The Girl Detective

by Nadia Radovich

You: twelve, uncertain, under-dressed. The Girl Detective: fox-haired, quick-witted, fictional. Always zooming about, passport in one hand, magnifying glass in the other. Congenitally incapable of au-pairing in Madrid, skiing in the Alps, taking a train anywhere, without stumbling into some tantalizing mystery.

Your friend, Zofia: solving puzzles so fast that the Girl Detective never dies, not even in the game’s final level. You sit at her elbow, watching her deft mouse movements search chests, accuse suspects, dodge falling tiles. In the sunlight at recess you see the faint hint of fox color in her hair.

Then, in seventh grade, your friend Zofia: dead. You: at the funeral, the dim church light stealing all the copper from her hair, wondering if you only remembered it that way. (Continue Reading…)