Harriet the Spy (17 page)

“I just can’t cope with this kind of thing. I come home from the office and I want some peace and quiet and a martini. I come home tonight and the ice bucket isn’t even filled, you are practically raving, I can hear that fink of a cook all the way from the kitchen—she is yelling so loud—and you tell me you just gave her a five dollar raise. Now make sense, woman!”

There was a lot of mumbling and then a door closed. Her mother had taken her father into the library. Everyone always went into the library to be fussed at.

She lay in the dark and stared at nothing. She didn’t blame her father for being angry. It was all so boring. When she closed her eyes sometimes she saw a yellow spot. She almost fell asleep. A slant of light fell across her face and she opened one eye a crack, to see her father standing in the doorway. She closed her eyes.

“Harriet, are you asleep?”

Harriet didn’t move.

“Harriet, answer me.”

Harriet just lay there, scarcely breathing.

“Listen, I know perfectly well you’re not asleep. I used to do the same thing to my father. So you just sit up and talk to me.”

Quickly Harriet sat up, leaned over, and in one perfectly coordinated motion threw a shoe at her father.

“Well… of all the splutter splutter. Something has to be done.… This child—come in here. I think we’d better call… What the—” The door banged shut.

Harriet lay there as though she had never moved, had never thrown a shoe, had never been unhappy, had never caught a frog. She thought quietly, Wait until I break Janie’s finger. Then she fell asleep quite suddenly. Late at night she awoke to feel her mother putting her pajamas on her and tucking her in. She slept blissfully.

W
hen Harriet got up the next morning she was starving because she hadn’t had any dinner the night before. She went downstairs in her pajamas and sat down at the breakfast table.

“Harriet, go back up and put on your clothes.”

“No.”

“What do you mean ‘no’?” Her mother stared at her wide-eyed.

“NO. That’s all, just no.”

“Get up those steps this minute,” her father said, “or you’ll get a whaling you’ll never forget.”

Harriet went back up and put on her clothes. She came back and sat down again. Neither of her parents had a paper in front of them, and they seemed to look at her a lot.

“Did you wash?”

“No.”

“Then go back and wash.”

“No.”

“Harriet, you always go back and wash.”

Silence.

“Harriet, go up and wash.”

“No.”

Her father looked at her mother. “We are doing this none too soon, I see. But before we all get a lot of newfangled ideas, may I say, Harriet, that you are going to go upstairs right this minute and wash or you won’t be able to sit down for a week.”

Harriet went back upstairs and washed. Somehow it all made her feel rather pleasant and she hummed a little coming back down.

“This morning,” her mother said, “you are not going to school.”

“I know it.”

“How do you know it? Harriet, were you spying?”

“No.”

“Then how did you know?”

“I decided I wasn’t going. I don’t like school anymore.”

“Oh, well, that’s not exactly what I meant. I meant that this morning you are going with me to pay a visit to someone.”

Harriet’s heart leaped. “Ole Golly? Is Ole Golly in town?”

Her mother and father exchanged a glance. “No,” said her mother, “we’re going to see a doctor.”

“Oh.” Harriet chewed some bacon. “Dr. Andrews?” she asked casually, planning to spread some rumor about Carrie when she was in the office.

“No,” said her mother and looked rather helplessly at her father. Her father went “
Hhrrumph
” and cleared his throat a couple of times. Then he said, “This is a rather pleasant chap you’re going to see. He’s not a fink like most doctors.”

Harriet kept eating without looking at him. Maybe, she thought, I could just say my father thinks Dr. Andrews is a fink and that would be enough for Carrie.

When she was finished she went outside to wait for her mother. She looked in the direction of her school and could see all the children piling in the door. She didn’t care if she ever went in there again. It seemed a hundred years ago that she had liked to write Harriet M. Welsch at the top of the page.

Her mother finally came around in the car and Harriet got in. Her mother drove over to Ninety-sixth and Fifth, then three times around the block looking for a parking place, and finally put the car in a garage, fuming in rage the whole time.

In the elevator Harriet said suddenly, “What am I coming here for? I don’t feel sick” Although she felt a little sick as she said it.

“You just talk to this doctor. He doesn’t do anything to you.”

“But I don’t know him.”

“That’s all right. He’s a nice man.”

“But what do I talk about?”

“Anything he wants to.”

They got to the seventh floor and her mother buzzed the buzzer on a blue door. It was answered almost immediately by the funniest-looking man Harriet had ever seen. He had bright red hair that stood straight up behind a bald crown, an enormous mouth grinning with yellow teeth, funny glasses with big black rims, and he was very, very tall—so tall he bent over a little. He also, she noticed, had a
very
strange nose and very long feet.

“Hello, there,” he said cheerfully.

Harriet sneered at him. She hated people who tried to make you like them right away.

