Girl Detective Shannon Mowdy
T
hen there is me at twelve, climbing onto the roof in only an oversized t-shirt. I regret now to say that she is probably ordinary, that perhaps most girls her age after some contemplation steal the skeleton keys from their fathers’ bureaus, from those slim, top drawers filled with war medals, and baby teeth, and pornographic playing cards, and almost-empty bottles of cologne, and condoms, and the watches their fathers gave them with hands that don’t move anymore. The girls jiggle the keys in the locks of their bedroom doors in their 200-year-old houses. The gears catch and turn. The windows rattle horribly in their ancient frames as the girls work them open. It takes muscle, but also care. They imagine that the panes could shatter with their strength. They are careful, too, to remember to prop them open with Nancy Drew Mystery novels. They arbitrarily select from the rows of yellow-spined covers, their second edition copies of #20, The Clue in the Jewel Box. Their mothers are collecting entire sets as they come across them in secondhand shops in the hopes that the girl detectives will read them belly down on their frilly pink spreads, dropping crumbs from peanut butter sandwiches on the pages and pushing the cats away. Like they used to do. From the window jambs, a million Nancys shine their flashlights into a million caves. The girls will not lock themselves out on their roofs. They climb, each with their own separate purpose, barefoot onto the asphalt shingles. Some of them thought of doing it only this morning. And for others, the idea came with the spring, something about the last day of school approaching, the budding of leaves. One girl, in particular, used to imagine herself standing tiptoe atop the highest branch of the tallest tree. Like a bird. Another remembers 20 Mowdy
