Bad Times, Big Crimes Read online

  I still couldn’t believe that I’d somehow been transported back in time—so I asked, “Um, what’s with the dresses? Is this some sort of practical joke?”

  The two exchanged worried glances. Then Bess cleared her throat. “We were wondering the same thing about your outfit, Nancy. Did you really have to pull that dress out of the closet today?”

  Good—so I wasn’t the only one to think this dress was plain ugly!

  “I’m absolutely cracked up,” said George. “Our country is in the middle of a depression, and you’re acting like a goof.”

  “Wait, what did you say?” I asked.

  George sighed. “Our country is in the middle of a depression.”

  “No, before that,” I said. “Something about cracking up?”

  Turning to Bess, George asked, “What is she talking about?”

  Bess shrugged. “Got me.” She looked at me and said, “It’s especially surprising since you’ve been so focused on helping. You’re the one who convinced the bakery to donate their day-old bread to the poor. Don’t you remember? We planned on going down to Hooverville once the town meeting was over.”

  “Hooverville?” I asked. I didn’t know what Hooverville was. All I knew was one thing: One minute I’m at home in River Heights, and the next minute, I’m in some warped bizarre-o-ville. “What are you guys talking about?”

  “Quit joking around,” said Bess. “Come on, we’re already late.”

  It was then that I noticed they were both carrying baskets piled high with bread. In fact, Bess had two, and she was holding one out to me.

  Not knowing what else to do, I took the basket and followed the George and Bess clones down River Street. And that’s when this whole time-warp thing really started getting to me.

  Everything had been turned upside down and inside out. Downtown River Heights was a mess. Half the stores were boarded up. I didn’t see one traffic light—but it wasn’t really necessary, since there were so few cars on the road. What was once a lively, cheerful place had changed to something… well, depressing.

  Almost immediately we came to a shabbily dressed elderly man. He held out his hat. “Spare a few pennies?” he asked. When he opened his mouth, I noticed he was missing his two front teeth.

  “It’s so heartbreaking,” I cried, as George handed him some change from her pocket.

  “I know,” Bess replied gravely. “Seems like it gets worse every day.”

  Looking around, I saw that the old man wasn’t the only person begging on the streets. “What’s going on?” I asked.

  My friends gave me funny looks again. “It’s the Depression,” George said. “You’re acting like you’ve never been here before—but downtown has been this way for months.”

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” Bess asked.

  What’s the opposite of okay? If you multiplied that by ten, that’s about how not okay I was. But I couldn’t just admit this to Bess and George.

  The thing was, I needed help. I didn’t know how I got to where I was, but it looked like I wouldn’t be leaving anytime soon. I needed someone to help me survive in my new—and hopefully not permanent—1930s existence. And who better to ask than my best friends? “You know, I have been feeling a little strange lately.” I raised one hand to my forehead. “I think maybe it’s a case of, um, temporary amnesia.”

  “Oh, no,” said Bess. “We should take you right to Dr. Gullepsie.”

  “Oh, it’s not that serious,” I said. “And anyway, we can’t keep Hooverville waiting.” I figured I might as well play along—at least until I made some sense of my situation. “I was hoping you could just help me out—refresh my memory from time to time. And we’ll just see how it goes.”

  “Of course,” George replied. “Don’t worry at all. I don’t really blame you—I don’t like doctors much either.”

  I could tell she wasn’t sure about me not going to the doctor, but I figured this patched-up excuse would hold for at least a little while—long enough for me to get some basic information on my whereabouts.

  “Thanks,” I said. “You guys are rock stars!”

  Suddenly Bess stopped short in her tracks. “Nancy, we just said we’d help you. No need to insult us.”

  “Insult you?” I asked.

  “Yeah, why did you call us rocks?” asked George.

  That’s when I remembered that rock music wasn’t even around until the 1950s. What did people listen to back in the 1930s? Classical? Jazz? Swing? I wasn’t sure. “I’m sorry,” I said again, since there was no way to explain any of this to them. “Let’s just forget about it.”