“Hello, Dr. Wagner. This is Harriet.”

Harriet looked away. She felt stupid standing there. They were both looking at her.

“Well, now, won’t you come into my office and we’ll have a little talk.”

The library all over again, thought Harriet; this is a long way to come to be fussed at. Her mother smiled at her, then went into the waiting room while Harriet followed the red hair into its office. The office was large with a sky-blue rug, a couch, and for some reason, a spinet. Harriet stood stock-still in the middle of the room as Dr. Wagner sat down in one of the two huge armchairs.

He looked at her pleasantly, rather expectantly, and she looked back. There was a great deal of silence.

“Well?” said Harriet after a long time.

“Well, what?” he said pleasantly.

“Well, what do we do now?”

“You can do anything you like.”

“Can I leave?”

“Do you want to?”

“Well, what am I SUPPOSED to do?” Harriet was getting quite angry.

Dr. Wagner scratched his nose, “Well, let’s see. We could play a game. Do you like games?”

This was the dumbest thing Harriet had ever heard of. To come all this way to play a game. She bet her mother didn’t know this. What was the matter with this man? She decided that the only nice thing to do would be to play along with him, for a while. “Yeah … I like games … all right.”

“What kind of games?”

Oh, what a tiresome man. “Any old game. You’re the one who wanted to play a game.”

“Do you play chess?”

“No.” Ole Golly was going to teach me, she thought, but she never got around to it.

“Well, how about Monopoly?”

Just about the most boring game in the world. It had everything in it that Harriet hated. “Okay, if you want to.”

Dr. Wagner got up and went to a cabinet next to the door. When he opened it Harriet could see all sorts of games, dolls, doll houses, and trucks. She tried to be nice about it, but she was curious. “Do you sit here all day playing with all those things?” Wait till her mother got a load of this.

He looked at her archly, “What do you think?”

“Whadya mean, what do I think?”

“Do you think I sit here all day playing with these toys?”

“How do I know? You got a whole closet full of ’em.”

“Don’t you have toys at home?”

This was too much. “Yes,” she shouted, “but I’m eleven.”

“Oh.” He looked somewhat taken aback, standing there with the Monopoly board in his hand.

Harriet began to feel sorry for him. “Well,” she said, “shall we play one game?”

He looked relieved. He set up the board carefully on the coffee table. Then he went to the desk drawer and got out a notebook and a pen. Then he sat down across from her.

Harriet stared at the notebook. “What’s that?”

“A notebook.”

“I KNOW that,” she shouted.

“I just take a few notes now and then. You don’t mind, do you?”

“Depends on what they are.”

“What do you mean?”

“Are they mean, nasty notes, or just ordinary notes?”

“Why?”

“Well, I just thought I’d warn you. Nasty ones are pretty hard to get by with these days.”

“Oh, I see what you mean. Thank you for the advice. No, they’re quite ordinary notes.”

“Nobody ever takes it away from
you
, I bet, do they?”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing. Let’s play.”

They played a game. Harriet was wildly bored but she won. Dr. Wagner took a quantity of notes during and after the game.

“I’ll bet if you didn’t take so many notes, you’d play better.”

“Do you think so?”

Harriet looked at him darkly. He couldn’t be this stupid. Why was he acting like this?

They played another game. He took less notes and won that game.

“You see!” Harriet was jubilant. “Taking notes all the time makes you no good. Why don’t you put that notebook away someplace?” She watched him closely.

He looked faintly amused for the first time. “Suppose,” he said slowly, “I give
you
a notebook. Then we’ll each have one and we’ll be fairly matched.” Harriet stared at him hard. Was he kidding her? Was he trying to see what she’d do? Her fingers itched at the thought of a notebook, of a pen flying over the pages, of her thoughts, finally free to move, flowing out. Oh, who cared what he was trying to do.

“Okay, do you have another one?” She tried to appear casual.

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I do.” He went to his desk and took out a very pretty little notebook with a bright blue cover. Harriet tried to look unconcerned by looking at the spinet. He also took out a nice little ballpoint pen. He handed both to Harriet. She felt better the moment she had them in her hands.

Dr. Wagner sat down and they began another game. Harriet began to write:

FUNNIEST NOSE I HAVE EVER SEEN. RUNS RIGHT DOWN THE MIDDLE OF HIS FACE LIKE A SNAKE. HE REMINDS ME SOMEWHAT OF PINKY WHITEHEAD BUT HE’S NOT AS REPULSIVE. HE HAS RED HAIR AND FUNNY TEETH. THEY ARE SORT OF YELLOW AND LONG. THIS OFFICE SMELLS OF CIGARS AND CHALK. I BET HE PLAYS WITH THOSE TOYS AFTER EVERYONE LEAVES.

