Harriet the Spy

by Louise Fitzhugh

  “He thinks we should mumble a mumble to mumble mumble.”

  Oh, how irritating. When he wasn’t shouting into the phone her father couldn’t be heard.

  “That’s a splendid mumble.” Mrs. Welsch couldn’t be heard either.

  “And then the school… a mumble. Perhaps a project which would mumble her to mumble herself, and then this mumble wouldn’t dominate… then more attention, of course… but I should call Miss Whitehead and get this mumble started. He’s no fink, you know; I think we should listen to him.”

  “Of course, I think it’s all grand. And he says she’s not mumble?”

  “Not in the least. In fact, quite the mumble. She’s an extraordinary mumble and might make a good mumble someday.”

  How infuriating. Just what one dreams will happen. I’ve always wanted to hear people talk about me, thought Harriet, and now I can’t hear it.

  Suddenly the doorknob turned. Harriet leaped back but not quickly enough. She decided to make the best of a bad scene. “BOO,” she said loudly. Her mother jumped.

  “Good Lord, you frightened me. Harriet! What are you doing there? Were you spying on us?”

  “Nope. Couldn’t hear.”

  “Oh, well, it’s not because you didn’t try. Have you had your breakfast?”

  “No.”

  “Then run down and get it. You won’t be going to school today, dear”

  “I know. I heard that.”

  “What else did you hear? Come on, Harriet, out with it.” Mrs. Welsch closed the door quickly as she heard Mr. Welsch say, “Hello, Miss Whitehead?”

  “Nothing,” Harriet said.

  “Honest?”

  “Honest.”

  “All right, run along and eat, then. I have to write a letter.”

  I wonder, thought Harriet, what is up?

  She was still wondering two days later and no wiser. She had had time to catch up on a lot of spy work, but she was surprised to find that on the third day away from school she was beginning to miss it. She had covered her spy route in the first two days, giving ample time to each case, but there really hadn’t been much going on. Little Joe Curry was reinstated after he said he was just hungry. This touched the heart of Mama Dei Santi. The next day, however, he was caught with a whole ham. Harriet was there when this happened. It was very exciting because not only was he caught stealing the ham but he was caught at the instant he was giving it to three of the happiest-looking children anybody ever saw. Harriet wrote in her notebook:

  THAT WAS A SCENE I’M GLAD I SAW BECAUSE I WOULD HAVE GUESSED THAT MAMA DEI SANTI WOULD HAVE BOPPED HIM OVER THE HEAD BUT WHEN SHE SAW THE CHILDREN SHE BURST INTO TEARS AND COMMENCED WAILING AND GIVING THE KIDS EVERYTHING IN SIGHT. EVEN A WHOLE LONG SALAMI. THEN SHE SHOOED THEM AWAY AND TOLD THEM NOT TO COME BACK OR SHE’D CALL THE COPS. PEOPLE ARE VERY FUNNY. ALSO SHE DIDN’T FIRE LITTLE JOE. SHE TOLD HIM HE BETTER SEE A DOCTOR. HE EATS TOO MUCH.

  Mrs. Plumber was told by her doctor that she could get up. As far as Harriet could see she hadn’t hit the bed since, but flew from one party to the next all day, did charity work incessantly, and, according to her phone conversations the next day, stayed out half the night too.

  The Robinsons showed a lot of people their doll.

  The Dei Santi family, other than the incident with Little Joe, had a fairly uneventful week. Fabio was working hard, even harder than Bruno. Franca flunked some test or other and came home in tears. Dino, the baby, got the chicken pox, so Mama Dei Santi had to stay at home with him.

  The most surprising thing was Harrison Withers. Harriet went by expecting to see him moping about his cats, and there he was humming and working on a cage in the happiest way possible. She couldn’t understand it. He even got up and ate some lunch. He actually made himself a tuna fish sandwich and had a coke. Harriet leaned back against the wall and wrote:

  I JUST CAN’T UNDERSTAND THIS. OH, I KNOW, MAYBE HE DIDN’T HAVE ENOUGH MONEY TO EAT GOOD BEFORE BECAUSE HE HAD TO BUY ALL THOSE KIDNEYS. OR MAYBE HE COULDN’T EVER EAT TUNA AND HE LIKES TUNA. MAYBE THE CATS ALWAYS GRABBED IT.

