How I Became a Spy

by Deborah Hopkinson

  * * *

  —

  I didn’t have much time to stop and congratulate myself. I could easily lose Q in this crowd, and I was curious about where he might go. I turned my thoughts to the task at hand, trying to recall hints for being the watcher:

  It is often better to use the opposite side of the road. Check. I was already doing this.

  Keep something between yourself and the quarry. That meant I should try to stay behind other people. Easy, with all these shoppers out.

  Note your quarry’s features so you can recognize him again. I could do that too: I’d already gotten a good look at him. I’d noticed he had large ears and a high, sloping forehead. His nose was longish and his hair dark. It was his eyes you remembered—that clear, sharp stare. Still, it wouldn’t be easy. Half the men in this part of London wore black coats and had dark hair.

  LR squirmed in my arms, but I didn’t let her down and take the chance of passersby wanting to stop and chat as they admired her long eyelashes and cute little snout.

  I saw Q enter a store and come out again with a small parcel. At the next intersection, he changed directions, turning left on Oxford Street. After that, he headed north toward Portman Square and Baker Street.

  We were now on Baker Street—exactly where I’d planned to go. A woman in front of me pushing a pram stopped short so she could adjust her baby’s blanket. I tried to step around her. The woman cooed when she saw Little Roo in my arms. “Why, hullo, lovey. Isn’t she a darling!”

  Oh, no. Here we go. I smiled and said hastily, “Um, your baby is cute too. Have a nice day, now.”

  I sprinted around the pram and trotted along. I didn’t want to lose Q after all this. I glanced across the street just in time to see him slip into what looked to be an office building.

  Surprised, I stepped back, hiding in the doorway of a shop. I let Little Roo down so she could sniff at the sandbags that were piled up to prevent fire from spreading when bombs hit.

  There didn’t seem to be anything special about the building. It was made of gray stone, about six stories high. My eyes stayed glued to the windows. All at once, I spied the silhouette of a man’s head in a second-floor window. I saw him glance outside, so I stepped back out of sight. When I looked again, he was gone. The window was dark. He must have drawn the blackout curtains even though it wasn’t yet dusk.

  It had all happened quickly, but I’d had time to recognize him. My quarry was in there. I waited five minutes, but no one came out. I decided to cross over for a closer look. It was numbered 64 Baker Street. A small plaque on the building read INTER-SERVICES RESEARCH BUREAU. I frowned. What in the world did that mean?

  As LR and I stood there, a large, shiny black dog approached, pulling its owner toward the door. LR froze, but the other dog seemed more interested in going inside. It waved its thick black plume of a tail and nosed at the door, making a low whining sound.

  Just as I’d done, the woman with the dog glanced curiously at the sign. “Aha,” she murmured. “So this must be where he goes.”

  “Pardon me?” I said as LR tried to hide behind my legs.

  At that moment, the door began to open. I snatched up Little Roo quickly and turned, walking a few paces away to gaze in the window of a shoe shop. I shot a quick glance behind me, keeping my face hidden. But it wasn’t Q. This man was older.

  “Julia, what are you doing here?” he said, his voice sharp.

  “I could ask you the same question,” she replied. I couldn’t see her face, but I could hear the surprise in her voice. “What is this place?”

  “Never mind that. But how did you find me?”

  “I haven’t been prying, if that’s what you think. Hero led me right here,” she said. “He knows the way, I guess, from you taking him to work.”

  I didn’t wait to hear more. Ducking my head, I scurried off. At the next corner, I took a right on Dorset Street. I’d head back to Soho along quiet side streets.

  “Maybe I am starting to think like a spy, LR,” I said softly, stopping to let her down. “Because it sounded to me as if that man’s wife didn’t know where he works. Now, why wouldn’t he tell her?”

  I thought about it for all of a minute. The answer seemed clear: The Inter-Services Research Bureau must have something to do with the war.

