Portable Magic
Reading, for me, is entertainment and an escape from the real world. But it can also inform and stretch the boundaries of the life I live.
Currently reading
The Secret of the Old Clock – ND1.8
1930 (Ch 21-22) vs 1959 (Ch 16-17)
1930 Nancy flags down the cops and there’s an exciting chase scene as the robbers attempt to run the police off the road, then engage in a running gun battle before being subdued. Nancy asks that her name be kept off the record and the marshal bums a ride with her back to town. Nancy, realizing that she can’t explain the stolen clock in her car, hastily hides it in the roadster’s rear catch-all.
1959 Nancy flags down the cops and together they catch up to the robbers’ truck, then engage in a low speed chase until the robbers wreck themselves by toppling the truck into a steep ditch. No exciting gun battle, though. Nancy asks that her name be kept off the record and thoughtfully asks that the police “put in a good word” for Jeff Tucker so the Tophams don’t fire him for letting their house get burgled. Then the trooper bums a ride with Nancy back to town and Nancy lets him do the driving. WTF?!?! Nancy, realizing that she has a stolen clock in her car, turns it over to the trooper with a semi-confession, claiming to have been examining it to verify that it came from the Topham’s cottage. She does some mental gymnastics to justify withholding the information about the notebook.
Nancy and her father find out from the notebook that Josiah Crowley left a new will in a bank deposit box under an assumed name. 1930 Nancy enthusiastically wishes financial windfall on the Crowley cousins and financial ruin for the nasty, tacky Tophams. Her father is very proud of her accomplishment and unperturbed about her theft of the clock, using some lawyerly obfuscation to justify it. 1959 Nancy is more circumspect, wondering aloud if the Tophams will receive any money and unconcerned if the new will means their financial ruin. Her father is proud of her accomplishment and there’s no need to find legal loopholes for this virtuous modern Nancy’s actions.
...To be continued.
Index of posts for The Secret of the Old Clock:
1
2