  As they led me down Acorn Lane, I began to recognize the rural surroundings. “Are we going to the Montgomerys’ horse farm?” I wondered out loud. I vaguely recalled the Montgomery ancestors once living on a farm in or near River Heights… but when did they move west?

  George shot me a surprising look. “Nancy, you know the Montgomerys moved west three months ago. They sold their horses a year ago—right after Black Tuesday.”

  “Oh—yes, right,” I bluffed. “Of course.” I wasn’t clear about what music was hip in the 1930s, but I knew all about Black Tuesday. I remembered reading about it back in school. Black Tuesday is what people call October 29, 1929, the day the stock market crashed big-time. It’s the official beginning of the Great Depression: a period dominated by poverty and misery.

  “Tell me about Hooverville,” I said, trying to sound innocent. “It’s such an interesting name.”

  “Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle,” said George.

  “You will?” I wondered. I couldn’t help but grin. It was too crazy hearing George talk like this.

  “What’s wrong with you, Nancy?” asked Bess. “You know Hooverville is named after the president, Herbert Hoover. After all, everyone is blaming him for not doing more to help people get jobs.”

  “You can’t even buy a job these days,” George added.

  “Of course,” I said with a weak laugh. “I was just testing you.”

  Even though I knew we wouldn’t be finding any horses at the Montgomery farm, I was still utterly shocked by what I saw. The place was filled with poorly constructed shacks. Some were made out of scrap metal. Some were held together with plywood. And some were no more than a series of cardboard boxes taped together. There had to be more than a hundred of them.

  “This is where these people live?” I asked.

  “Of course,” said Bess, looking at me strangely. “So many people lost their homes this year, and they had nowhere else to go, so they formed this shantytown on the vacant lot.”

  I watched the crowd. Most of them were wearing torn and dirty clothing. Some kids played stickball on the dirt road. A couple of them were barefoot. I knew that life during the Depression was hard, but I hadn’t realized that some people were so poor, they couldn’t even afford shoes.

  We passed a bonfire at the edge of the shantytown. A number of people huddled by the flames. Nearby, a thin man with a torn jacket was sleeping on the ground next to a sign that read, HARD TIMES ARE STILL HOOVERING OVER US.

  Another reference to Herbert Hoover. people were really bitter about his not doing more to help.

  In my worst nightmares I couldn’t imagine such a scene of desperation. It was all I could do to hold back the tears as we passed out the day-old bread to the grateful crowd. At least we had enough bread to go around. There were even two pieces left over. I put them by a sleeping man.

  An hour later the three of us walked home in silence.

  When we turned onto Maplewood Lane, I heard someone shouting. I pricked up my ears. “Wonder what that’s about,” I said.

  Before Bess and George had a chance to answer me, I was heading toward the sound. It was coming from the small front lawn of a modest house on the corner of Birchbark and Maplewood Lane. Two tall, broad-shouldered men in pinstriped suits were talking with a third man. I wasn’t close enough to hear the conversation, but I smelled trouble.

  As I
got closer I noticed that the third man was sheepishly holding his hat in his hands. He was short and balding, and he wore round, wire-rimmed glasses. His family stood behind him: a woman who must have been his wife, and four children. Behind them was a stack of battered suitcases. Everyone looked like they were close to tears. Everyone except for the men in the fancy suits, that is. One was wearing brown. He had long, dark sideburns and a pencil-thin mustache. The other was actually very handsome. He was blond with green eyes, and he wore a shiny blue suit. He looked oddly familiar.

  “What’s going on here?” I asked.

  The man with the mustache scowled at me and asked, “Who wants to know?”

  “My name is Nancy Drew. I couldn’t help but notice that there seems to be some sort of trouble. Any way I can help?”

  “Do you believe this?” the dark-haired man asked his friend.

