Louise Fitzhugh - Harriet the Spy

WHAT IS IT LIKE TO HAVE BROTHERS AND SISTERS? ONE THING, WHENEVER THEY YELLED IT WOULDN’T ALWAYS BE AT YOU, SOMETIMES IT WOULD BE AT YOUR BROTHER THEN YOU COULD LAUGH.

WHAT IS TOO OLD TO HAVE FUN? YOU CAN’T BE TOO OLD TO SPY EXCEPT IF YOU WERE FIFTY YOU MIGHT FALL OFF A FIRE ESCAPE, BUT YOU COULD SPY AROUND ON THE GROUND A LOT.

Harriet closed her book and crept around the back to see what Little Joe Curry was doing. Little Joe Curry was the delivery boy for the Dei Santis and he was always up to one thing. He was always eating. It was strange the Dei Santis made any money at all the way Little Joe ate.

Harriet peeked in. He was sitting there now, when he should have been working, eating a pound of cheese. Next to him, waiting to be consumed, sat two cucumbers, three tomatoes, a loaf of bread, a custard pie, three quarts of milk, a meatball sandwich about two feet long, two jars – one of pickles, one of mayonnaise – four apples and a large salami. Harriet’s eyes widened and she wrote:

WHEN I LOOK AT HIM I COULD EAT A THOUSAND TOMATO SANDWICHES.

Harriet heard a little whispering noise in the alley. She knew who it was without even looking, because she was almost caught every day by the same people. Four skinny little kids appeared around the side of the house. They tiptoed up to the door and knocked discreetly. They were very poor children with torn dirty clothes and smudges all over their faces as though they were never washed. The oldest was around seven and the others were around four and five.

Little Joe opened the door. There wasn’t a word exchanged as he handed them a tomato, a quart of milk, half of the cheese, the loaf of bread, half the salami, half the custard pie, and two apples. They distributed these things among themselves to make for easy carrying and scooted away down the alley as silently as they had come.

Little Joe went back to his eating. Harriet felt funny watching the scene. She sighed a little, then creeping along under the windows, went on to her next stop.

That night as Harriet lay in her bathtub taking her bath before dinner she felt very happy. She had done a good day’s work. She listened to Ole Golly, who was going through Harriet’s closet taking out things that needed cleaning. Ole Golly was whistling. It was a cheery though tuneless sort of whistling which Harriet rather liked. The yellow paint on the tiny bathroom walls looked clean and happy. Harriet felt warm and sleepy in the hot water.

Suddenly, the front door banged downstairs and Harriet could hear her father’s voice.

“Finks, finks, double-barrelled rat, rat, rat, finks, finks, finks.” He sounded very angry. Harriet could tell from his voice that he had stormed up the steps to the library. “You won’t believe the iniquity … you will not believe when I tell you the unmitigated finkiness of those guys.”

Then Mrs Welsch’s voice, calm and comforting, obviously leading him to a chair. “What, darling? My heavens, what is it?”

“Well, mumble mumble, they’re just the worst mumble mumble. I just could not believe …”

“Darling, here, have your drink.”

Harriet was standing up in the bathtub, she was trying so hard to hear.

“What did you do today, Harriet?”

How annoying. Ole Golly had chosen this time to start a conversation. Harriet pretended not to hear as she kept listening.

“That mumble, he’s an absolutely inspired fink, that’s what he is, a real mumble I tell you, I never saw a mumble like him.”

“Did you take a lot of notes?” Harriet tried to crane her ears past Ole Golly’s question. Would she just shut up a minute?

“Darling, that’s terrible, simply mumble.”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do. They’re really going to mumble it up. If anything it’ll be the worst show of the season. They’re real mumbles, they are.”

“What are you doing, Harriet M. Welsch, standing up in that bathtub?” Ole Golly looked exceedingly fierce. “Sit down there this minute and I’ll wash your back. Look at those ears. Do you perhaps pour ink into them?”

“No, they itch a lot.”

“That doesn’t mean a thing, all that noise downstairs.”

“Well, I’d like to hear it all the same.”

“Your father has a very high-pressure job, that’s all.”

“What’s a high-pressure job?”

“It means he’s not allowed to do exactly what he wants with the job, and what he is allowed to do he isn’t given enough time to do it in.”

“Oh,” said Harriet, thinking, What does that mean? “Do spies have high pressure?”

“Oh, yes, if they get caught.”

“I’m never caught.”

“Not yet.”

“Ole Golly, are you ever going away?”

“When you get so big you don’t need me, yes, but not right this minute. You’re getting pretty old though,” Ole Golly said, surveying Harriet critically.

There was a pause, then Harriet said, “Ole Golly, do you have a boyfriend?”

“Yes,” said Ole Golly and looked away.

“ YES! ” Harriet almost fainted into her bath water.

“Yes,” said Ole Golly with dignity. “Now time for bed.”

There was a pause and then Harriet asked, “It’s unsanitary to have a lot of cats in the house, isn’t it?”

Ole Golly looked rather startled. “I always think of cats as rather clean, but then, a lot of cats … How many cats?”

“I think twenty-five, but I’m not sure. They move around a lot.”

“ Twenty-five? Here’s your towel. Who do you know with twenty-five cats?”

“Oh, somebody.” Harriet adored being mysterious.

“Who?”

“Oh, just somebody.” And Harriet smiled to herself.

Ole Golly knew better than to pursue it. She always said that privacy was very important, especially to spies.

When Harriet was all through with her dinner and bundled off to bed she began to think of Harrison Withers and all his cats. Harrison Withers lived on Eighty-second at the top of a dilapidated rooming house. He had two rooms, one for him and one for the cats. In his room he had a bed, a chair, a work table at which he made birdcages, and a whole wall of birdcage-making tools. In the other room there was nothing but the cats. In the kitchen there was one glass, one cup, and twenty-six plates all stacked up.

It suddenly occurred to Harriet to wonder if he ate exactly the same food as the cats, or different food. She must find out tomorrow. She could find out by following him around the supermarket. She fell asleep contentedly. Right before she fell asleep she wondered who in the world Ole Golly’s boyfriend was.

THE NEXT AFTERNOON, after her cake and milk, Harriet went straight to Mrs Plumber’s house. She knew it was dangerous, but once her curiosity was aroused she had never been able to give up a spot on her route. As she got to the house she saw Little Joe Curry in conversation with the maid. She sidled around the front, took a ball from her pocket that she always carried for such moments, and began to engage in an innocent-looking game of ball right in front of them.

Little Joe was leaning against the door. He always looked tired when he wasn’t eating. The maid sounded very aggravated. “Haven’t got the change. She went off left me without a cent.”

“Well, when will she be back? I could come back.”

“Lord knows. When she go to Elizabeth Arden she sometimes gone all day. Lot of work to do on her, you know.” The maid giggled nastily.

“Man, she got all that jack and don’t pay. They all alike – more they got, less they pay.” And with that pronouncement Little Joe shuffled off back for his afternoon snack.