Harriet the Spy (11 page)

H
arriet felt so grumpy she knocked off work for the day. That night after supper she tried to practice being an onion. She started by falling down several times, making a great bumping noise each time. The idea was to fall in a rolling way the way an onion would and then roll around in a complete circle several times, then roll slowly to a stop the way an onion would if you put it down on a table. Harriet rolled around and bumped into a chair, knocking it over.

Her mother came to the door. She looked down at Harriet lying there with the chair on top of her. “What are you doing?” she asked mildly.

“Being an onion.”

Her mother picked the chair up off Harriet’s chest. Harriet didn’t move. She was tired.

“What in the world is all that noise I hear in here?”

“I told you. I’m being an onion.”

“It’s a pretty noisy onion.”

“I can’t help it. I can’t do it right yet. Miss Berry says when I do it right, I won’t make a sound.”

“Oh, it’s for the Christmas pageant… is that it?”

“Well, you don’t think I’d just be an onion all on my own, do you?”

“None of your lip there, girl. Get up and let me see what you have to do.”

Harriet got up and fell over, then rolled and rolled around until suddenly she rolled right under the bed. She came out full of dust mice.

Mrs. Welsch looked horrified. “That terrible maid. I’m going to fire her tomorrow.” She looked at Harriet, who stood ready to fall again. “That’s the clumsiest dance I ever saw. Miss Berry assigned this?”

“Miss Berry assigned the onion part. I’M making up the DANCE,” Harriet said pointedly.

“Oh,” said Mrs. Welsch discreetly.

Harriet fell over again, this time rolling away almost into the bathroom.

Mr. Welsch came into the room. “What’s going on in here? It sounds like someone hitting a punching bag.”

“She’s being an onion.”

They stood watching Harriet fall over and over again.

Mr. Welsch put his pipe in his mouth and crossed his arms. “According to Stanislavsky you have to feel like an onion. Do you feel like an onion?”

“Not in the least,” said Harriet.

“Oh, come on. What are they teaching you in school these days?” Mrs. Welsch started to laugh.

“No, I’m serious. There’s a whole school downtown that’s probably rolling all over the floor right this minute.”

“I never WANTED to be an onion,” Harriet said from the floor.

“And it’s a good thing. How many parts do you think are written for onions these days?” Mr. Welsch laughed. “I don’t imagine you did want to be an onion. For that matter, who knows if an onion does either.”

Mrs. Welsch laughed up at him. “You’re so smart. Let’s see
you
fall like an onion.”

“Don’t mind if I do,” said Mr. Welsch, and putting down his pipe, he fell solidly to the floor. The floor shook.

“Honey! Did you hurt yourself?”

Mr. Welsch just lay there flat. “No,” he said quietly, “but it’s not as easy as it looks.” He lay there breathing. Harriet took another fall just to keep him company.

“Why don’t you get up, honey?” Mrs. Welsch stood over him with a worried look on her face.

“I’m trying to feel like an onion. The closest I can get is a scallion.”

Harriet tried to feel like an onion. She found herself screwing her eyes up tight, wrapping her arms around her body, then buckling her knees and rolling to the ground.

“My God, Harriet, are you sick?” Mrs. Welsch rushed over to her.

Harriet rolled round and round the room. It wasn’t bad at all, this being an onion. She bumped into her father, who started to laugh. She couldn’t keep her face screwed up and laughed at him.

Her father started being an onion in earnest, rolling and rolling. Harriet suddenly jumped up and started to write in her notebook:

I WONDER WHAT IT WOULD BE LIKE TO BE A TABLE OR A CHAIR OR A BATHTUB OR ANOTHER PERSON. I WONDER WHAT OLE GOLLY WOULD SAY TO THAT. OLE GOLLY LOOKED LIKE A BIRD WITH TEETH, BUT I THINK I REALLY LOOK A LITTLE LIKE AN ONION. I WISH SHE WOULD COME BACK.