  She leaned over the parapet again to study the problem at length. Harrison Withers was humming away, even tapping his foot as he worked. She watched, puzzled, until suddenly he looked up in the direction of the kitchen door. Then she saw it. Into the room, as though he owned it, to the accompaniment of loud cooing and baby talk from Harrison Withers walked the tiniest cat Harriet had ever seen. It was a funny-looking little black-and-white kitten which had a mustache which made it look as though it were sneering. It stopped, looked at Harrison Withers as though he were a curiosity, and then walked disdainfully across the room. Harrison Withers watched in adoration. Harriet leaned back and wrote:

  SO THAT’S IT. WONDER WHERE HE GOT THAT CAT. I GUESS IF YOU WANT A CAT YOU RUN INTO ONE SOMEPLACE, HEE HEE, THEY AIN’T GOING TO CHANGE HARRISON WITHERS.

  And, for some reason, as she walked home Harriet felt unaccountably happy.

  On the third day Harriet woke up and found herself really wishing she were going to school. She didn’t say anything to her mother, however, because she didn’t want to go that much. In the afternoon she decided to go and see what was happening at the clubhouse. She waited until time for school to be out, then she went over and crawled over the fence to her post. Rachel came home, bringing Marion Hawthorne with her. They walked sedately.

  They walk like old ladies, thought Harriet.

  “Rachel, don’t you think it would be nice if we could play bridge in the afternoons?” Marion had a kind of cawing voice, like a crow.

  “Well,” said Rachel, “I don’t know how.…”

  “Oh, that’s easy. I’ve watched my mother lots of times,” said Marion authoritatively. “Why don’t we play Mahjong? I like that.”

  “Well, I think bridge is MUCH chic-er, but if you want to we will. Do you have a set?”

  “Yes. That is, Mother does.”

  Bridge? Mahjong? thought Harriet. Who are they kidding? Wait till Sport hears about this.

  Beth Ellen arrived. Rachel and Marion nodded curtly in her direction. “I think,” said Marion, “that we should uphold a certain standard in this club.”

  “Yes?” said Rachel, although she looked as though she hadn’t the foggiest idea what Marion was getting at.

  “Don’t you, Beth Ellen?” Marion asked pointedly.

  “Ye-s.” This came out very small.

  “I mean, I think we have to be very careful who we take in… and”—she looked around darkly—“who we KEEP in.”

  “Oh,” said Beth Ellen, “you mean like a country club.”

  “Yes,” said Marion, “exactly. I think that anyone who wants to have a social life in the afternoon should be welcome, that is—” she added mysteriously, “that is if they’re the right kind of person.”

  “Yes,” said Rachel.

  “Yes,” whispered Beth Ellen.

  “I also think and I don’t know how you’ll feel about this”—Marion drew herself up until she looked like her mother—“but I feel that in view of the fact that I’m the class officer I should be president of the club.”

  Well, thought Harriet, it’s a good thing for you I’m not in this club, because you’d get it, right across the head.

  “I therefore nominate myself for president.”

  “I second it,” said Rachel. She must second things in her sleep, thought Harriet.

  “Motion carried,” screeched Beth Ellen in a fit of helpless giggles.

  Marion frowned Beth Ellen into silence. “Now that that’s settled, I shall make a few decisions. First, I think we should serve tea.”

  “My mother isn’t going to like that,” said Rachel.

  “Well, not really tea, just milk in tea cups. We DO have to LEARN, you know.”

  “She isn’t going to like that either. The cup part.”

  “Well, we can each bring our own cup. Second, we have to set up a card table and chairs. Third”—she stood up and pointed her finger as thoug
h she were knighting them—“I make you vice president, Rachel, and you are the secretary-treasurer, Beth Ellen.”

  “What do I have to do?” Beth Ellen looked terrified.

  “You take minutes, collect the money, and serve the tea.”

  “Oh,”

  In other words, thought Harriet, everything.

  “I think also we should discuss people who have the wrong attitude.” Marion was liking her job more and more. “I think we were all aware at the last meeting of a very wrong attitude coming from Sport and Janie.”