  The second man winked at me and put out his hand. “Clay Gaines. It’s very nice to meet you.”

  Shivers ran up and down my spine as I realized I was face-to-face with the notorious and dangerous gangster. I gulped. “Um, nice to meet you, Mr. Gaines.”

  “The pleasure is all mine, Nancy. This is my friend and colleague, Edward Parker,” Clay said, gesturing toward the man with the mustache.

  Edward grunted and scowled at me again, but I wasn’t intimidated.

  “And I’m Sylvia Smith,” said the woman. “This is my husband, Bob. Behind us is our house, except apparently, it’s not ours anymore. It seems that we’re being evicted.”

  “Evicted?” I asked. “Why?”

  “I think you should mind your own business,” Edward grumbled.

  Clay raised his hand to silence his friend. “We’re just settling a simple matter of business,” he said. “Nothing you need to worry about.”

  “But why are you evicting this whole family?” I wondered. “Where are they supposed to go?”

  “I’m afraid that’s not my problem,” said Clay. “See, I won this house fair and square. We were playing poker, and Mr. Smith here gambled the deed to his house and lost.”

  “I was forced to,” said Bob. He looked at his family. “I’m so sorry. Please believe me. If I’d had any idea this could happen, I never would have even gone near the casino.”

  Edward crossed his arms over his chest. “Look, buddy, you gambled your house and you lost. That’s not our problem. Now, get out of here before I call the authorities.”

  “But where are we going to go?” cried the youngest child, a girl with large dark eyes and long brown braids.

  “Please, sir,” said Sylvia. “Can’t we just stay for a few nights longer? At least until we find another place to live?”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am. Business is business.” Clay tipped his hat. “Mr. Smith here has to pay me eighteen dollars cash, or turn over his house.”

  “Eighteen dollars?” I asked. “This is all over eighteen dollars?”

  “You say that as if it’s a small amount,” said Edward, raising one eyebrow.

  Well… to me it was. In fact, I had twenty dollars in my back pocket, from my dad. He’d wanted me to pick up some groceries on my way home. But I knew he’d rather see his money go to a cause as good as the Smith family’s. And besides—when was I going to be on my way home?

  “I’ll just cover the debt,” I said. “It’s no big deal.”

  “‘No big deal,’ she says,” Edward muttered. “Unbelievable.”

  “What are you doing, Nancy?” Bess asked, tugging at my sleeve. I was so caught up in this sad story, I hadn’t even realized that she and George were right beside me.

  I couldn’t figure out why everyone was so surprised. But I wasn’t going to leave this poor family in the lurch. Anyway, I reached into my pocket, and that’s when I was in for another shocker. Instead of the crisp new twenty-dollar bill I’d been handed just a few hours before, all I came up with was twentyseven cents. My grocery money had somehow been turned into its 1930 equivalent. This was bad. And what was worse—I couldn’t explain it to anyone. Not without landing myself in the funny farm.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said to them. “I made a mistake. I really thought I had the money—but I don’t.”

  The Smiths looked even more upset than before. I felt horrible. I didn’t mean to get their hopes up, only to disappoint them. But how could I explain that just a couple of hours ago, I was in the twenty-first century, where an eighteen-dollar debt was not the kind of thing that someone would stake a house on? A watch, maybe—but not a house.

  Edward cracked his knuckles. “Okay, time to move on out.”

  This really burned me up. He and Clay didn’t even care that they were putting this family on the street.

  “Where are we going to go, Dad?” asked the oldest child. He had short, brown scruffy hair, and he was wearing a light gray suit with short pants. His red tie looked more like a sash, since it was drawn into a floppy bow.

  “I don’t know, Jerome,” his father replied. “Hooverville, I suppose.”

  “I’m so cold,” said the girl with the braids. “I want to go inside.”

  “We can’t go inside, honey,” Sylvia said quietly.

  “Why not?” asked the girl. She had her mother’s hand and was yanking it toward the house. Her mother, of course, wouldn’t budge.

