Harriet the Spy (2 page)

“Wherecha get these lil things?” Her cheer rang out all over the neighborhood. “This the lil Welsch baby? That her brother?”

Sport giggled.

“No, it’s my husband,” Harriet shouted.

Ole Golly turned a grim face. “Don’t be snarky, Harriet, and don’t think you’re such a wit either.”

The fat lady laughed, making her face fall in lumps again. She looks like dough, Harriet thought, about to be made into a big round Italian loaf. She wanted to tell Sport this, but Ole Golly was leading them in, all of them squeezing past that mountain of a stomach because the fat lady stood, rather stupidly, in the doorway.

Ole Golly marched to the teakettle and put a fire under it. Then she turned in a businesslike way and introduced them. “Children, this is my mother, Mrs. Golly. Mother—you can close the door now, Mother. This is Harriet Welsch.”

“Harriet M. Welsch,” Harriet corrected.

“You know perfectly well you have no middle name, but if you insist, Harriet M. Welsch. And this is Sport. What’s your last name, Sport?”

“Rocque. Simon Rocque.” He pronounced it Rock.

“Simon, Simon, hee, hee, hee.” Harriet felt very ugly all of a sudden.

“You are not to make fun of anyone’s name.” Ole Golly loomed over Harriet and it was one of those times when Harriet knew she meant it.

“I take it back,” Harriet said quickly.

“That’s better.” Ole Golly turned away cheerfully. “Now let’s all sit down and have some tea.”

“Waal, ain’t she a cute lil thing.” Harriet could see that Mrs. Golly was still hung up on the introductions. She stood like a mountain, her big ham hands dangling helplessly at her sides.

“Sit down, Mother,” Ole Golly said gently, and Mrs. Golly sat.

Harriet and Sport looked at each other. The same thought was occurring to both of them. This fat lady wasn’t very bright.

Mrs. Golly sat to the left of Harriet. She leaned over Harriet, in fact, and looked directly into her eyes. Harriet felt like something in a zoo.

“Now, Harriet, look around you,” Ole Golly said sternly as she poured the tea. “I brought you here because you’ve never seen the inside of a house like this. Have you ever seen a house that has one bed, one table, four chairs, and a bathtub in the kitchen?”

Harriet had to move her chair back to see around Mrs. Golly, who leaned toward her, motionless, still looking. The room
was
a strange one. There was a sad little rug next to the stove. Harrison Withers has only a bed and a table, Harriet thought to herself. But since she didn’t want Ole Golly to know she had been peering through Harrison Withers’ skylight, she said nothing.

“I didn’t think you had,” said Ole Golly. “Look around. And drink your tea, children. You may have more milk and sugar if I haven’t put enough.”

“I don’t drink tea,” Sport said timidly.

Ole Golly shot an eye at him. “What do you mean you don’t drink tea?”

“I mean I never have.”

“You mean you’ve never tasted it?”

“No,” said Sport and looked a little terrified.

Harriet looked at Ole Golly. Ole Golly wore an arch expression which signified that she was about to quote.

“‘There are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.”’ Ole Golly said this steadily and sedately, then leaned back in her chair with a satisfied look at Sport. Sport looked completely blank.

“Henry James,” said Ole Golly, “1843–1916. From
Portrait of a Lady
.”

“What’s that?” Sport asked Harriet.

“A novel, silly,” said Harriet.

“Oh, like my father writes,” said Sport, and dismissed the whole thing.

“My dotter’s a smart one,” mumbled Mrs. Golly, still looking straight at Harriet.

“Behold, Harriet,” Ole Golly said, “a woman who never had any interest in anyone else, nor in any book, nor in any school, nor in any way of life, but has lived her whole life in this room, eating and sleeping and waiting to die.”

Harriet stared at Mrs. Golly in horror. Should Ole Golly be saying these things? Wouldn’t Mrs. Golly get mad? But Mrs. Golly just sat looking contentedly at Harriet. Perhaps, thought Harriet, she forgets to turn her head away from something unless she is told.

“Try it, Sport, it’s good.” Harriet spoke to Sport quickly in an effort to change the subject.

Sport took a sip. “It’s not bad,” he said weakly.

“Try everything, Sport, at least once.” Ole Golly said this as though her mind weren’t really on it. Harriet looked at her curiously. Ole Golly was acting very strangely indeed. She seemed… was she angry? No, not angry. She seemed sad. Harriet realized with a start that it was the first time she had ever seen Ole Golly look sad. She hadn’t even known Ole Golly
could
be sad.

Almost as though she were thinking the same thing, Ole Golly suddenly shook her head and sat up straight. “Well,” she said brightly, “I think we have had enough tea and enough sights for one day. I think we had better go home now.”

The most extraordinary thing happened next. Mrs. Golly leaped to her fat feet and threw her teacup down on the floor. “You’re always leaving. You’re always leaving,” she screamed.

“Now, Mother,” Ole Golly said calmly.

Mrs. Golly hopped around the middle of the floor like a giant doll. She made Harriet think of those balloons, blown up like people, that bounce on the end of a string. Sport giggled suddenly. Harriet felt like giggling but wasn’t sure she should.

Mrs. Golly bobbed away. “Just come here to leave me again. Always leaving. Thought you’d come for good this time.”