  Naturally, you idiot, thought Harriet. Wait till they find out you’re president. Just as the others began to arrive from school a sudden rainstorm drove them into the clubhouse. Harriet watched a minute to see Sport and Janie run across the yard, the last ones to arrive. Then Harriet ran with all her might, but she was still soaked through by the time she got home.

  Upstairs, when she had pulled off her wet spy clothes and gotten into her bathrobe, she wrote a long account of what she had seen, adding at the end:

  MARION HAWTHORNE IS TOO BIG FOR HER BRITCHES. SHE’S GOING TO GET IT.

  Three days later Harriet was bored to extinction. She had played Town all morning in her room and she was beginning, for the first time in her life, to be bored with her own mind. She was just about to throw her notebook across the room when she heard the doorbell ring. She jumped up and ran as fast as she could downstairs. Her mother was at the front door taking a Special Delivery letter from the postman.

  “What’s that?” asked Harriet eagerly.

  “Well… I do believe,” said her mother scrutinizing the letter, “that it’s a letter for you, Harriet.” Her mother smiled at her.

  “Who from?”

  “Why, I haven’t the faintest idea,” her mother said casually, and handing Harriet the letter, disappeared into the library.

  I never get letters, thought Harriet, and tore open the envelope. She recognized the handwriting at once.

  Dear Harriet,

  I have been thinking about you and I have decided that if you are ever going to be a writer it is time you got cracking. You are eleven years old and haven’t written a thing but notes. Make a story out of some of those notes and send it to me.

  “‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty,’—that is all

  Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”

  John Keats. And don’t you ever forget it.

  Now in case you ever run into the following problem, I want to tell you about it. Naturally, you put down the truth in your notebooks. What would be the point if you didn’t? And naturally those notebooks should not be read by anyone else, but if they are, then, Harriet, you are going to have to do two things, and you don’t like either one of them:

  1) You have to apologize.

  2) You have to lie.

  Otherwise you are going to lose a friend. Little lies that make people feel better are not bad, like thanking someone for a meal they made even if you hated it, or telling a sick person they look better when they don’t, or someone with a hideous new hat that it’s lovely. Remember that writing is to put love in the world, not to use against your friends. But to yourself you must always tell the truth.

  Another thing. If you’re missing me I want you to know I’m not missing you. Gone is gone. I never miss anything or anyone because it all becomes a lovely memory. I guard my memories and love them, but I don’t get in them and lie down. You can even make stories from yours, but remember, they don’t come back. Just think how awful it would be if they did. You don’t need me now. You’re eleven years old which is old enough to get busy at growing up to be the person you want to be.

  No more nonsense.

  Ole Golly Waldenstein

  When she finished reading, Harriet had a wide grin on her face. She ran upstairs holding the letter like a treasure found on the beach. She ran into her room, sat at the desk, and read it over twice. Then she took out some clean paper and a pen. She sat holding the pen over the paper. Nothing happened. She referred to her notes. Still nothing happened. Then she jumped up, ran down to the library, and lugged her father’s typewriter up the steps. With a great deal of effort she hoisted it up to her desk. The first piece of paper she tried to put in got jammed and too wrinkled to write on. She tore it up and put in another. Then she started to type furiously.

  Harriet went back to school the next day. It felt like the beginning of term again. She strolled down the empty halls, considerably late because she wanted to make a grand entrance. Her mother and father hadn’t been there when she got up, so she decided to sneak off to school. Enough is enough, she thought to herself as she was walking past the principal’s office. She decided suddenly to make a note of how she felt, so she wedged herself into a little niche usually reserved for a piece of sculpture.

  ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. IT IS TIME TO RISE AND SHINE. WAIT TILL THE NEW YORKER GETS A LOAD OF THAT STORY. IT WAS HARD MAKING UP HIM FINDING THE CAT BUT I THINK I MADE UP A GOOD MORAL—THAT IS THAT SOME PEOPLE ARE ONE WAY AND SOME PEOPLE ARE ANOTHER AND THAT’S THAT.

  The door to the principal’s office opened and Harriet looked up. To her horror she saw her mother and father walk out. She ducked back into the niche. Maybe, she thought, if I don’t breathe, I’ll look like a statue. She held her breath and her mother and father walked past without seeing her. They were laughing and looking at each other, so that even though she rolled her eyes at them they didn’t notice.

