Harriet the Spy, Double Agent

by Louise Fitzhugh

  Harriet shrugged. “Well, of course. I’m a spy.”

  “Oh,” Annie said. “I thought you were a friend.” And she stormed away.

  No semaphore signals were flashed for the rest of vacation. Harriet called several times, and once Annie answered. As soon as she heard who it was, her voice went cold.

  “Nobody here by that name,” she said frostily. “This is Rosarita Sauvage.” She’ll stop being mad when we go back to school, thought Harriet. But she waited in vain at the corner on their first day back: Annie had left her house early so she wouldn’t have to run into her former best friend. When they stood at their side-by-side lockers, Annie turned her back, slamming the door when Harriet called her by name. This stinks, thought Harriet, watching her clomp down the hall.

  The day was an agony. Nobody else spoke to Harriet either. Janie was lost to her new Christmas headphones, on which she could play Jason Orlando tapes in the hall between classes. In the locker room, the popularity clones were all showing off ski tans and photos of beach resorts, chattering like a pack of tropical birds. Marion Hawthorne turned toward Annie. “How was your Christmas, Cassandra?”

  “It was fine,” Annie said, adding darkly, “except for the traitor.” Harriet pulled on her pajamas, the same pair she’d worn in Water Mill. It felt like a lifetime ago that she’d been so carefree and happy, had sat on the rug cutting snowflakes with Annie, had slept side by side in the trundle bed, gazing at the faded stars on the ceiling. She felt utterly and completely alone. Not even her notebooks distracted her. She stared at a blank page for what felt like hours, but all she could manage to write was

  ANNIE WON’T SPEAK TO ME. WHY IS SHE ACTING SO SHOCKED? SHE

  KNOWS PERFECTLY WELL I TAKE NOTES. I’M A SPY AND A WRITER. WHAT

  ELSE AM I SUPPOSED TO DO??

  What else indeed, she thought, closing the cover. She threw the green notebook back into her trunk, next to the marbled blue sketchbook, and took out the stationery Ole Golly had given her.

  60

  Dear Ole Golly, she wrote,

  I am having a personal problem. You told me that I should write everything down, and I have. But all is not well. Remember my friend Rosarita, who lived with the Feigenbaums? Her real name is Annie, and she is furious with me. I don’t think she’ll ever forgive me. I know you’re concerned with your upcoming baby and hope all is well in that area

  She looked at area, frowning, and crossed the word out.

  that department, but I need your help.

  Harriet stopped writing. How can she help me? she thought. She’s in Canada. And no grown-up could possibly understand how this feels.

  Annie didn’t bend. She avoided Harriet in the halls and kept to herself in class.

  She wore clothes that were almost like costumes: a man’s derby hat, thrift-store jewelry, unmatched striped socks. Marion and her sidekicks, Carrie and Rachel, made jeering comments whenever they passed in the hall, and when Annie ignored them, pronounced in a stage whisper meant to be overheard, “She is so weird.” One day after school, Harriet came upstairs from her cake and milk and heard her mother talking to some other woman behind the closed door of the library. It must be one of her idiot friends from the bridge club, thought Harriet, speeding up so she wouldn’t be forced to make conversation. With one foot on the staircase, she stopped short when she recognized the second voice as Barbara Feigenbaum’s.

  “I don’t know what to do with that girl. She comes home from school, slams her door, and goes on these crying jags. Hours she spends crying. If I try to go in and comfort her, she has a tantrum. Morris says it’s a needed catharsis, that she trusts us enough to display her repressed emotions, but I just have a feeling that something has changed.”

  “In what way?” Harriet heard the tinkling stir of a teaspoon on china. They were both drinking tea, she surmised, so this might be a long conversation. She edged toward the door, being careful to stay to one side so that they wouldn’t see her feet under its bottom edge.

  “Boy trouble, maybe.” Harriet held back a snort. Why did everyone think that whatever was wrong with a girl was because of a boy?

  Barbara Feigenbaum went on. “She just doesn’t seem like herself. I wondered if Harriet had mentioned anything. Maybe something at school?”

  “I wish I could help you, but Harriet isn’t much of a talker. She takes everything in, but she’s very still-waters-run-deep.” Am I? thought Harriet, wondering at this description. I thought I was rather loud.

  Her mother continued. “She’s always up there in her room, writing things down in those notebooks of hers. I’m lucky if I get two words from her.” This was a fascinating perspective to get on herself. Could it even be true? I don’t 61

  really talk to my mother that much, thought Harriet. What would we talk about?

  Shopping? Bridge? Recipes? She spends all her time doing things that don’t interest me.

  But I never knew she minded.

  Barbara Feigenbaum let out a sigh. “It’s the age. So much going on in those little heads.”

  “If you like, I’ll ask Harriet point-blank. She doesn’t seem to be spending as much time with Annie as usual. Maybe they’re spatting.” Spatting? thought Harriet. What trunk did she drag that one out of?

