Nancy Drew Files Case #16: Never Say Die (October 1987)

George is somehow suddenly so good at cycling that she makes it into the junior championships. Steven, the local owner of a successful software company, volunteers to be her sponsor. He not only pays for her new wind suit and for private lessons, but he also pays to have a new velodrome built just for the competition. Her trainer BTW is her boyfriend Jon who hooked up with her in a book I never read before. George is too scared to ask Steven for anything else, even though she needs a new disk bike.

That makes it super awesome when he shows up and presents her with one he just bought. His assistant, Peter, seems way too excited to take it from her and adjust the seat and isn't too happy when Jon does it instead. It takes about an hour for weird things to start happening. First of all, someone knocks the concession stand tent down when George is the only one there and sets it on fire. The list of things done to her includes:

-Someone tries to run her down in the middle of a parking lot and then tries to break into her car and steal her bike

-The person tosses a radio in the swimming pool before George jumps inside. Nancy manages to save her before she can touch the aluminum ladder and electrocute herself

-Someone cuts a massive flagpole down, which almost crushes George and a reporter doing a story on her

-George gets trapped by two guard dogs who attempt to rip her throat out

-The same person sneaks into her house one night, but Nancy hears them and gives chase. They then find a photo of George outside with a butcher knife stuck through it.

Both of George's parents naturally beg Nancy to get her to drop out. Nancy does talk to her, but George refuses to just stop and laughs it off like someone trying to murder her is funny. Nancy quickly comes up with a list of suspects:

Monique: Monique was the grand champion in this event before George came along and isn't happy when George breaks her world record. Though she's always around when things happen, she gets cleared when she freaks out after a friendly poodle tries to kiss her face. It turns out that she's been petrified of all dogs since she was a kid.

Tatyanna: Tatyanna is from Russia and quickly makes friends with George. She does tell her that her coaches are actually KGB agents. The two keeps shouting at George for distracting the other girl and act like she's a horrible person.

Debbi: Debbi is Jon's ex-girlfriend who randomly shows up. She keeps threatening George for stealing her man and saying that she'll ruin her. All it does is break Jon and George up because he sneaks out to see Debbi without telling George.

Steven calls Carson because they're good friends and asks him for help. The night after George got her bike, someone broke into his office and stole his new program. They then called and demanded a $1 million ransom and asked Nancy to deliver it. She agrees and winds up going a long goose chase around the city that ends with the thief literally pushing her into a shark tank at the aquarium and running off with the cash. It turns out Steven only put half the money in the bag though, so the thief calls back.

George and the girls catch Jon kissing Debbi, but he claims she came out of nowhere and kissed him. She explains that they were both on Olympic teams, had tons of articles written about them, and even planned on marrying. Jon got hit on the head and developed amnesia. Though most of his memories came back, he never remembered what he had with Debbi. George winds up ending things with him but letting him stay on as her coach. Both Bess and I think this is bull shirt.

To keep the thief away from her bike, George comes up with a “brilliant” plan to just leave it tied up out in the open. Somehow, no one ever notices it. During a longer race, she gets lost in the crowd. Nancy and Ned find her passed out off the course after someone hit her over the head. The person took off when they saw she was on her old bike. George goes to the hospital and recovers.

Nancy somehow puts all the pieces together and realizes the one trying to hurt George and the person who stole the program are one in the same: Peter, Steven's assistant. She heads back to the track and finds Peter trying to steal the bike. They fight over it, he pulls out a gun, and she knocks him down. Since she somehow can't grab the gun two feet away, she hops on the bike and takes off as he shoots blindly at her.

Just as she gets to the exit, he pops up and tries to shoot her in the face, but she literally runs over him with the bike. Ned then shows up with the cops who drag him off. They recover almost all the money Steven originally paid too.

Nancy then goes to George. George confesses that she didn't want to drop out because of Nancy and Bess. They are supposedly so good at everything that it made George feel like crap. This was the one thing she was good at, which is why she didn't want to quit. She then admits that she still loves Jon and misses him, so Nancy convinces her to get back together with him. Bess and Nancy both tell George that they love her just the way she is.

*George tells Nancy that she can't compete with the other girls because her bike is so old, and Nancy thinks it's so unfair until Steven shows up with a new bike for her. It's a little unfair but also totally unrealistic. How could George make it into the championships with a shitty bike? It's not like they just let anyone compete who walks in off the street.

*Steven says he knows the thief is an outside threat because the person asked for a ransom. He says an insider or freelancer would just take the program to another company, show the work, and get a job. Say what now? I don't know about you, but I would much rather have a million bucks now than a job where I had to work my ass off to make a fraction of that.

*Why am I not surprised that Nancy would convince George to stay with a guy who not only never told her he was practically engaged to another woman but also sneaked out and lied to her about being with the other woman all night?

*Ned has such long “basketball player legs” that he can literally get to George from 10+ feet away before the flagpole can collapse on her.

*Nancy is all relieved when she comes back to the velodrome and sees them putting a chain link fence up around the concession stand. Yup, if there's one thing that will stop a murder, it's a chain link fence.

*I really don't like how this story comes out of nowhere. We know George is super athletic, but there's a big difference between being athletic and being one of the best junior cyclists in the world.

*I'm also not sure why this is the junior level competition either. George and several other girls are 18, so it doesn't seem fair that they would compete with girls who haven't yet gone through puberty.