Liar & Spy

by Rebecca Stead

  Safer’s mom stares at my sneakers with a funny expression until we get to the lobby. “You’re welcome to join us for dinner, Georges,” she says when the door opens. “It’s Candy’s night to cook.”

  “Candy cooks dinner?”

  “Why not? I believe she’s planning to make peanut butter and bananas on hot dog buns.”

  “Um, that sounds good. But I should check with my dad.”

  She nods. “And maybe change your socks, while you’re at it.”

  I look down and see that one of my socks has that brown garbage juice all over it. I look up to say something, but the door is already closing.

  The phone is ringing before I can get my sneakers off. Safer is very fast on those stairs.

  “I have something to show you,” Safer says. “Come right away.”

  “I kind of freaked out back there,” I tell him. “I think your mom noticed.”

  “My mom is a very accepting person,” Safer says. “Don’t worry about it. Just come up right away.”

  “As soon as I wash my leg.”

  “Did you say you’re washing your legs?”

  “Never mind.”

  Upstairs, Safer is in his beanbag chair with a big smile on his face. He holds up a little gold-colored key.

  “Seriously? That was in the dryer?”

  “Pants pocket,” he says. He tosses the key to me, first doing a couple of fakes so I know it’s coming, but I still miss and have to pick it up off the floor. At least he doesn’t laugh.

  It’s a funny little key. It looks like it should open a miniature treasure chest. “I can’t believe you found this.”

  “Now we just have to figure out what it opens.”

  I think Safer pictures a little box of evil in a corner of Mr. X’s apartment, and he thinks that if he can find it, he’ll save the world, or at least a small part of Brooklyn.

  And who am I to say that he’s wrong?

  “We’ve got to get inside,” Safer says.

  “Inside Mr. X’s apartment.”

  He nods. “Exactly. Tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?” I say. “Tomorrow tomorrow?”

  My cell phone rings. “My dad,” I tell Safer, flipping it open. And that’s when I remember that I was supposed to meet Dad downstairs at five o’clock to go to the orthodontist.

  “Sorry!” I tell him. “Be right down.”

  “I can’t stay for dinner,” I tell Safer.

  “Were you staying for dinner?” Candy appears in the doorway. She must have bat ears or something. Either that or she was standing in the hall, listening. “No one even bothered to tell me! I would have bought more bananas!”

  “That’s okay,” I tell her. “I really have to go. I have an orthodontist’s appointment.”

  “Really? Is your orthodontist in the city?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Will you be taking the D train, by any chance?”

  “Candy, no,” Safer says, hauling himself out of his beanbag.

  “I’m just asking.”

  “I’m not sure,” I tell her. “Why?”

  “There’s a newsstand on the uptown D platform at Fifty-Ninth Street that sells giant SweeTarts. They’re really hard to find around here.” Her eyes look all lit up. It’s like she’s glowing.

  “If you happen to be there,” she says, glancing at Safer, “and you happen to see them, would you buy two packs for me? I’ll pay you back. I have the money. I can show you the money right now.”

  “That’s okay,” I say. “I believe you.”

  “And let me know if you’re ever going to Yankee Stadium,” she says. “I got Lemonheads at a store near Yankee Stadium once.”

  “Lemonheads?”

  “You can hardly ever find them. I saved the box. Do you want to see the box?”

  “He’s leaving now!” Safer yells at her, pulling me down the hall. “He doesn’t want to see the stupid Lemonheads box!”

  Actually, I’m kind of curious. But I am late, and so I let him drag me to the door.

  “Tomorrow,” he says, and he shoves a fresh gum wrapper into my hand.

  That night I try to fall asleep before my teeth start aching from the tightened braces. We didn’t take the D train after all: Dad drove Mom’s car into the city, and we must have both been feeling quiet, because we hardly talked at all. When we got home I pretended that the garbage was full and said I would take it down to the basement. While I was waiting for the elevator, I ran up to Mr. X’s and shoved the gum wrapper between his door and the doorframe. When I got back to the apartment, Dad was already shut up in his room with the door closed.