Harriet was so absorbed in her writing that she had forgotten her parents were in the room. When she finally slammed her book and looked up, they were staring at her in the strangest way.

“What were you doing, dear?” asked Mrs. Welsch in an ever so casual way.

“Writing in my notebook.” Harriet began to feel nervous. They were looking at her in such a strange way.

“Oh. Can we see?”

“No!” Harriet almost screamed, then said more quietly, “Of course not, it’s secrets.”

“Oh,” said her father and looked rather hurt.

What is the matter with them? Harriet thought. They both just kept looking at her.

“Is it something for school, dear?” asked Mrs. Welsch.

“No,” said Harriet and felt even more nervous. Why didn’t they stop looking at her?

“I’m sort of tired, honey. I think I’ll go to bed,” Mrs. Welsch said to her husband.

“Yeah. Me too,” he said, taking up his pipe.

Why are they acting like that? thought Harriet. You’d think I was doing something very funny. Ole Golly never acted like that.

Her parents kissed her good night in a rather melancholy way and went out. She reached for her notebook and was starting to write when she heard her father say,
sotto voce
, on the steps, “Yes, it makes me feel I don’t even know my own child.” And Mr. Welsch answered, “We must try to know her better now that Miss Golly is gone.”

Harriet felt puzzled. She wrote:

WHY DON’T THEY SAY WHAT THEY FEEL? OLE GOLLY SAID “ALWAYS SAY EXACTLY WHAT YOU FEEL. PEOPLE ARE HURT MORE BY MISUNDERSTANDING THAN ANYTHING ELSE.” AM I HURT? I DON’T FEEL HURT. I JUST FEEL FUNNY ALL OVER.

And by the time she went to sleep she felt even funnier.

The next day she felt very grumpy again on the way to school. Sport and Janie came running up to her as she was going in and told her that they planned to practice their dances that afternoon and did she want to practice with them at Janie’s house. She said Yes in such a grumpy way, they stared at her. Then, when she breathed in a very labored way and said, “Don’t mind me,” they really stared. She went on into school, calling back over her shoulder, “I’ll be there after my spy route.” They just looked at her.

That afternoon she decided to try Mrs. Plumber again even though she knew it was terribly risky. She waited for the maid to leave the kitchen, then darted into the dumbwaiter, her heart pounding so hard she was sure it could be heard. She pulled the ropes gingerly. They worked smoothly at first, but just as she reached the parlor floor there was a terribly loud creak. She sat there horrified, not daring to breathe. Then she heard voices.

“Impossible… impossible.” Mrs. Plumber’s voice came out of a pile of pillows, in a whisper filled with horror.

“Nadine!” Mrs. Plumber screamed to the maid. “Nadine!”—a chilling scream fading at the end.

“Yes, ma’am.” Harriet could see the maid standing primly to one side of the bed. Mrs. Plumber raised up, looking like a bloated eagle—“Nadine… it can’t be, it can’t beeeee”—and flopped back down, disappearing into pink pillows.

“Doctor’s orders, ma’am.”

From the pillows: “Confined… to… bed…”—and the tiny voice was lost for a minute—“for… the rest… of… my… life.” And a wail arose.

Well, thought Harriet, feeling agitated and strangely in sympathy with Mrs. Plumber. She did
want
to be there.

She moved a little to write in her book:

IS OLE GOLLY RIGHT? IS IT TERRIBLE TO GET WHAT YOU WANT? I WANT TO BE A WRITER AND I’LL BE FINKED IF I’LL BE UNHAPPY WHEN I AM. SOME PEOPLE JUST DON’T THINK THINGS OUT.

At that moment there was a querulous shout from Mrs. Plumber.

“What? What was
that
?”

Harriet looked through her peephole and saw both faces staring right at her. Her mouth opened in speechless terror. They had
seen
her!! She felt everything stop as in a photograph.

“There’s nothing, ma’am.”

