He tipped his hat to Kate. “Mrs. Rocque,” he said and turned toward the door. “Stay outa trouble, sonny,” he said to Sport and followed Mr. Rocque downstairs. The door shut behind them.
“Ech!” said Sport.
“You know what happened to the snakes when Saint Patrick drove them out of Ireland?” said Kate, laughing and coming into the kitchen.
“What?” said Sport.
“They all swam over and became the New York Police Force.”
Sport started laughing very hard and then he was crying with nothing in between. Kate held his head. He tried to stuff down the tears, but he couldn’t. He heard steps outside the door. He pulled his head away and wiped his face on his sleeve.
“Don’t worry,” said Kate. “Every man cries once in a while.”
The front door banged open and Seymour jumped in, followed by Harry, Chi-chi, and Mr. Rocque.
“Hey, Sport,” yelled Seymour. “You shoulda seen your dad with the fuzz!” Seymour looked admiringly at Mr. Rocque.
“Yeah!” said Harry. “Didn’t give an inch.”
“You oughta seen it,” said Chi-chi. “They wanted our names and addresses …”
“… and families,” said Harry.
“… and he wouldn’t let ’em take anything!” said Seymour happily.
“Why?” asked Kate.
“Oh, you know,” said Mr. Rocque, “they say they just want names to have in their reports but what they do is, when something happens in this neighborhood they come looking for these kids and say they’ve been in trouble before.”
“Why?” said Sport.
“Because they’re lazy,” said Mr. Rocque. “This way they don’t have to think.”
“Geez, you know what he did?” said Seymour.
“Yeah,” said Harry. Even Harry was impressed, and Sport had never seen Harry impressed by anything.
“What?” said Sport.
“He told them they oughta be glad nobody presses charges on them for picking us up, said they didn’t even try to understand the situation, but just sided with a rich lady in a limousine because she was a rich lady in a limousine, said what kind of values they expect us to have when cops do things like that.” Seymour looked terribly proud.
“What did they say?” asked Sport, looking at Mr. Rocque. Mr. Rocque looked away with a little smile. Kate winked at him.
“They huffed and they puffed,” said Harry.
“That rotten one, you know, the one driving,” said Seymour, “he started to say something rotten to your dad and the other guy waved his hand at him and shut him up. Then the other one, the one that come up here, says, ‘Come on, everybody, outa the car,’ just like that, and we got out. Your dad told us to come up here.” Seymour looked like he had won a raffle.
“They don’t like Puerto Ricans much,” said Chi-chi quietly with a little smile.
“Aw, they’re mad for Blacks,” said Harry, poking Chi-chi.
“They have a hard time, too,” said Kate. “There’s so much crime in this city, they get like the criminals.”
“Oh, poof,” said Mr. Rocque.
Kate laughed.
“They’re just like everybody else. They see a long black limousine and they lose their heads altogether.”
“Yeah,” said Sport. “They didn’t even ask us.”
“Listen,” said Mr. Rocque. “About this arm now. Let’s take you over to Doctor Phyth and get you looked at.”
“They get you, Sport?” said Seymour. “I saw that old lady pulling you. Wonder you got an arm at all.”
“Boys,” said Mr. Rocque. They all looked at him. “I hope it never comes to this, but I might need your help. You might have to testify to what happened today.”
“Sure!” said Seymour. Harry and Chi-chi said nothing. Mr. Rocque looked at them.
“Harry was the one saw them get me,” said Sport.
“Then you will be very valuable,” said Mr. Rocque.
“And Chi-chi got me out the hotel,” said Sport.
“You’ll be the star witness,” said Mr. Rocque.
“Geez, what’ll I wear?” said Harry.
“Whew,” said Seymour. “Get him. I bet he prays to Robert Hall.”
“I’ve got to get on the phone again, call Sam, my lawyer,” said Mr. Rocque. He stood up, looking tired. “One thing, she’s blown her case now, he says, with this kidnapping gavotte. Wait’ll this hits the papers tomorrow morning. She couldn’t get the custody of a raccoon.”
“Yeah?” said Sport.
“You gonna lose the money?” asked Harry.