  I get out of bed and spell Mom a note:

  OUCH TEETH

  LOVE ME

  I dream about Ty and Lucky, with their worried-eyebrow looks, staring at that metal door.

  Big Picture

  Bob English passes me a note in science:

  Ghoti.

  “Say it,” he says.

  “Go-tee,” I read.

  He shakes his head. “Wrong. It says fish.”

  “Um, it definitely does not say fish.”

  “Sure it does.” He leans forward to point. “G-h as in the word laugh, o as in women, and t-i as in nation. See? Fish.”

  My teeth are aching. Mom’s morning Scrabble note said ADVIL, but I couldn’t find any. I tell Bob sorry, I didn’t quite follow that, which is a mistake because he spells it all out for me in another note:

  gh = as in the word laugh (f sound)

  o = as in the word women (i sound)

  ti = as in the word nation (sh sound)

  “Okay, now I get it,” I say.

  “I’m just demonstrating the absurdity of English spelling.”

  “But that’s not the English spelling. It’s spelled f-i-s-h.”

  Bob sticks his hand into his Sharpie bag and flicks through the pens until he finds the one he wants. “Sure it is. If you want to play the game the way everyone else does.”

  Bob English is making less and less sense. But I like him more and more.

  Lunch. Tacos. School taco shells smell like plastic, so I drag my tray down to the bagel basket, where Dallas and Carter immediately show up and then pretend they don’t see me.

  Dallas bumps me with one shoulder and acts surprised. “Oh, man! Sorry. I didn’t see you, geek. I mean, Georges.”

  And they walk away, chanting “Geek, geek, geek, geek.”

  Typical bully crap, Mom would say. Big picture.

  I think about Sir Ott, hanging over the couch at home, and how much I would like to be there right now, kicking back with some America’s Funniest Home Videos.

  And then I think of all those thousands of dots Seurat used to paint the picture. I think about how if you stand back from the painting, you can see the people, the green grass and that cute monkey on a leash, but if you get closer, the monkey kind of dissolves right in front of your eyes. Like Mom says, life is a million different dots making one gigantic picture. And maybe the big picture is nice, maybe it’s amazing, but if you’re standing with your face pressed up against a bunch of black dots, it’s really hard to tell.

  After school, I watch America’s Funniest Home Videos and let the phone ring. It rings and stops, rings and stops, but no one leaves a message on the machine.

  The third time it starts, I grab the remote and pause the show. It’s one of my favorites: this very serious-looking little girl is sitting in a high chair and counting from one to ten for her grandmother, who isn’t paying attention and doesn’t realize that what the girl is really doing is sticking these baked beans up her nose. “One … two … three …”

  “Where were you?” Safer asks. “We have work to do. Don’t forget to check the you-know-what on your way up.”

  I start up the stairs, glancing in my most casual spylike way at Mr. X’s doormat as I pass it. But there’s no gum wrapper on the mat—it’s still stuck in the doorframe.

  On six, Candy answers the door.

  “So is it your o
fficial job to answer the door?” I ask her while we walk down the long hallway to the living room.

  “Pretty much,” she says. “Pigeon’s at practice, Dad’s at work, and Mom’s busy touching up the photos from last weekend’s wedding.”

  “What about Safer?”

  “Ha!” she says. “Good one.”

  Safer’s mom calls to us from her office, where she’s looking at a picture on a computer screen. It’s a woman’s head, blown up to twice the size of a normal head.

  “What do you think?” she asks. “Too many flyaways? I want it to look natural.”

  “Looks good to me,” Candy says.

  “What’s a flyaway?” I ask.

  “Hair—see how her hair is blowing around a little? They got married on a dock, the wind was crazy. I’m erasing some of the flying hair because it’s a distraction, but I don’t want to go too far and remove the illusion of movement, you know?”

  I don’t notice anything about the woman’s hair. What I notice is that she has something green stuck between her teeth.

  “Oh, I know,” Safer’s mom says. “That’s broccoli. It’s next on my list.”

