Elsie Landers Agency Prodigy

By E.W. Farnsworth

Introducing Wunderkind Elsie the Overachiever

E. W. Farnsworth's latest character creation—Elsie Landers--comes from a distinguished family of real secret agents.  Her parents and teachers recognize her brilliance and encourage her to achieve excellence through extracurricular activities at her school.  Three stories in this volume document her evolving  roles as photographer for her school newspaper.  Her analytical, problem-solving mind and operational style make mundane tasks into fascinating mysteries as well as learning experiences for herself and everyone in her elite circle.  The second three stories in this volume extend her interests and responsibilities beyond "ace photographer" to editor-in-chief and leader of her peers, focusing on a cluster of pressing problems of our time as seen from the young students' unique point of view.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Celestial Ink Publishing
• Release date: Jul 20, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393768395

Book preview

Cover Illustration by Mystic Cats Covers

CONTENTS

Foreword

The Inverted Image

Picture the Winter Scarecrow

Stealth Images

Pride of St. Lucy’s

Brainstorming For Eyes

A Greater Calling

About the Author

Foreword

Alineage of brilliant young women in a family is a blessing and a curse.  On the one hand, their brilliance surpasses that of their male and female counterparts—this is the blessing.  On the other hand, they have, outside their families, few role models in the world or in literature that live up to their potential.  Only at great risk does the revolutionary writer change life’s game for them as they are driven by mental and physical urges that tend to go in opposite directions—this is the curse.

Numerous novels of education exist for young men.  The Nineteenth-Century German romantic writers were particularly adept at exploring the angst of maturing, and Britons and Americans followed in their wake.  Some few novelists have attempted to depict young women in their challenging formative years.  Female and male authors alike have fallen short of the mark; for example, Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters and Henry James.  Superannuated, their turgid and time-bound novels hold little of value for contemporary brainy and otherwise talented girls.

Among detective fiction, the Nancy Drew Mysteries probably contain as much interest as the Hardy Boys Mysteries, but neither series captures the cosmogony of the present.  Updating either works produces unfortunate results in any medium.  But what if Nancy Drew were a precocious young woman born into a world where enlightened parents and teachers groomed her to become a national asset because they were similarly taught? What if she were allowed to follow her natural predilections to seek and know—and not as a child, but as an adult? I have been privileged to teach the gifted at ages thought to be impossible, and I never regretted it.

Elsie Landers is a fictional character, but her qualities and actions are derived from those of REAL young women who have made something of themselves.  The plots of my Elsie Landers Mysteries are based on facts.  I have had the able assistance of women who experienced the worst of what the Twentieth Century offered—and survived to become paragons.  Many of them naturally sought—and a few obtained—employment with the Central Intelligence Agency. 

Among the most brilliant women I have been privileged to know, most were mavericks, eschewing the hide-bound molds that were offered them in favor of trailblazing, dangerous adventures off the grid.  Some now are leading lights among the high-IQ societies, like Prometheus, and one Promethean I know is a civilian leader for research in the US Army.  Or they are quiet figures in small companies that build automated systems for intelligence and warfighting.  The rangy, athletic women are field operatives of one government agency or another, and not a few have a heritage with numerous relatives in the Intelligence Community.

I have had the pleasure of mentoring young women whom I later encouraged to apply to the CIA, the National Security Agency and the Geospatial Intelligence Agency, among others.  I don’t recommend such opportunities to many persons as they offer little time for a normal life.  Besides, not many bright women would choose the difficult balancing act of raising a family while pursuing active clandestine operations and while keeping her identities separate.  The problem of an intelligent young woman maintaining her integrity is profound.  As if born to see things whole, with everything connected, the intelligence agent must instead deal in elaborate fictions and more convoluted truths.  How does a young female learn to do this?

Elsie Landers was born into an Agency family.  Her father, mother and brother became CIA agents.  Her mother was blown by a traitor and forced into early retirement, and she tries to keep her former professional life obscure from her daughter.  Her father and brother are always away though they send Elsie gifts occasionally as if acknowledging her special destiny.  Yet the heroine bridles at the thought that her fate is being directed outside her own will.  She is fiercely independent.  She wants to make her own mark on the world in her inimitable way.