  “Boy, wait’ll she hears that!” her father was saying.

  “She’ll be, I’m afraid, impossible to live with,” her mother said, grinning.

  “You know what?” said Mr. Welsch. “I bet she’ll do a good job.”

  They went out the front door and Harriet let out a huge breath. I almost burst, she thought. She scrambled down and ran for her classroom. When she got there everything was in total confusion because Miss Elson wasn’t in the room. Everyone was throwing things at everyone else, including wads of chewing gum, and Marion Hawthorne was at the front desk screeching herself blue for order. No one paid the slightest bit of attention to her but went on with such chaos that Harriet was able to slip gratefully into her seat unnoticed. At home she had thought about making some spectacular entrance, perhaps in a funny hat, but when she got to the door she had been stricken with terror and now was glad she hadn’t. She sat there quietly looking at everyone screaming and running around like nuts. She wrote in her notebook:

  I AM GOING TO WRITE A STORY ABOUT THESE PEOPLE. THEY ARE JUST RATS. HALF OF THEM DON’T EVEN HAVE A PROFESSION.

  Miss Elson came in and there was instant silence. Everyone trooped to his desk. Sport looked like he would faint when he saw Harriet, and Janie smiled an evil smile at her. No one else seemed to notice. Miss Elson stood up.

  “Well, I’m glad to see that you’re back with us, Harriet.” She smiled sweetly in Harriet’s direction and ten necks swiveled like keys turning in locks. Harriet tried to smile at Miss Elson and glare at the others, but this being impossible, she got an idiotic look on her face.

  “I’m particularly glad,” continued Miss Elson, “because I have a special announcement to make about a change in school policy.”

  What in the world, thought Harriet, does that have to do with me?

  “You are aware that we have always let you elect your class officer and that the class officer has always automatically been the editor of the Sixth Grade Page. However we have decided that this is too much work for one person…”

  Marion Hawthorne gasped audibly.

  “… and have therefore decided that hereinafter the teacher will select someone else to be editor.

  “We have made this choice on the basis of ability. In looking over all the compositions handed in by the class, Miss Whitehead and I have decided that several of you have a flair for writing and that these few should take turns having the editorship. The selection has been made, and the editor from now on for this half year”— she paused dramatically and smiled—“will be Harriet M.
Welsch.”

  You could have heard a pin drop. Harriet stared at Miss Elson in disbelief. They all looked at Miss Elson. No one looked at Harriet. “Harriet has been chosen,” she continued, “for the first half of the year and Beth Ellen for the second half. That means Harriet will write the page for this semester and Beth Ellen next semester. The others will have their chance next year.”

  Beth Ellen turned beet-red and almost passed out. Harriet looked around her. Everyone was looking around at either her or Beth Ellen, which was causing Beth Ellen untold embarrassment. There seemed to be a general uneasiness in the room.

  Miss Elson looked unconcerned, and picking up a textbook, she said, “And now today, children, we have studied—”

  “Miss Elson”—Marion Hawthorne was on her feet —“I want to register a protest with the school on behalf of a group which I happen to be president of and which, by general agreement, has decided that this decision is unfair to the class, the great majority which belong—”

  “Of which, Marion,” Miss Elson corrected.

  “—to this club OF which I am president. Now, therefore—”

  “That’s enough, Marion, sit down. I think you have made yourself clear. I would like to know when you have had the time, however, to amass this great tide of public opinion. I didn’t see you asking anyone after I spoke.” Marion sat there unable to think of a thing.

  “I think, therefore, just to enlighten you as to the opinions of your following, and for no other reason, that we should take a vote. I want to make it perfectly clear that the only thing this vote will elicit is a talk with Miss Whitehead. I doubt very seriously that it is at all possible to change the decision. I am sure it is too late. But I do think we might make this an interesting experiment in terms of democracy. It has long been my opinion that one never knows the outcome of a vote no matter how sure we think we are. And Marion seems terribly sure. I think we should see, therefore. Now I want hands raised on how many want Harriet and Beth Ellen to take over for this year.”

  Marion and Rachel clenched their hands firmly to their sides as though they might rise of their own accord. Marion actually sat on hers.