  Barbara sighed again. “I’m at my wit’s end, I’m telling you. My heart breaks for that child, what she’s been through with all this upheaval. It’s dragged on for months. My poor sister’s a wreck. I can’t wait till this nightmare is over.” Harriet’s ears perked up. Now they were getting somewhere. What nightmare?

  she thought. I want details. Maybe I’ll even find out about P.

  “I’m sure,” Mrs. Welsch sounded sympathetic. “It’s been so hard on all of you.”

  “Hardest on Annie,” said Barbara Feigenbaum. She loves her niece, Harriet realized. The Feigenbaums seemed so entirely clueless, off in their own child-free world, that it had never occurred to her that they really cared about Annie.

  Harriet heard Barbara Feigenbaum’s chair scrape the floor as she pushed it back, rising to go. Rats, she thought, scampering toward the staircase as quietly as she could manage. They were so close.

  Harriet tried to sink back into her everyday spy routine, but it wasn’t the same without Douglas and Balsam Fir. Or without Annie. I don’t want to spend this much time by myself, she realized.

  She called up Sport, who was happy to hear from her. “Been a long time,” he said.

  “How was your New Year? Did you stay up till midnight and watch the ball drop?”

  “Yeah. It was boring.”

  “It always is. I don’t get New Year’s Eve. It just seems like an excuse to get drunk and act stupid in public, for people who don’t really need an excuse.” Harriet laughed. I’ve missed him, she thought. We agree about so many things.

  “You know what I did on New Year’s Eve?” she said. “I read through a whole year’s worth of spy notebooks.”

  “Really?” Sport sounded impressed. “How long did that take?”

  “I don’t really know. I fell asleep in my bed with the light on.” This time it was Sport’s turn to laugh. “My dad does that every night. I used to go into his bedroom as soon as I woke up and turn it off for him. Sometimes I’d find him asleep in his chair with his face on the desk.” 62

  “Does Kate do that for him now?” Harriet lounged on her bed with the long cord stretched over her body, twisting it with her toe.

  “I guess so.” Sport sounded a little bit wistful. “The door’s always closed. All I really know is what time he stops typing.”

  Harriet thought of the dinners she’d had at Sport’s, how much she admired the quick bursts of rhythm when Matthew Rocque got up a real head of steam. She preferred peacock blue ink, but there was something very impressive about the mechanical tap dance of fingers that yielded a manuscript. “What are you doing tonight?” she asked Sport. “Would you want to come over or something?”

  “Too much homework,” he said. “A
nd I’m baking a sourdough. I still have to knead it and punch it down after it rises. How about tomorrow, right after school? We could go to the park if it’s nice out.”

  “I’d love it,” said Harriet. “Have a good sourdough.” The next day was cold but not windy, so Sport and Harriet headed for Carl Schurz Park. A tugboat plowed through the East River, dragging a giant barge. The path along the embankment was still sunny next to the rail, though the pensioners sitting on benches looked frozen in place. Harriet felt strangely awkward with Sport as they strolled along the river. She wondered why, when she’d felt so completely at home with him on the phone. I’m not used to him being this tall, she decided. Sport had no right to grow so much faster than she did. It made her feel puny.

  “Look at that gull,” said Sport, pointing. A seagull was flapping right over the barge, so close that it looked like a kite tied to the stern with invisible string. “Why do you think he’d be flying like that?”

  “Maybe he’s riding a wind current.”

  “Maybe he’s looking for dinner.”

  “Maybe he’s a she.” This is better, she thought, feeling loose again. That was the thing about really good friends: even when you’d been out of touch, you could pick up right where you left off.

  “Maybe he isn’t a seagull at all.” Sport smirked. “He might be a very thin swan.”

  “Or an albino crow.” The gull made a raucous, rude squawk and flew away, as if it were offended. They both cracked up.

  When the sun got too low and the park got too cold, they walked back toward Sport’s, passing the playground where they had first met. A professional dog walker went 63

  by with an oddly assorted pack of lap-dogs, retrievers, and an Afghan hound fanned out on leashes held in both hands.

  “How do they do that?” asked Sport as they crossed the street in front of his building. “What if the dogs start to fight with each other?”

  “They must hold auditions,” said Harriet.

  Sport grinned. “Imagine the rejects. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs. Kessler, but your Lhasa apso does not play well with others. Little Wudgie has been expelled.’” Harriet looked at him. “Sport? Why did Yolanda—Annie, I mean—get expelled from your school?”

  “No idea. One day she was going to class and the next she was gone.”

  “It was Thanksgiving weekend, remember?”

  “How could I forget?” said Sport gloomily. “It was the dawn of my heartbreak.” He stuck his key in the door that led to his lobby and held the door open for Harriet. They started up the three flights of worn stairs to his walk-up apartment.

  “How’s Annie doing?” he asked, his voice tender.

  “I wish I could tell you. She’s not speaking to me.”

  “Why not?” They turned onto a landing.

  “It’s kind of a long story,” Harriet hedged.

  “Try me.”

  “I kind of spied on her. Followed her places when she didn’t know it.”

  “Not cool,” said Sport. “People’s feelings get hurt.”

  “Tell me about it,” said Harriet, trying to stifle the misery that had crept into her voice. They were outside the door to Sport’s apartment, marked 4-c with brass figures.