Elsie’s first appearance as a student at St. Lucy’s Catholic Middle School shows her early interest and skill as a photographer.  Her photographic adventures in the stories are taken from life.  They naturally lead from the young woman’s cerebral approach to the discipline, inevitably to mysteries and, in turn, to their solutions.  The mysteries are by no means the vapid and childish mysteries of the Nancy Drew variety.  But grown-up solutions to mysteries most times require mentorship, and often times Elsie’s family provides critical feedback.  Communication is therefore a hallmark of the nurturing setting in which this young woman matures.

Another factor in her development is Elsie’s seriousness of purpose.  This is not imposed by anyone on her: she is by nature inquisitive, a loner and a problem solver.  It is hard to attribute her character entirely to genetics though her nuclear family members are intelligent, yet they are unusually supportive too.  I have known bright young people with potential that is drummed out of them by parents and teachers who are jealous and control-oriented. 

Elsie is lucky with respect to her home life.  She is also lucky to attend a school like St. Lucy’s.  Though she is not Catholic, she is either tolerated or incentivized by the administrators and teachers of her school.  She also has intellectual contact with college professors in a special program designed for her.

The acceleration of Elsie from stringer-photographer to editor of her school’s newspaper is designed from life.  The operation of For Eyes is exactly what I experienced in real life, and it carried over to my moderation of publications at the high school and college levels.  The risks taken in support of young people are well worth it because they, not you, achieved results.  Elsie as editor is modeled on her counterpart in the real world.  Journalism is one route to the IC and to the exploration of the mysteries of the world. 

The six stories in this slim volume are only the beginning of the life of a young woman of our time.  Those gifted women who recall how hard life was for them will either be jealous of Elsie or rejoice in her successes.  Elsie’s contemporaries may derive ideas for their own uses.  In any case, I have written these tales to pose a hitherto unvoiced alternative for young women.  The lessons apply equally to young men, but they will likely be put off by the female example.  Males who will not accept the inherent intellect and goodness of Elsie have deficiencies they will have to resolve for themselves.

What is next for Elsie Landers in future stories? That is yet to be determined.  Having sprung to life, she will dictate what comes since she has a will of her own.  As for me, I just follow her and write, with a mix of wonder and delight. 

E. W. FARNSWORTH

GILBERT, ARIZONA

USA

Dedication

Grace

The Inverted Image

Elsie Landers inherited her Great Uncle John’s Leica camera the summer before she started at St. Lucy’s Catholic Junior High School.  She therefore signed up for an elective photography course in which she would learn how to compose and develop photographic images.  On the first day of class, Elsie was informed that the school newspaper, For Eyes , was looking for a photographer to do illustrate feature articles.  By the fifth week, she had her first picture accepted by the editor for publication in the paper.

Though the young woman was offered a position on the newspaper’s staff, she decided she would submit occasional photos instead.  She wanted to protect her academic record—and she needed to take classes when the newspaper staff was scheduled to meet daily.  The editor spoke of her as the For Eyes mascot, but it was clear that she admired Elsie’s talent for taking just the right pictures for each issue.

Elsie’s secret recipe for photography had been ingrained in her by her great uncle, who had been a photographer for the city’s newspaper.  He taught her the basics and walked her through the developing process in his darkroom where she learned to work as if blind to wind her film into the plastic jar and use the timer to gauge how long to bathe the film in each chemical.

She knew things about pictures that her teacher did not know.  For example, she knew to look through her lens obliquely to see to the edge of the frame.  She did not wait to trim a photo but shot to include everything in the camera’s field of view.  Elsie was a perfectionist in her great uncle’s manner.  She understood the complex relationship between stop values and shutter speeds.  Other students marveled at the results she achieved.  She was not jealous, but when she told her friends what she did to get a certain picture, they had a hard time grasping her method.  Most of her contemporaries would not take the time to think independently.  They were satisfied to point and shoot, with the inevitable fingers encroaching on the frame or the blurred image or odd tricks of light that did not do justice to the subject.

One thing her great uncle had drummed into her consciousness was that, no matter how hard she tried, she would not be able to see everything that her camera saw.  Therefore, she was prepared to be surprised by her first view of a developing image.  Often it bore little resemblance to her memory of the experience.

Usually, Elsie’s pictures elicited no undue attention.  The principal, a Mother Superior, dropped notes about how much she liked a picture in the paper.  Students in the upper grades asked about the photographer who took such bold, affecting