“No,” said Mr. Rocque. “She will.”
“Hooray!” yelled Seymour.
The phone rang. Mr. Rocque sprinted to it, picked it up, shouted, “Hello!” then listened a long time, murthings like “Yeah?” and “No kidding?” They all stood watching him.
He turned to them finally and yelled. “It’s Sam. He says she’s given up.”
“Hooray!” yelled Seymour.
“She’s giving up any claim at all,” shouted Mr. Rocque.
“Hooray!” shouted Seymour and Sport.
“She doesn’t want the publicity. She’s leaving for Europe tonight!” said Mr. Rocque.
“Hooray!” shouted Seymour and Sport and Harry.
“Sam says she’s already left for the airport!” said Mr. Rocque.
“Hooray!” yelled Seymour and Sport and Harry and Chi-chi and Kate.
“Carrie has been in a faint all day!” said Mr. Rocque, giggling.
“Hooray!” yelled everybody.
Kate said, “Oh, Sport,” and hugged him.
“Hey, man, you’re rich too!” said Harry.
“Ech, who needs it?” said Sport.
“Clothes, man, you can buy clothes!” said Harry wildly. “What are you, crazy?” Harry looked terribly agitated, as though someone were stealing all his clothes.
“Geez,” said Seymour, “another tie.”
“You could go to college,” said Chi-chi quietly.
“You could get a Cadillac,” said Seymour.
“Naw, a Rolls,” said Harry disdainfully.
“And kidnap little boys for money,” said Sport sourly.
“Hey!” said Harry. “You could give all the money to LEWD.”
The boys grinned.
“What’s that?” said Kate.
“Uh …” said Harry.
“Nothing,” said Sport. “Something for kids.”
Excerpt from Harriet Spies Again by Helen Ericson
Copyright © 2002 by Lois Anne Morehead
Published by Dell Yearling
An imprint of Random House Children’s Books
A division of Random House, Inc.
New York
All rights reserved
“I won’t go,” Harriet told her parents. She glared at them.
Her parents had called her down from her room while she was busy on a project. Ordinarily the cook served Harriet her dinner at six in the kitchen while her parents had martinis in the living room. Harriet looked at her watch. It was exactly six. So not only had they interrupted her project, but now they were making her late for her dinner, which was very likely getting cold.
She had been making a time line of her life. By taping sheets of paper carefully together, she had created a strip so long it reached from the door of her bedroom to the bottom of the old toy box that held all her notebooks. It had taken her twelve pieces of paper. Since Harriet would be twelve on her next birthday, she had designated one sheet for each year of her life. Then she had begun to fill in the important events. But she had barely finished half of the first page when her mother interrupted her.
SIX MONTHS. SPEAKS FIRST WORD, Harriet had just written halfway across the first-year page. She thought for a moment about what her first word might have been. She pictured herself at six months old, with her nursemaid poised over the bassinet looking down at her, probably holding a warm milk-filled bottle. What might she have said?
&
nbsp; FIRST WORD, she wrote as a subcategory. She thought about it for a while, trying to decide what a first word might be, at least a first word from the lips of a highly intelligent New York infant named Harriet M. Welsch. Carefully she printed PROCEED.
Then she went on to SEVEN MONTHS. SPEAKS FIRST SENTENCE. FIRST SENTENCE: PROCEED WITH THE FEEDING, PLEASE.
“Harriet, dear?” her mother had called up the stairs to Harriet’s cozy bedroom at the top of the tall, narrow house. “Would you come down, please?”
Reluctantly Harriet had rolled up her time line and headed down the two long flights of stairs to the double living room on the first floor. “I hope we didn’t interrupt anything important, dear,” Mrs. Welsch said after Harriet entered the living room and sat down on a dark red velvet chair. Harriet shrugged. They would not understand the time line. It would make them feel nervous and uncertain, she thought. Her parents frequently felt nervous and uncertain about her projects.
So she said only, “I was just thinking about my infancy. Do you happen to remember my first word?”
“Of course I do! Parents never forget such things,” Mrs. Welsch said. She turned to her husband. “Harry, tell Harriet what her first word was!”
