Nancy Drew
"Nancy Drew" by Ron Koertge, from Fever. © Red Hen Press.
Nancy Drew
Merely pretty, she made up for it with vim.
And she got to say things like, "But, gosh,
what if these plans should fall into the wrong
hands?" and it was pretty clear she didn't mean
plans for a party or a trip to the museum, but
something involving espionage and a Nazi or two.
In fact, the handsome exchange student turns
out to be a Fascist sympathizer. When he snatches
Nancy along with some blueprints, she knows he
has something more sinister in mind than kissing
her with his mouth open
Locked in the pantry of an abandoned farm house,
Nancy makes a radio out of a shoelace and a muffin.
Pretty soon the police show up, and everything's
hunky dory.
Nancy accepts their thanks, but she's subdued.
It's not like her to fall for a cad. Even as she plans
a short vacation to sort our her emotions she knows
there will be a suspicions waiter, a woman in a green
off the shoulder dress, and her very jittery husband.
Very well. But no more handsome boys like the last one:
the part in his hair that was sheer propulsion, that way
he had of lifting his eyes to hers over the custard,
those feelings that made her not want to be brave
confident and daring, polite, sensitive and caring.
When I was a kid, I devoured Nancy Drew books. She kicked ass, and always had time for a mini vacation in-between crimes. Her dad supported her, her boyfriend was always there for her, and the danger never out-weighed her crime-fighting skills. However, I always wanted to skip the parts where the author described her. Do I need to know she's tall, blonde, athletic, with nice legs? I wanted me super-heroine to be a little more like me at age eight: tall, frizzy-haired, and chunky. Nancy didn't have to fit that bill exactly, but she didn't need to have blonde hair, and her slenderness shouldn't have been such a big deal.
Still, I always found her boyfriend to be even MORE plastic and boring than Barbie's boyfriend, Ken.
Nancy Drew
Merely pretty, she made up for it with vim.
And she got to say things like, "But, gosh,
what if these plans should fall into the wrong
hands?" and it was pretty clear she didn't mean
plans for a party or a trip to the museum, but
something involving espionage and a Nazi or two.
In fact, the handsome exchange student turns
out to be a Fascist sympathizer. When he snatches
Nancy along with some blueprints, she knows he
has something more sinister in mind than kissing
her with his mouth open
Locked in the pantry of an abandoned farm house,
Nancy makes a radio out of a shoelace and a muffin.
Pretty soon the police show up, and everything's
hunky dory.
Nancy accepts their thanks, but she's subdued.
It's not like her to fall for a cad. Even as she plans
a short vacation to sort our her emotions she knows
there will be a suspicions waiter, a woman in a green
off the shoulder dress, and her very jittery husband.
Very well. But no more handsome boys like the last one:
the part in his hair that was sheer propulsion, that way
he had of lifting his eyes to hers over the custard,
those feelings that made her not want to be brave
confident and daring, polite, sensitive and caring.
When I was a kid, I devoured Nancy Drew books. She kicked ass, and always had time for a mini vacation in-between crimes. Her dad supported her, her boyfriend was always there for her, and the danger never out-weighed her crime-fighting skills. However, I always wanted to skip the parts where the author described her. Do I need to know she's tall, blonde, athletic, with nice legs? I wanted me super-heroine to be a little more like me at age eight: tall, frizzy-haired, and chunky. Nancy didn't have to fit that bill exactly, but she didn't need to have blonde hair, and her slenderness shouldn't have been such a big deal.
Still, I always found her boyfriend to be even MORE plastic and boring than Barbie's boyfriend, Ken.