But of course they couldn’t have seen her. They couldn’t see through walls.

“There’s something in there! I heard it scratching, like a mouse—a rat…”

“Oh, I don’t think so.” Nadine marched firmly to the dumbwaiter and pulled up the door. She jumped and yelled wildly when she saw Harriet.

Harriet started pulling on the ropes. But Nadine recovered herself and stopped the dumbwaiter as it started to move.

“Come out of there, you,” she said harshly and pulled Harriet out. Harriet flew through the air on Nadine’s arm and landed in a pile at her feet.

“
What is that?
” Mrs. Plumber shrieked.

“A child, ma’am,” said Nadine, holding Harriet by the hood of her sweatshirt.

“Out… out… get it
out
of here.… That’s
all
I need—
all
I need today—a
child!
” And she fell back into the pillows.

Nadine hoisted Harriet into the air and swung her out the door and down the steps. Even though her feet were dangling helplessly and her mind was racing with fear, Harriet took a few mental notes of the interiors as they descended. “There,” said Nadine, pushing her out the door, “good riddance. And don’t get caught again in there.”

Harriet looked back. Nadine winked at her. Feeling ridiculous, she started to run. She didn’t stop running until she was at her front door. She sat down on the stoop and panted a long time. That’s the first time in three years of spying that I’ve been caught, she thought. After she got her breath back she opened up her notebook.

SPIES—
SHOULD NOT GET CAUGHT
. THAT IS THE ONE ESSENTIAL THING ABOUT SPIES. I AM A ROTTEN SPY. OF COURSE, HOW WAS I TO KNOW SHE WAS GOING TO DO THAT? BUT THAT’S NO EXCUSE. I KNEW, I JUST KNEW IT WAS TOO DANGEROUS TO GO THERE.

She sat, looking dejectedly at the park. As she stared at the black trees one tear rolled down her cheek. She wrote:

OLE GOLLY WOULD HAVE HAD SOMETHING TO SAY ABOUT THIS. AND ALSO ABOUT THAT ONION BUSINESS LAST NIGHT.

She slammed her book, suddenly terribly grumpy. She decided to go over to Janie’s house to practice, even though she had no desire now to roll around on the floor.

When she got there she saw that Pinky Whitehead and Carrie Andrews were there too. She went over to Janie and whispered in her ear, “What is HE doing here? Pinky Whitehead is all I need today.”

“I can’t help it,” Janie said apologetically. “Carrie Andrews is the middle and Sport and Pinky are the two legs on the turkey. They all HAVE to be together to practice.”

“Well”—and Harriet suddenly felt terribly evil—“I don’t LIKE it.”

Janie looked at her in the strangest way. “What do you mean you don’t like it?”

“I just don’t like it, that’s all,” Harriet said mysteriously and moved away. She saw Janie looking at her in a terribly irritated way a few minutes later, but that might have been because Harriet had almost rolled into the lab table. Janie was trying to be a squash by lying in a sort of pulpy way flat on the floor. Every now and then she jumped a little as though the squash were being boiled.

“That’s terrible,” said Harriet meanly.

“What was that you said?” asked Janie from her flattened position.

“You look like you’re burping.”

Sport and Pinky, who were doing handstands on either side of a humped-up Carrie Andrews, collapsed in laughter.

“I don’t know what
you’re
laughing at, Sport; you look ridiculous.” Harriet was in an oh-so-vile mood all of a sudden.

Sport looked at her wide-eyed, then said, “What do you think you look like, rolling around like that?”

“I LOOK LIKE AN ONION,” Harriet screamed and immediately thereafter felt totally frantic as though she would burst into loud baby sobs any minute. She got up and ran for the door. As she was going down the steps she heard Sport say, “What’s the matter with her?”

And Janie replied, “Boy, what a pill she was today.”

Harriet ran all the way home and all the way up to her room, where she flung herself on the bed and cried with all her might.