  “Are you supposed to make everyone look perfect?” I ask her.

  “It’s part of the deal,” she says. “Believe it or not, you probably won’t want broccoli in your teeth in your wedding pictures either.”

  “I wouldn’t care if there was something green in my teeth,” Candy says. “I think it would be kind of funny. And Mr. Orange won’t care either, I bet.”

  “Who?” I ask.

  “Mr. Orange. That’s who I’m going to marry. Someone who likes orange.”

  “You’re going to marry someone because you both like orange?”

  “No!” She makes a face. “I hate orange. The color and the flavor. It’s the only flavor I don’t like, actually. That’s the whole point. I hate it, he loves it. That way we can always share the pack.”

  “Pack of what?”

  “Starbursts. Lifesavers. Jolly Ranchers. Whatever.”

  “Are you kidding?” I glance at Safer’s mom, but she’s obviously heard this before, and has moved on to the broccoli-teeth problem.

  “Why would I be kidding?” Candy says. “I’ve decided that the whole getting-married thing is kind of random anyway. You know how many times my grandparents met before they got married? Once! They met on a train, and that was it. You should see how much they still love each other!”

  “But—”

  “And my friend Joanie from fencing told me her parents went out for like ten years before they got married. And guess what? They got divorced like a year and a half later! So I’m going to make it very simple.”

  She’s almost making sense.

  “I mean, he’ll have to be cute and everything,” she says.

  I nod.

  “Not like, television cute. Real-person cute. Like … a real person.”

  “I guess candy is pretty important to you,” I say.

  She laughs. “You think? I mean, why do you think my name is Candy!”

  “Or maybe you like Candy because your name is Candy,” I say. “Ever think of that?”

  She stops smiling. “No. That makes no sense.”

  Her mom turns to me. “She has it the right way around, actually. Because we let the kids name themselves.”

  “When they were—babies?”

  “Not babies, exactly. But by age two or so they had expressed who they were and what they cared about most. We just sort of—interpreted.”

  She looks completely serious.

  Candy nods. “I’ve been obsessed with candy since birth, practically. And same with Pigeon and—pigeons.”

  “All birds, actually,” her mom says. “But pigeons are mostly what we have in Brooklyn.” She laughs and looks at Candy. “And just think. If we had named you at birth, we might have called you Orange! What a disaster that would have been.”

  I’m wondering whether to tell Mom this story. It might knock Safer’s whole family back from “smart bohemians” to “nice bohemians.”

  “Are you named after anyone?” Candy asks me.

  “Actually, yeah—my parents love this artist named Seurat. His first name was Georges. With an s.”

  “Your name has an s?” Candy says. “That’s cool. Like a secret letter or something.”

  Safer’s mom smiles. “Oh, I love Seurat.” The way she says “Seurat” is funny—it’s like she starts gargling in the middle of it. And she forgets the T, so it’s “Sir”—gargle—“ahh.” I wonder if this is the way actual French people say it.

  She turns to Candy. “His color theory was amazing. Instead of using purple, he would put a dab of red next to a dab of blue, and together the colors would be perceived as purple. In the mind of the viewer. Isn’t that incredible?”

  “Yeah, all the dots,” I say. “He was kind of part artist, part scientist, I guess, just like my parents—my dad is the artist type, and my mom is the scientist type. They actually met in a class called Physics for Poets. In college.”

  Then Safer’s mom says, “I can’t wait to meet your mom, Georges.”

  “Hey!” Safer is standing in the doorway. “What happened to you?”

  “Oh—sorry. I got sidetracked.”

  “I was telling him about our names,” Candy says.

  Safer glances at his mom. “Whose names?”

  “Mine,” Candy says. “And Pigeon’s. Don’t worry, I didn’t—”

  Safer interrupts her. “Candy, will you just go away, please?”

  “I’m the one who answered the door! You know that ding-dong sound you hear sometimes? That’s the doorbell!”

  “Fine,” he tells her. “Just go away.”