  The scene was so heartbreaking. I looked at the family: Bob and Sylvia, with their heads hung low, the four children—none of them knowing where they’d sleep that night. I couldn’t imagine standing there and watching them march to Hooverville.

  “Why don’t you all come home with me,” I said. “There’s plenty of room at my house.”

  “What? Do you really mean that?” asked Sylvia.

  “Um, I think so.” Turning to Bess and George, I asked, “I still have a house, don’t I?”

  3

  Stranded

  You weren’t joking around about that amnesia, were you?” asked George.

  I shook my head and blinked. “Honestly, I can’t remember a thing about me.”

  “Of course you have a house,” Bess said, ending the suspense. “Your dad’s not one for risks, so he didn’t really gamble much with the stock market.”

  That sure sounded like my dad. A lawyer with a steady stream of clients, my dad is smart, honest, and dependable with a capital D. It’s no wonder he’s so successful. I’m lucky to have him. See, my mom died back when I was three years old. Ever since then, it’s been me, my dad, and our fabulous housekeeper, Hannah Gruen. I couldn’t imagine life without either of them… which got me thinking. “What about Hannah?” Was she somehow back here in time, too?

  “Hannah is still there, too,” Bess told me.

  “That’s such a relief,” I said. “And what about your families? Is everything okay?”

  “More or less,” said George with a shrug. “Except we’re all living together.”

  “What?”

  “Both our families were struggling,” Bess explained. “So they decided that combining households was the best alternative.”

  “It’s not so bad,” said George. “It sure beats Hooverville.”

  I had a ton of questions, but the Smiths were still waiting. Turning to them, I said, “Please come stay with us, at least until you get back on your feet. My father and I would be happy to have you.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” said Bob.

  “Please say yes,” I insisted. “Just give me an hour, so I can set up the guest bedrooms.”

  That wasn’t the only thing I needed to do. There was the whole matter of asking my father for permission. This was just a formality though. I knew he’d be cool about letting the Smiths move in. Like me, my dad wants to help people out whenever he can. Of course, I also knew it was important to run this whole thing by him first. Er—pretend to run it by him first.

  “Ah-hem.” Edward faked a cough. “Shouldn’t you be leaving now?”

  “Hey, relax,” George snapped, placing her hands on her hips. “You heard them, mister.
They’re going to get out of your way. Just give them some time to move their things.”

  “We’ve given ’em lotsa time,” Edward grumbled. “This has been going on for over an hour.”

  Bess turned to Clay. Batting her eyelashes, she cooed, “Surely you don’t mind if they stay for just another hour?”

  He grinned at her and tipped his hat. “No trouble at all, ma’am. They can take as long as they need.”

  Witnessing that little interplay sure brought a smile to my lips. Yes, in this 1930s world, they dressed weird, and talked even weirder, but basically, George and Bess were the same friends I’d always known.

  I was also relieved to hear that my living situation hadn’t changed much. It’s not that I was afraid of being poor. I was just glad that I was in a position to help out those who were less fortunate.

  Times were obviously tough. I didn’t know how I got to 1930, but I figured that while I was there, I may as well do what I could to help make people’s lives a little easier.

  I gave the Smiths my address, and then met the rest of the family. The oldest boy was named Jerome, and he was eleven. The two redheads in the middle were seven-year-old twins—Betty and Sammy. And Eliza—the girl with the braids—she was five. I told them I looked forward to seeing them in about an hour. Then Bess, George, and I headed back toward downtown.

  There was another issue I was wondering about. “I think my amnesia is acting up again. I can’t seem to remember where I parked.”

  Bess and George started giggling.

  “What’s so funny?” I asked.

  “You can’t blame losing your car on amnesia, Nancy,” said George. “You’re always doing that!”

  I felt my face heat up. “You don’t happen to remember where it is, do you?”

  “Of course I do,” said George, pointing across the street. “It’s right over there.”