Book #33: The Witch Tree Symbol (Revised Edition)

Is Nancy Drew really a witch?

The answer, of course, is no.  She's clearly an android, as evidenced by my earlier posts.  But apparently the entire Amish community is convinced that Nancy's detective skills are actually some kind of witchcraft.

Let me back up.  While the tale itself gets more exciting, we start off with the thinnest of premises and the world's most boring mystery.  A new neighbor of the Drews', Mrs. Tenney, asks Nancy to accompany her to her late aunt's house to retrieve some of the better antiques as part of her inheritance.  When they get there, however, all the best antiques are gone!

duh, Duh, DUUUHHHH!

What follows is a scene in which Nancy is, as per usual, far too polite, so I will edit it for your reading pleasure:

MRS. TENNEY: (weeping) All the valuable antiques are gone!  Some shady antique dealer told me they were worth a fortune and now they're gone!  Gooooooooooonnee!  Heer-heer-heer!

NANCY: Well, it sounds like that aforementioned shady antique dealer may have had something to do with it.

MRS. TENNEY:  No, no!  It's my chubby cousin, Alpha Zinn!  He and I don't get along at all!

NANCY: Um, you guys having a personality difference and his chubbiness aren't exactly strong evidence that he's responsible.  Although his name definitely makes him seem a little guilty.

[noise heard upstairs]

MRS. TENNEY:  What was that?!  (faints dead away).

NANCY: (rolls eyes and smacks Mrs. Tenney across the face)  Wake up, woman, wake up!

MRS. TENNEY: (weeping again) Take me hooooommme, heer-heer-heer!

NANCY: (slaps woman again) Bitch, please!  I'll take your boring-ass mystery if you promise to shut up.

...is how that scene should have gone.  And it's my recap, so I'm saying that's how it went down.  Nancy, Bess and George head out to Amish Country to track down Alpha Zinn (apparently he's Amish) and perhaps locate the shady antiques dealer, Roger Hoelt.  On their way, they come across a young Amish girl named Manda Kreutz, who has run away from home because her traditional father won't let her read or learn things.  Yikes.  Sounds like someone needs a good Rumspringa (Rumspringa, woo-hoo!  Show a little knee, listen to music composed after 1643, RUMSPRINGA!).  Or she might need a good social worker.

In any event, Nancy attempts to patch things up between Manda and her family, who are very welcoming, even though they are definitely taken aback by Nancy's amateur sleuthing and George being...well, George.  Bess, unsurprisingly, fits right in as she's a solid girl who can put away a seven-course meal.  The Kreutz's point out that in Amish Country they "like a little flesh on their maidens."  Go, Bess.

Unfortunately, the villains start in on Nancy right away, spreading rumors that she is a witch.  The Kreutzes give the girls the boot (but good!) and they are forced to go into town.

At this point, I must point out that Nancy can somehow speak Pennsylvania Dutch.  But not Centrovian? I call bullshit.

 Anyhoo, they find a family in town, The Glicks, that aren't nearly as superstitious (apparently, there are the House Amish and Church Amish and the latter lives a slightly more modern lifestyle while keeping the self-sustaining belief system).  The Glick family is one of the only things keeping this story from being too much like Ivory Charm, Old Album, etc.  While it does paint the Pennsylvania Dutch in a fairly static light, there are enough characters that break the mold and it doesn't really strike me as offensive.  But, then again, I'm not Amish so what the hell do I know?  The Glicks take in boarders because the father had been partially disabled by a farming accident and was now what Mrs. Glick calls "a Schumacher"

Ugh, like Joel Shumacher?  Shoot a little higher, Papa Glick.

Oh, wait..it's probably shoemaker. 

The story progresses fairly slowly, but there are still a lot of points in its favor.  While the antiques mystery is pretty boring, and the wonderfully-named-yet-not-villainous Alpha Zinn is cleared quickly, the "Nancy is a witch" subplot makes up for it.  When Ned, Burt and Dave come out to visit (seemingly on their way to yet another camp counselor job), the local youths see Nancy and Ned get into an accident and claim that Nancy must be a witch because they saw her "fly" out of a carriage.  Instead of railing on them for being idiots, as I would have done, Ned calmly tells them the facts, and many of the townspeople start to change their tune.  Ever loyal are their host family, the Glicks.  Even when the young Glick children are told by friends that Nancy is a witch, they soon see reason when their mother explains the danger of "magical thinking" and encourages them to see what is right in front of them.

I must point out as well that Ned furthers his excessive hint-dropping about marriage when he asks Nancy if they could get a closed-top buggy (only for married couples) when they visited Amish Country in the not-too-distant future.  Nancy, of course, totally ignores him.

The villains in this story are also far more organized and effective than usual.  There are only two villains, Mr. and Mrs. Hoelt (because the family that steals together stays together), but they are truly unrelenting when it comes from keeping Nancy from discovering them.  They hire Manda Kreutz, the runaway, but keep her so close to home that Nancy is never able to find her.  They spread rumors around town that Nancy is a witch to ensure that she will not be able to easily question people or get help.  They plant some of the stolen merchandise in her car so that she comes off like a thief, a witch, AND a liar.  They then steal her car, making it impossible for her to get around.  I had to admit, I was impressed by how efficiently Roger Hoelt was able to prevent Nancy from solving the mystery.  If she and the girls hadn't spotted a tree with the titular "witch tree" hex symbol, and found the old Hoelt farm and Manda, they might have gotten away scot free.

However, as per usual, Nancy prevails.  She reunites Manda and her family (yay!) and gets back all the stolen antiques (meh).  I really did like this one save for a few things: the ending was far too abrupt given the buildup, the mystery itself didn't have particularly high stakes (Mrs. Tenney is an annoying old hag, and no one cares if she gets "all the best of her aunt's antiques" back.  First world problems, man), and the action dragged in parts.

I give this one a 4/5 mags.


Head Injuries: 1 (14 total)