  And suddenly the words I’d read in the notebook that morning came back to me. “Sometimes SOE agents are called the Baker Street Irregulars, like the ragtag bunch of urchins Sherlock Holmes relied on to gather information. And, of course, our headquarters are there, though you wouldn’t know it from the sign on the building.”

  Could the Inter-Services Research Bureau be a cover for the SOE, the Special Operations Executive?

  I shivered and my stomach growled. It felt like I’d been on my feet for hours. Finally we turned onto Broadwick Street. I was about to enter Trenchard House when I heard footsteps come up rapidly behind me. Someone grabbed my arm, hard.

  “Where is it?” a voice hissed in my ear. “I know you have it.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  The watcher should always try to be one jump ahead of the quarry.

  —SOE Manual

  I whirled around. My mouth fell open. “It’s you!”

  I recognized her blue coat. She carried a knapsack. She had straight brown hair that fell to her chin.

  “Of course it’s me.” The American girl rolled her eyes, which were brown like LR’s and almost as round. She didn’t seem much friendlier than last night. “I’ve been following you, hoping you’d lead me to where you live.” She stamped her foot. “Hand it over.”

  “What?” I said, trying to buy time. I’d just been so proud of myself for evading my quarry and tracking Q, or whatever his real name was, to Baker Street. All the while, this girl had been on my tail.

  Some spy I was.

  “You know what. The notebook, of course,” she said, crossing her arms. “I’m positive I lost it right when you bumped into me. I’m sure it fell out of my pocket. You must have it.”

  I could hear desperation in her voice. She doesn’t know for sure, I realized. “Well, first you need to tell me what’s in it. That way I can be sure it really belongs to—”

  “You do have it!” She cut me off.

  I relented. “Yeah, I have it.”

  The girl stuck out her hand. “Then you can give it to me now.”

  “Uh, no. No, I can’t.” My answer surprised me almost as much as it did her.

  “What do you mean, no?” she cried. “It isn’t yours. It has nothing to do with you.”

  But it does, I thought. I couldn’t hand it over without finding out the truth. I changed the subject. “Well, I’m curious. How did you track me here?”

  “Believe me, it wasn’t hard,” she declared, hiding a small smile. “It wasn’t quite dark last night. Flares and searchlights lit up the sky. And that made your hair glow. No wonder—it’s almost as red as one of those phone booths. You’re not exactly difficult to pick out in a crowd.”

  I really needed to wear a hat. I kept failing at blending in.

  “And, of course, I recognized your dog.” This time she did smile. I glanced down at LR, who was acting as if the girl was an old friend.

  “It’s not just that. As soon as I realized I’d lost the notebook, I suspected you had it,” the girl went on. “Actually, I thought they might know you at the Mayfair air-raid command post. I was on my way there, but then I spotted you and your dog in Grosvenor Square.” She shrugged. “The rest was easy.”

  Easy! I didn’t feel as if I’d had an easy afternoon following Q.

  LR jumped up on the girl’s legs. The girl bent down and petted her head. “Nice to see you again. What’s her name?”

  “It’s Roo, like Kanga’s baby in Winnie-the-Pooh. Only she’s a girl. Her first owner was a children’s
librarian,” I explained. “We call her Little Roo—LR for short.”

  I sighed. I loved my dog, even if she was rather silly-looking and didn’t have a solemn, distinguished name like Hero. But having a cute dog was definitely making this spy business a lot harder. What was that other rule? Don’t carry any conspicuous items.

  “Well, even though you did zig and zag a lot today, I could usually spot Little Roo trotting along at your heels,” the girl was saying. “I saw you stop in front of a building on Baker Street. I thought you might live there, but then you took off and came here.”

  The girl’s words sank in. I almost gasped aloud. She doesn’t know about Q! I realized. She’d tracked LR and me, but never noticed my quarry.

  The girl moved to stand in front of me, blocking my way into Trenchard House. Her voice sounded serious again. “Listen, this looks like a police station. I…I can’t let you give the notebook to the police.”

  “I’m not going to do that.”

