Louise Fitzhugh - Harriet the Spy

She approached the house, looked through the kitchen windows, and saw the maid preparing a tray. She knew then that the next step would be to take the tray to the second floor. Not a moment to lose. The maid went into the pantry. Harriet stepped through the kitchen door and in one jump was in the dumbwaiter. She barely got the door slid down again before the maid was back in the room. The maid was humming “Miss Am-er-i-ker, look at her, Miss Amer-i-ker,” in a tuneless sort of way.

Then the tray was ready. The maid picked it up and left the room. Simultaneously Harriet started pulling on the ropes that hoisted the dumbwaiter. Terrified, she heard a lot of creaking. This would never do. Maybe she could bring some oil.

She arrived at the second floor. Her heart was beating so fast she was almost unable to breathe. She looked through the crack. The first thing she saw was a huge four-poster bed in the middle of which Mrs Plumber sat, propped against immense pillows, telephone in hand, surrounded by magazines, books, candy boxes, and a litter of pink baby pillows.

“Well,” Mrs Plumber was saying decisively into the telephone, “ I have discovered the secret of life .”

Wow, thought Harriet.

“My dear, it’s very simple, you just take to your bed . You just refuse to leave it for anything or anybody .”

Some secret, thought Harriet; that’s the dumbest thing I ever heard of. Harriet hated bed anyway. In and out was her motto, and the less time there the better.

“Oh, yes, darling, I know . I know you can’t run away from life, I agree with you. I loathe people that do that. But you see, I’m not . While I’m lying here I’m actually working because, you see, and this is the divine part, I’m deciding on a profession!”

You must be a hundred and two, thought Harriet; you better get going.

The maid came in with the tray. “Put it down there,” said Mrs Plumber rather crossly, then went back to the phone.

Harriet wrote in her notebook:

IT’S JUST WHAT OLE GOLLY SAYS. RICH PEOPLE ARE BORING. SHE SAYS WHEN PEOPLE DON’T DO ANYTHING THEY DON’T THINK ANYTHING, AND WHEN THEY DON’T THINK ANYTHING THERE’S NOTHING TO THINK ABOUT THEM. IF I HAD A DUMBWAITER I WOULD LOOK IN IT ALL THE TIME TO SEE IF ANYBODY WAS IN IT.

As though she were reading Harriet’s mind, Mrs Plumber said to the maid, “Did you hear a creak just now in that old dumbwaiter?”

“No, ma’am,” said the maid.

“It was probably my imagination.” She went back to the telephone. “My dear, I have infinite possibilities. Now don’t you think I would make a marv-e-llous actress? Or there’s painting ; I could paint . What do you think of that? … Well, darling, I’m only forty , think of Gauguin …”

Harriet started, very slowly, heart pounding, to pull the ropes that would start her downwards. It had occurred to her that she’d better exit while Mrs Plumber was blathering away or she would certainly be heard. There was a tiny creak as she got near the bottom, but she was fairly certain no one heard it. There, the main floor. She peeked into the kitchen. Empty. Could she make it? She scrambled down and ran for her life.

I have never run so fast, she thought as she careened around the corner. Panting, she sat on some steps and took out her book.

I THINK THIS MIGHT BE TOO DANGEROUS AN ASSIGNMENT. BUT I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW WHAT JOB SHE TAKES. BUT HOW CAN YOU WORK LYING DOWN? HOW DOES SHE PAY FOR ANYTHING JUST LYING THERE? I GUESS SHE JUST LIVES ON HER HUSBAND’S MONEY. DOES MY MOTHER MOOCH OFF MY FATHER? I’LL NEVER DO THAT. LOOK AT POOR SPORT. HE HAS TOO MUCH TO DO ALREADY WITHOUT ME LYING UP IN THE BED ALL DAY EATING.

Harriet had three more stops before she was finished for the day, but before she continued she decided to stop by and see Sport. On the way there she got thirsty and stopped in her favourite luncheonette for an egg cream. It was her favourite because it was there that she had first begun to hear what peculiar things people say to each other. She liked to sit at the counter with her egg cream and let the voices from the tables behind her float over her head. Several conversations were always going on at once. Sometimes she would play a game and not look at the people until from listening to them she had decided what they looked like. Then she would turn around and see if she were right.

“A chocolate egg cream, please.”

“Certainly, Harriet. How are you?”

“OK.” Harriet sat down, pleased that she was known. She put her twelve cents down and sipped away as she listened.

“My father is a rat.”

“So, I have to admit, I handled that case in a perfect way, a really perfect way. I said to the judge …”

“He’s a rat because he thinks he’s perfect.”

“Listen, Jane, we have to go to Orchard Street and get that material. I can’t live in that house one more minute without shades. Anyone could see in.”

Harriet had to restrain herself at this point from looking around at a new possibility for the spy route. If anyone could see in …

“You know, I’ve lost very few cases in my time, even if I do say so.”

“He’s such a rat he never lets my mother open her trap.”

Rat trap, thought Harriet.

“You have no idea what it’s like to hide all the time. Geez, I can’t even walk around in a slip.”

Her egg cream finished, Harriet summed up her guesses. The boy with the rat father would be skinny, have black hair, and a lot of pimples. The lawyer who won all his cases would be short, puffy-looking, and be leaning forward. She got no picture of the shadeless girl but decided that she must be fat. She turned around.

At first she couldn’t tell. Then she saw the boy with black hair and pimples. She felt a surge of triumph. She looked at what must be the lawyer, one of two men. Then she listened to see if he were the one. No, the other one was the lawyer. He wasn’t short and fat, he was long and thin, with a handsome face. She consoled herself with a faint puffiness he had around the eyes.

Well, no wonder she won’t walk around in a slip, Harriet thought, looking at the girl with no shades, she’s the fattest thing I ever saw.

Enough. Only two out of three. Some days were better than others. She slid off the stool and went on her way to Sport’s house. Sport lived in an apartment that was up four flights of stairs. He opened the door wearing an apron and carrying a dishtowel. “Hi, Harriet, come in, I just got to do these dishes.”

“Then whataya gonna do?”

“Then I sweep.”

“Aw, Sport, you got too much work to do.”

“Yeah, but what can I do? Somebody’s got to do it. Once I didn’t do it, and after a week I couldn’t find the living room.”

They went into the kitchen and Sport continued to do the dishes. Harriet pointed towards a closed door to the right of the kitchen. “Is he in there?”

“Yeah, he worked all night, so he’s sleeping. I got to go to the store and then get back in time to fix his dinner.”

“I couldn’t even fix dinner, much less for my father. How do you do it?”

“Well, lots of times, you know, it’s Eggsville.”

“Doesn’t he care what he eats?”

“Writers don’t care what they eat. They just care what you think of them. Here, Harriet, hold this.”

“I sure care what I eat.” Just as she was saying this, Harriet heard a loud groan from the bedroom. She almost dropped the plate. “Hey, what’s that?”

Sport looked totally unconcerned. “Nothing, just a bad dream. He has them all the time. Writers have a lot of bad dreams.”