Harriet’s father stared blankly at her.
Mrs. Welsch gave a thin laugh. “It was cookie, dear. You were about fourteen months old, and one day you quite clearly said cookie.”
“And my first sentence?” Harriet asked, glumly realizing that she would have to start her time line over with the correct information. Cross-outs were unacceptable and Harriet only used pens. Just last Christmas her parents had given her a wonderful dark green Waterman pen, which she treasured and used as often as possible. “What was my first sentence?”
“Well, you combined a verb and a noun, dean You said, ‘Gimme cookie.’”
“Oh,” Harriet said. Well, she thought, I won’t bother to erase after all It’s essentially the same thing as “Proceed with the feeding.”
“Why did you want me to come down?” she asked her parents.
“We have some news to share with you. Would you like a peanut, by the way?” Mrs. Welsch put her martini down and passed a small silver dish of peanuts to Harriet.
Harriet shook her head. Ordinarily she liked peanuts, but for some reason she could feel her appetite disappearing. It made her uncomfortable when her parents announced news. Their news never seemed to be the kind of news Harriet wanted to hear. “What news?” she asked.
“Your father has received a rather important assignment from the network. Harry, wouldn’t you like to describe it to Harriet?”
Mr. Welsch had been looking at the folded newspaper on the table near the peanut dish. He was pretending not to. But Harriet could see him surreptitiously glancing at the day’s headlines. “Paris,” he said.
“Paris?” asked Harriet with suspicion. “France?”
“We’re to leave next week for Paris!” Mrs. Welsch explained in the same perky, delighted voice that she used to describe bridge tournaments or antiques auctions.
“For how long?” Harriet wasn’t deceived by the voice. A little vacation in Paris would be okay, she thought. Maybe it would be a pleasant interlude before school resumed next month. But she had an ominous feeling. She was glad she hadn’t accepted a peanut. It might have lulled her too quickly into a cheerful reaction, when really suspicion was called for.
Her mother wiped her lips tidily, using a small cocktail napkin printed with a red-and-green design of olives in a stack. She said something that sounded like twamah while holding the napkin in front of her mouth.
“Twamah?” Harriet repeated, wondering if perhaps her mother was speaking French, although Harriet had studied French for two years already, in fifth and sixth grades, and twamah had not been a vocabulary word.
“Trois mois,” Mr. Welsch said quite clearly and with an air of impatience. “We’re going to live in Paris for three months, beginning next week.”
“The network has rented a lovely apartment for us, dear,” Mrs. Welsch said. “Quite near the Luxembourg Gardens. Les jardins, I mean.”
In her mind Harriet leapt ahead on her time line to the final sheet, the one for her twelfth year, the one that she wedged under a corner of her old toy box when the long strip was unrolled on the floor of her room. AGE ALMOST-TWELVE: MOVES TO PARIS. It was not what she had had in mind for age almost-twelve.
“I won’t go,” she told her parents, glaring. Then she added, “And in case you missed it, I expostulated that.”
Her father looked at her through his glasses. Harriet’s father was a television executive. He had an executive face, and hair that was combed in an executive way.
“Excuse me?” Mr. Welsch said.
Harriet imagined how he must look in his office when some poor scriptwriter, nervous and hungry, sat before him with a manuscript held together by a frayed rubber band and pleaded for a chance to be head writer on a sitcom so he could pay his debts and feed his starving children. Her father would probably look down through his glasses the same way. He would probably say in that same executive voice, “Excuse me?”
Harriet sighed. She repeated it. “I won’t go,” she said for the second time.
“No, no, I understood that part,” her father said. He sipped his martini. “I didn’t understand what you added, about expostulating.”
“Oh. Well,” Harriet explained, “Mr. Grenville says—”
Harriet’s mother interrupted. “Mr. Grenville is one of Harriet’s teachers at school, dear,” she told Harriet’s father.
He nodded. Harriet could tell he was making a note of that in his head. “Go on,” he said.
“Mr. Grenville says we must use strong verbs when we write.”
“Strong verbs?” Mr. Welsch took another sip of his drink.
“Yes. For example, instead of just saying ‘He walked,’ we should say ‘He ambled.’ Or ‘He strolled.’”