  As he fiddled with upper and lower locks, Harriet gazed at the pattern the receding flights of stairs made below them. What’s the right way to describe that? she wondered.

  Rectangular spiral? Maybe Matthew would have the right phrase.

  Sport swung the door open. “I’m back,” he called out. “With Harriet.” Kate emerged from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel she’d stuck in the waistband of her business suit as an apron. “Well, hello, stranger. We haven’t seen you in way too long.”

  “Happy New Year,” said Harriet awkwardly. Kate stood there smiling at her.

  “Want to try some of my sourdough?” Sport said. “It came out pretty well.”

  “He’s a genius,” said Kate, clapping Sport on the back.

  Sport shrugged. “Anybody can bake.”

  “That’s what you think,” said Kate. “Remember my buttermilk biscuits?”

  “Those were kind of nasty.” Sport grinned.

  64

  “Matthew loved them. Of course, he’d eat paperweights if he was writing. I’m going to go change my clothes before I spill tomato sauce all over myself. Make yourself at home, Harriet.” She gave Harriet’s arm a quick conspiratorial squeeze as she passed.

  What is with her? thought Harriet, flinching.

  Sport went into the kitchen and sawed off two raggedy slices of bread. “Want it toasted?”

  “Whatever you think.”

  “Plain with butter,” he said, setting the bread on two plates and grabbing a butter knife. His back was to Harriet. “I’m sorry to hear about Annie. I know how you feel. I still miss Yolanda.”

  “That’s different,” Harriet said. “Yolanda’s not real. Annie is.”

  “She was real to me,” Sport said, unwrapping the butter.

  “Sorry,” Harriet muttered.

  “It’s okay,” said Sport. “I’m sorry you’re sad.” They looked at each other a moment. Then Sport stepped forward and gave Harriet a stiff, clumsy hug. She backed away instantly, banging into the table so hard it hurt.

  “What are you doing?” she practically screamed. “You’re not supposed to do stuff like that! You’re my friend!”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “This is just too … peculiar,” said Harriet, still backing up.

  “For God’s sake,” Sport snapped, “it was just a dumb hug. I’ve known you since we were both four!”

  Harriet looked at him, cornered against the dishwasher. “We’re not four anymore,” she said. Her left side was throbbing where she had slammed into the table, and both of her ears felt unnaturally hot, as if they’d been toasted.

  “Did you really think I was putting the moves on you? That’s ridiculous!” Harriet didn’t answer. Sport was glaring at her, and she felt very small and embarrassed. She stared at her shoes and thought, I’ll write about this someday.

  “I’m in love with Yolanda, you jerk. You’re my friend.” Sport slammed Harriet’s plate on the table in front of her. “Now eat this before I get mad.” Harriet did. It was excellent.

  65

  The very next morning, as she was brushing her teeth, Harriet made a decision.

  Annie had been freezing her out long enough. This whole thing was out of proportion—annoying, in fact. Harriet wasn’t a double agent. She hadn’t done anything wrong. I’m a spy, she thought defiantly; spying is what spies do.

  She went back to her room, straightened her pale blue bedspread, got dressed in the clothes she’d already chosen, and looked at the clock. She still had ten minutes. She got out her latest green notebook and sat down to make a list of possible strategies.

  PROBLEM: BEST FRIEND IGNORING ME

  POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS:

  1) LIVE WITH IT.

  2) IGNORE HER BACK. LET HER SEE HOW IT FEELS.

  3) YELL AT HER. WHO DOES SHE THINK SHE IS??

  4) APOLOGIZE.

  Harriet paused to reread her list. Option 1 was a bore. She’d already tried Living With It, and she’d had enough; that was why she’d made this list. She crossed it out.

  Option 2, Ignore Her Back, had potential, but Annie was ignoring her so effectively that she might not even notice. Harriet crossed this out too.

  Option 3, Yell At Her, had a lot of appeal. Harriet was extremely irritated that this had been going on so long, for more than a week now. She had plenty of steam to let off, and if she really let Annie have it, Annie would have to respond in some way. Probably by getting mad back, thought Harriet, deciding that 3 wasn’t such a good option after all.

  That left only option 4, Apologize, which presented its own set of problems.

  Harriet wasn’t about to apologize for behavior she didn’t regret. I am sorry that Annie’s not speaking to me, she thought, but I’ll never be sorry that I’m a
spy.

  “Harriet!” her mother called up the stairs. “You’ll be late!” Harriet closed her notebook, then opened it to write one final sentence: PROBLEM NOT SOLVED.

  Mr. Bolbach leaned on the blackboard, droning about polyhedrons. When he turned to draw an example, the back of his gray jacket was yellow with chalk dust, 66

  making him look like a human eraser. Harriet stifled a giggle, turning to see whether Annie had noticed. Annie gave her a look that would wither ripe fruit.

  I’m sick of this, Harriet thought, reconsidering the Yell At Her option. She thought about throwing a spitball at Annie, the satisfying thwack it would make when it hit her between the eyes, right when she least expected it. That would show her that Harriet M. Welsch was not somebody you could ignore.