, I figured: one, she was probably morally against lying; and, two, with fifty-six cases under her belt, she really had been through everything a hundred times!

“Yes,” I said again, “and it always turns out okay in the end.”

“It does?” George asked, wanting to believe.

“Of course,” I said. “You’ll have an exciting story to tell your grandkids the next time you see them. Why, you should just look at this as material for that story you’ll one day write.”

“Ha!” he said, regaining some of his former spirit. “I thought you were the writer!”

Still, he clung to my hand right up until the copilot emerged from the bottom of the plane.

“Everything’s fine,” the copilot announced to cheers. “It was just as the pilot said—must have been a malfunction with the light.”

Even still, it was treated as an emergency landing, fire trucks screaming beside the plane as we hit the runway.