  “Then what are you doing here?”

  “Uh, well, actually I live here,” I admitted.

  “Really?” Her eyebrows shot up. “In a police station? So is your room a cell?”

  “It’s not like that.” Since we’d been standing in front of Trenchard House, several young constables had come and gone. “It’s a boardinghouse for single policemen,” I explained. “My dad is a police sergeant and also the resident caretaker.”

  “Have you told him about the notebook?”

  I shook my head. “No. I haven’t told anyone.” That was true. I’d asked David for help with secret codes, but I hadn’t said anything about the notebook.

  Jimmy Wilson sauntered by. “Hullo, Bertie. Enjoying your afternoon?” I waved. He winked and peered curiously at the American girl before entering Trenchard House.

  “So that’s your name: Bertie?” she asked.

  “Yes. I’m Bertie Bradshaw.”

  “Well, Bertie Bradshaw, I’m getting tired of waiting. Do you have it with you?”

  “I wouldn’t carry something like that around,” I told her. “Listen, I promise I’ll give it to you, but…but I just want to be absolutely sure it’s yours. There’s a little park called Golden Square close by. We can talk there.”

  She bit her lip. I half expected her to try to reach into my pockets or run into Trenchard House and break down the door of my flat to get the notebook. Also, I wanted to leave before anyone else came by, like George Morton. I knew I’d get teased for talking to a girl.

  More than anything, I wanted more time to think.

  Because if the American girl hadn’t noticed I was following Q, that confirmed my suspicion: She was too young to be a secret agent.

  This girl hadn’t been to spy school. The notebook didn’t belong to her at all. But I had a feeling she knew whose it was. And I wanted to find out.

  The Game Is Afoot

  Come, Watson, come!…The game is afoot.

  —Sherlock Holmes, in “The Adventure of the Abbey Grange”

  Spy Practice Number Two

  CAESAR (SHIFT) CIPHER

  kagwz aiyky qftap eimfe azetq dxaow taxyq e

  This type of substitution cipher is called a Caesar cipher, named for Roman emperor Julius Caesar, who liked to use it in his letters. It’s also called a shift cipher. Once you find the answer to the clue, write out the regular alphabet. Then, starting on A, count that number of places to the right (don’t include A itself in the number). The letter you land on becomes the first letter in your cipher alphabet.

  For example, say the clue is to add the month and date of Independence Day. You add seven (since July is the seventh month) and four (for July fourth), making a total shift of eleven. So you shift the alphabet eleven letters to the right. A becomes L in your cipher alphabet, B becomes M, and so on. Here’s a table to help you:

  Hint: To decode this message, use a shift that’s equal to the number of the month plus the date on which Operation Neptune (the code name for the D-Day landings in France) took place. Once again, you can research the date of D-Day in this book, in another book, or online.

  You’ll notice there are no spaces between the letters in the cipher message to help you guess at the words. That’s on purpose. It makes it a little harder to figure out.

  CHAPTER TEN

  It seemed to me as I walked through the brick compartments of that shelter that I learned something about fear, and the resistance to total destruction which exists in all human beings.

  —Eleanor Roosevelt on her visit to London, in her column My Day, October 27, 1942

  “You know my name, so what’s yours?” I asked as we made our way through the narrow streets toward Golden Square.

  “It’s Eleanor. Eleanor Shea.”

  “Like Eleanor Roosevelt, the First Lady?”

  “Yes, I was even named for her.”

  I glanced over. Eleanor was about my height. She couldn’t be old enough to be a spy. “So, um, are you about twelve?”

  “No,” she cried indignantly. “I was thirteen in July. I have a patriotic birthday: the Fourth of July. And just so you know, I always go by Eleanor. Not Ellie or Ella or Nell. Always Eleanor.”

  “Whatever you say, Always Eleanor.”

  Eleanor flashed a quick smile, but it didn’t last long. “Bertie, I’m sorry if I was a little rude back there. Father says I sometimes barrel over people like a runaway train. But when I got home last night and realized I’d lost the notebook, I blamed myself. I couldn’t sleep.”