Harriet had forgotten all about the game. She suddenly heard Dr. Wagner saying softly, “Harriet… Harriet, it’s time to go.” She didn’t want to leave. I can’t, she thought, live here. She got up quickly and started for the door.

“Good-by, Harriet,” he said gently.

“Good-by” she said. He wasn’t a bad sort, she thought, just a little batty.

Harriet’s mother took the notebook away immediately. Harriet felt empty on the ride back.

When she got home her mother disappeared and the long afternoon stretched ahead of her. Without a notebook she couldn’t spy, she couldn’t take notes, she couldn’t play Town, she couldn’t do anything. She was afraid to go and buy another one, and for once she didn’t feel like reading.

She suddenly found herself wondering what would happen if she went to see Sport and Janie and tried, privately, to be friendly. After all, being her best friends, they had always known she was a spy and that she was going to be a writer, and so how could they suddenly act as though this were a terrible thing? Maybe they were tired of being mad anyway.

She grabbed her coat and ran down the steps. She wondered, on the way, if they’d gotten Janie into dancing school. She could start with that to break the ice.

The maid let Harriet in and she went up the back steps straight to Janie’s lab. She opened the door and there stood Janie, so involved in her work that she didn’t even look up.

Harriet said softly, so as not to frighten her, “Janie?”

Janie turned quickly and was so startled that she dripped the test tube she was holding. She stood there absolutely stricken at the sight of Harriet. Then she saw the spreading mess at her feet. “Look what you made me do, just
look
!”

Harriet looked at the floor. Not only was there an awful brown stain spreading rapidly over the parquet, but it also appeared to be burning into the wood.

“What
was
that stuff?”

Janie was busy now, mopping. She didn’t say a word, just smiled her terrible smile and cleaned as best she could in silence. The stain was diminished only somewhat after repeated washings. Harriet stood there feeling one of the worst feelings she had ever felt. Janie acted as though she weren’t even in the room. A part of the floor was definitely eaten away.

“Maybe we could…” Harriet began tentatively.

“Don’t you think you’ve done enough already?” Janie’s eyes were nasty.

“I was going to say maybe you could roll the rug over and she wouldn’t see.” Harriet felt like running out the door.

“So next time you come you can ruin the rug, is that it?”

Harriet looked hard at Janie. Janie stared back at her.

Harriet walked to the door. She kept her back to Janie and didn’t say a word because if she had tried to talk she would have cried.

She crossed over to the park and sat down on a bench. She began to reconsider the idea of going to Sport’s house. A tear ran down the side of her nose. Janie was one thing, but Sport had always been her best friend. Suppose he acted like Janie?

She waited a minute for some idea to come to her. But there was no way out of it. It was now or never. If Sport was not her friend, then it was better to know it now. Then she would really be alone, and if she were really alone in the world she might as well know it.

She got up from the bench and briskly walked to Sport’s house. She ran up the steps to his apartment. As she was getting ready to knock she heard loud laughter from inside, then a giggle from Sport. Out of habit she listened. Sport’s father was laughing very hard and saying things like “WOW” and “How
’bout
that?” Then he said, “How ’bout your ole dad? Now, whadaya think of that? Look at it, Sport, look at that big fat check.” Harriet couldn’t stand the suspense. She knocked.

Sport came to the door still giggling. When he opened it, he stood there shocked. The smile faded from his face. He looked sad. His father was still running around the room laughing and jumping up and down on furniture. It was funny to stand there looking at Sport with his father running around behind him like a crazy man.

Harriet finally said, “Hi, Sport.”

Sport ducked his head as though he had been hit. His eyes went down to the floor, then he backed away a little bit, dragged one foot, and said, “Uh, hello, Harriet.” It wasn’t much of a welcome, but Harriet pushed right through the door. Sport’s father hardly noticed her.

Now he was on the phone jabbering away and waving a check in his hands, “They took it, they took it. It’s coming out in the spring! Hey, how ’bout that?”

Harriet looked back at Sport who was still standing holding the door open. “He sold the book?”

In spite of himself a smile broke full across Sport’s face. “Yeah,” he said reverently, “he just got the check.” And then, as though he suddenly remembered, he dropped his eyes to the floor again.

“Hey, Sport, I got to talk to you.” Harriet moved toward him the slightest fraction of an inch.

“HOW about THAT?” Sports father hung up the phone with a bang and, rushing over, hoisted Sport right up on his shoulders. “Wwwooooooowwwww!” he shouted, twirling Sport’s body in the air like a tennis racket. Then he swooped him down again and gave him a big hug. “Man! We’re in business! Shoes, and a real suit for you, and steak every night. Every night, ole Sport.” Sport giggled away happily. “Hi, there, Harriet. I didn’t see you. Whatdya think of that? I made it, baby, they’re giving me MONEY!”