  “Safer,” his mom says. “This is my office. I’m the only one who can tell her to go away.”

  “Fine.” He grabs my arm. “Let’s go, Georges.”

  When we’re in our beanbag chairs, Safer holds out his flask. “Coffee?”

  “So why are you called Safer? Your mom says you guys named yourselves.”

  He waves the flask impatiently. “Not exactly. Look, we’re wasting time. We need to get into Mr. X’s apartment. To see what the key opens. I have a feeling it’s important.”

  “I’m not going into anyone’s apartment,” I say.

  “One step at a time,” he says. “Is the gum wrapper still in the door?”

  I admit that it is.

  “Great,” Safer says. “He’s not home yet. I have a plan.”

  Safer’s plan is that I will watch the lobbycam in my apartment while he breaks into Mr. X’s apartment right above me. If I see Mr. X coming in through the lobby, which he says is “highly doubtful,” I will bang SOS on the heating pipe that runs through my kitchen—and through the kitchen of Mr. X. Safer will hear the banging and run up to his own apartment before Mr. X gets in and murders him.

  When I remind Safer that I haven’t ever actually seen Mr. X, he tells me not to worry, that I will recognize him because he is the only person who wears all black in May.

  “But how are you going to get into his apartment?” I ask. “Isn’t it locked?”

  “Not everyone locks their doors,” Safer says thoughtfully.

  The next thing I know we’re standing in front of Mr. X’s apartment. It’s the first time I really stop and look at his door. I haven’t noticed the three stickers under the peephole—one for the ASPCA, one that says Eat Meat Without Feet, and one that says Support the Audubon Society.

  “Go ahead, try it,” Safer says.

  “Try what?”

  “The doorknob.”

  “What? No way.”

  “I already told you, he’s not here.” He points to the gum wrapper, still stuck in the doorframe.

  What I Still Don’t Totally Get About the Gum Wrapper Business

  According to Safer:

  I stick the gum wrapper in Mr. X’s door at night, when Mr. X is home.

  When Mr. X leaves his apartment in the morning,
the door opens and the wrapper falls out.

  Safer checks the door every half-hour starting early in the morning. When he sees that the wrapper is out, he knows that Mr. X has gone out, and Safer puts the wrapper back in the doorframe so we’ll know when Mr. X comes back in.

  As long as it stays there, Mr. X is still out. It should be safe to enter the apartment as long as someone is the lookout on the lobbycam, watching to see if Mr. X comes into the building.

  But I wonder:

  What if Mr. X is out when I put the wrapper in at night, so the wrapper is actually falling out when he comes in, and then Safer replaces it in the morning, when Mr. X is still in. In other words, who knows?

  —or—

  What if he is home when I put the wrapper in the door at night, and the wrapper does fall out when Mr. X leaves in the morning, but then he comes back within the same half-hour? Like maybe he just went for a bagel.

  Again, Safer would replace the wrapper in the door while he’s home.

  Which would mean that right now, with both of us standing on Mr. X’s doormat looking at the wrapper in the door, Mr. X could actually be home or not home.

  Either one.

  Umami

  When I blurt all of this out on Mr. X’s doormat, Safer gives me a look and says that if I keep going down this road, I will be “paralyzed by my own logic.”

  “Relax,” he tells me. “I know what I’m doing.”

  “I’m not touching that door,” I say.

  “Fine.” Safer’s hand shoots out and jiggles the doorknob.

  Locked.

  He turns and sprints back up to his apartment, and I follow, thinking about how turning someone else’s doorknob is such a small thing but also such a creepy thing.

  “It was worth a shot,” Safer says, writing in his notebook. “And now we know he doesn’t bolt it. He just uses the slam-lock.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “It’s the way the knob wiggles—you get to know these things.”

  Safer picks up the binoculars and looks through the window.

  “Safer,” I say.

  “Yeah?”

  “What would you have done if the door hadn’t been locked?”

  He lowers the binoculars and looks at me. “I would have made a note of it. It would have been an important fact.”