  I felt a little sorry for her then. I knew what it was like to stare at the ceiling and toss and turn.

  “Hey, I’ve got to stop and tie my shoelace,” I said. “Would you mind holding Little Roo’s lead for me?”

  “Sure! I love animals,” Eleanor replied. “Cats especially, but dogs too. Nan has a cat named Beatrix after Beatrix Potter. You know, she—”

  “I know who she was,” I broke in. “I’m English, remember? I grew up on Peter Rabbit.”

  I glanced down at LR. It could’ve been worse. She might have been named after one of those bunnies. Probably Mopsy.

  We were silent until we reached Golden Square. It was time to get down to business.

  “Listen,” I said as we sat on a bench. I took back LR’s lead, and she settled at my feet. “I understand why you were upset about losing the notebook. Especially after I read some of it.”

  “You read it?” Eleanor bristled. “But…you had no right to do that.”

  “I didn’t plan to,” I admitted. “At first I was just trying to find a name inside. Once I realized what it was about, I couldn’t stop reading it.”

  Eleanor bit her lip but said nothing. I was almost sure now: She hadn’t read it herself. She has no idea what’s in it, I realized.

  A few pigeons perched on the head of the statue of King George II. LR sniffed around under the bench, hunting for crumbs.

  I took a breath. “Eleanor, I know you dropped the notebook. But that doesn’t make it yours. Who does it really belong to?”

  Eleanor dug her hands in her coat pockets. I could tell she didn’t want to answer me. “Why…why should I tell you?” She didn’t look at me. I felt like I was skirting too close to something she didn’t want to talk about.

  “Well, maybe I could help find that person,” I offered. “That is, if you needed help.”

  Eleanor said nothing. I thought of something Dad had told me when I was trying to teach Little Roo to fetch a ball. “If you want her to drop it, don’t go prying it out of her mouth. That’ll make her bite down on it tenaciously. Just go about it easy like.”

  I tried to back off and act like I didn’t really care. I shrugged. “But maybe you don’t need any help. It just seems fair that you should tell me a little. I mean, if it wasn’t for me, you might have lost it completely
.”

  “If it wasn’t for you, I would never have lost it.”

  I was trying to think of what to say next when Eleanor let out a deep breath. “Oh, all right, you seem like you’re an honest person. I guess you have to be, living in a police station.”

  I wasn’t so sure about that.

  “You guessed right,” she went on. “It isn’t my notebook. But…but that’s all I can tell you.”

  I said slowly, “I know the notebook is important. That’s why I don’t have it with me. You haven’t read it yourself, have you?”

  “No,” Eleanor admitted. “I haven’t. There wasn’t…that is, someone asked me to keep it for a while. To keep it safe until…”

  “Until what?”

  She spoke slowly, as if she was trying to choose her words carefully. “Until the owner wants it back.”

  I pressed ahead. “Did the owner give it to you yesterday—just before the air raid?”

  Eleanor shot me a startled glance. “Hold on. There’s no way you could…”

  “Eleanor, does the notebook belong to a young woman with dark hair?”

  “I don’t understand,” Eleanor said in a hoarse whisper. “How could you possibly know that?”

  “I know because I saw her last night, after you ran off.”

  “You talked to her?”

  I shook my head. “No, not exactly.”

  “Then how did you guess it was hers? I don’t understand.”

  “Well, LR found the notebook and I stuck it in my pocket after you left,” I began. “But then Little Roo took off running. She led me back to a small side street right off of Maddox—more like an alleyway, really.”

  “And then what?”

  I was almost afraid to say it aloud. “When…when I got there, I found a young woman.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She didn’t say anything. She was on the ground,” I said slowly. “Maybe she fell. I don’t know. But I couldn’t ask her anything. Don’t worry—she wasn’t dead,” I added hastily. “But…she was unconscious.”