How Nancy Drew Saved My Life Read Online Free Page B

could come up with.
    At least, I thought, there had never been any red bedroom for them to lock me in.
    â€œChildren can be a wonderful challenge,” I told Mrs. Fairly. “I like challenges. I like wonder, too.”
    If she thought that last was odder than something most people would say, she didn’t let on.
    â€œWould you like to meet Annette now?” she inquired.
    I looked at her questioningly.
    â€œYou did realize,” she said, “when you applied for a nanny position, that you’d be caring for a child…didn’t you?”
    Apparently, she had her own plucky side.
    â€œAnnette,” she told me, “is the little girl you’d be caring for.”
    When I nodded my consent, Mrs. Fairly summoned the liveried servant who in turn summoned an older woman in a tweed skirt and sweater set who entered the room holding the hand of a small girl, about age six, who was dressed in an old-fashioned pink dress that had puff sleeves with a white apron on it. The girl had dark curls, not so different from my own, and a spark of mischief in her dark eyes that would not be quenched, I suspected, no matter how serious those around her might get.
    Annette quickly curtsied when she was immediately before me and tilted her head to one side as we were introduced by Mrs. Fairly.
    â€œWhat kinds of things will you teach me?” she asked. “Are you good at geography? Math?”
    I wondered how the little imp had read my mind so quickly and seen into my shortcomings.
    I shook my head slowly, twice.
    â€œI’m afraid that neither of those things is my strong point,” I confessed.
    â€œGood,” she laughed, “since I am not good at them either and I would hate to have a nanny who was going on all the time about places and numbers. But…what are you good at?”
    â€œWords,” I said. “I’m very good with words, language. Anything to do with reading, writing, I’m your girl.”
    She laughed again, apparently delighted at the idea of me being her girl rather than the other way around.
    I was puzzled though. Even though Mrs. Fairly had neglected to introduce me to the woman accompanying Annette, I knew instinctively this woman was not the child’s mother and must in fact be her nanny. She was too stereotypically caretaking to be anything else.
    Apparently, though, I was in a houseful of mind readers, for Mrs. Fairly said next, “Sylvia has no wish to go to Iceland. That is why the master has had me look for a replacement.”
    I did so wish she would stop referring to him as “the master.” Give her a humpback, crooked teeth, make her a man and put her in a castle, change her accent, too, and I’d swear I was sitting there with Dr. Frankenstein’s assistant.
    â€œThat will be all, Sylvia,” Mrs. Fairly said, indicating they could go.
    I was curious: Why wouldn’t Mrs. Fairly, who seemed to be an uber competent woman, take care of Annette in Iceland? Was she perhaps staying behind in New York?
    â€œOh, no,” Mrs. Fairly answered after I voiced my questions aloud. “My job is to see to the general running of the household. I couldn’t possibly also be expected to be solely responsible for a small child myself. What sort of person could do both jobs at once?”
    It was on the tip of my tongue to answer “a lot of mothers,” for I had read of such creatures in books and seen the role acted sometimes in that way on television and in movies, but I doubted snippiness would win me the job; pluckiness, perhaps, but not snippiness.
    â€œI do hope you are chosen to come to Iceland with us,” Annette said, turning at the door. “We could have a lot of fun together.”
    I somehow doubted that Mrs. Fairly’s greatest concern was that the new nanny be “fun.” Indeed, I somehow suspected that such a feature might prove a detriment in her eyes, for hadn’t she presumably hired the