“I see.”
“And instead of ‘She said,’ it would be better to use a strong verb.” “Like expostulate, perhaps?” Harriet’s father asked.
“Exactly, Expostulate is my current favorite. I have a list of favorite strong verbs in my note-book.”
“And so when you told us that you wouldn’t go, you wanted to be certain that we understood you weren’t simply saying it. You were—”
“Expostulating,” Harriet said.
“I see.”
“She’s very clever, dear, isn’t she?” Mrs. Welsch said to her husband. She looked proudly at Harriet, who was sitting stiffly on the dark red velvet chair still glaring at both of her parents. Then she held the small dish of peanuts toward Harriet again, but Harriet once more declined. She was hoping that her failure to take a peanut—combined with the expostulating—would indicate to them how outraged she was.
“It is outrageous,” she said. “The whole idea is outrageous.” Harriet liked the sound of that. Probably, she decided, she would add outrageous to the list of strong adjectives she was also keeping in her notebook. “And I absolutely will not go.”
“Harriet,” said her father, and now he finished the last drops of his martini, set the glass down, and reached for the newspaper, “we were not planning to take you-”
As she had feared, her dinner was cold. Cook had not even had the courtesy to keep it warm in the oven for her. Harriet sat down at the round wooden table in the kitchen, unfolded her napkin, and frowned at her plate. Chicken. Chicken was okay cold. Salad. That was supposed to be cold, so Harriet couldn’t complain about the salad, though she turned the lettuce leaves over carefully with her fork to make certain there were no lurking onions. Cook knew that Harriet loathed raw onions but sometimes she sneaked them in anyway. Not tonight. No onions, Harriet noted with relief.
But there were mashed potatoes on the plate. Few things in the world were worse than cold mashed potatoes. They tainted the other food, Harriet decided after a moment. So she stood up, carried her plate to the sink, and noisily scraped
the potatoes into the garbage. Cook watched her.
“Wouldn’t be cold if you’d come on time,” Cook said pointedly.
Harriet sat back down at the table and stabbed a bit of chicken with her fork. She vaguely wanted to say something disagreeable and sharp-tongued to Cook. It was their usual mode of communication, although they were surprisingly fond of each other. But no words came to her She poked at the chicken again and realized to her horror that she was starting to cry.
Crying! And she would be twelve years old in October!
Cook hadn’t noticed yet. “You’re pretty quiet tonight for someone whose mouth usually goes yammer yammer yammer,” she said, leaning over the stove to stir whatever she was preparing for Harriet’s parents’ dinner.
Harriet gave an enormous sniff and tried very hard to make it sound like a sarcastic one, but it didn’t. It was quite wet, actually more a snuffle than a sniff, and she had to grab her napkin and hold it to her face.
“I got a bad feeling,” Cook said, “it’s not mashed potatoes making you that miserable.”
“No,” Harriet wailed. “They’re going to Paris and they’re not taking me!” Even as she wailed it, Harriet remembered that she didn’t want to live in Paris. She wanted to live right here in New York, in this tall, skinny house on East Eighty-seventh Street where she had lived all her life, nearly twelve years so far.
“Oh, that,” said Cook.
Harriet finished one final sniff, wiped her nose on her napkin, and looked at Cook suspiciously. “What do you mean ‘Oh, that’? Did you know already?”
Cook nodded. “Yeah, they’re paying me to stay on and cook. Wanted to pay me less because there won’t be so much cooking with them gone. But then they found out that those people across the street …” She gestured toward the small window that looked out onto the sidewalk. Because the kitchen was in the basement, Harriet and Cook could watch people’s feet through the window, and they often did. Feet were interesting, Harriet thought. She had been thinking about adding foot and shoe observations to her notes on her spy route.
Now Harriet looked through the window because Cook was pointing in that direction. She saw a pair of high-heeled brown leather boots walk past, followed by a small fuzzy dog on a leash. Suddenly the dog stopped, sniffed the small wrought-iron fence that enclosed the kitchen window, and raised his leg alongside it. Harriet looked away to give the dog the privacy she felt he deserved.
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