“Now, Mother,” Ole Golly said again, but this time got to her feet, walked to her mother, and laid a firm hand on the bouncing shoulder. “Mother,” she said gently, “you know I’ll be here next week.”

“Oh, that’s right,” said Mrs. Golly. She stopped jumping immediately and gave a big smile to Harriet and Sport.

“Oh, boy,” said Sport under his breath.

Harriet sat fascinated. Then Ole Golly got them all bundled into their clothes and they were outside on the street again, having waved to a cheerful Mrs. Golly. They walked along through the darkening day.

“Boy, oh, boy” was all Sport could say.

Harriet couldn’t wait to get back to her room to finish her notes.

Ole Golly looked steadily ahead. There was no expression on her face at all.

W
hen Harriet was ready for bed that night, she took out her notebook. She had a lot to think about. Tomorrow was the beginning of school. Tomorrow she would have a quantity of notes to take on the changes that had taken place in her friends over the summer. Tonight she wanted to think about Mrs. Golly.

I THINK THAT LOOKING AT MRS. GOLLY MUST MAKE OLE GOLLY SAD. MY MOTHER ISN’T AS SMART AS OLE GOLLY BUT SHE’S NOT AS DUMB AS MRS. GOLLY. I WOULDN’T LIKE TO HAVE A DUMB MOTHER. IT MUST MAKE YOU FEEL VERY UNPOPULAR. I THINK I WOULD LIKE TO WRITE A STORY ABOUT MRS. GOLLY GETTING RUN OVER BY A TRUCK EXCEPT SHE’S SO
FAT I WONDER WHAT WOULD HAPPEN TO THE TRUCK. I HAD BETTER CHECK ON THAT. I WOULD NOT LIKE TO LIVE LIKE MRS. GOLLY BUT I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW WHAT GOES ON IN HER HEAD.

Harriet put the book down and ran in to Ole Golly’s room to kiss her good night. Ole Golly sat in a rocker in the light of an overhead lamp, reading. Harriet flew into the room and bounded right into the center of the billowy yellow quilt which covered the single bed. Everything in the room was yellow, from the walls to the vase of chrysanthemums. Ole Golly “took to” yellow, as she put it.

“Take your feet off the bed,” Ole Golly said without looking up.

“What does your mother think about?” asked Harriet.

“I don’t know,” said Ole Golly in a musing way, still looking at her book. “I’ve wondered that for years.”

“What are you reading?” Harriet asked.

“Dostoievsky.”

“What’s
that
?” asked Harriet in a thoroughly obnoxious way.

“Listen to this,” Ole Golly said and got that quote look on her face: “‘Love all God’s creation, the whole and every grain of sand in it. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love.”’

“What does that mean?” Harriet asked after she had been quiet a minute. “What do you think it means?”

“Well, maybe if you love everything, then… then—I guess you’ll know everything… then… seems like… you love everything more. I don’t know. Well, that’s about it.…” Ole Golly looked at Harriet in as gentle a way as she could considering the fact that her face looked like it was cut out of oak.

“I want to know everything, everything,” screeched Harriet suddenly, lying back and bouncing up and down on the bed. “Everything in the world, everything, everything. I will be a spy and know everything.”

“It won’t do you a bit of good to know everything if you don’t do anything with it. Now get up, Miss Harriet the Spy, you’re going to sleep now.” And with that Ole Golly marched over and grabbed Harriet by the ear.

“Ouch,” said Harriet as she was led to her room, but it really didn’t hurt.

“There now, into bed.”

“Will Mommy and Daddy be home in time to kiss me good night?”

“They will not,” said Ole Golly as she tucked Harriet in. “They went to a party. You’ll see them in the morning at breakfast. Now to sleep, instantly—”

“Hee, hee,” said Harriet, “instant sleep.”

“And not another word out of you. Tomorrow you go back to school.” Ole Golly leaned over and gave her a hard little peck on the forehead. Ole Golly was never very kissy, which Harriet thought was just as well, as she hated it. Ole Golly turned the light out and Harriet listened to her go back into her room which was right across the hall, pick up her book, and sit down in the rocker again. Then Harriet did what she always did when she was supposed to be asleep. She got out her flashlight, put the book she was currently reading under the covers, and read happily until Ole Golly came in and took the flashlight away as she did every night.

The next morning Mrs. Welsch asked, “Wouldn’t you like to try a ham sandwich, or egg salad, or peanut butter?” Her mother looked quizzically at Harriet while the cook stood next to the table looking enraged.

“Tomato,” said Harriet, not even looking up from the book she was reading at breakfast.

“Stop reading at the table.” Harriet put the book down. “Listen, Harriet, you’ve taken a tomato sandwich to school every day for five years. Don’t you get tired of them?”

“No.”

“How about cream cheese and olive?”

Harriet shook her head. The cook threw up one arm in despair.

“Pastrami? Roast beef? Cucumber?”

“Tomato.”

Mrs. Welsch raised her shoulders and looked helplessly at the cook. The cook grimaced. “Sot in her ways,” the cook said firmly and left the room. Mrs. Welsch took a sip of coffee. “Are you looking forward to school?”

“Not particularly.”

Mr. Welsch put the paper down and looked at his daughter. “Do you like school?”

“No,” said Harriet.

“I always hated it,” said Mr. Welsch and went back behind the paper.

“Dear, you mustn’t say things like that. I rather liked it—that is, when I was eleven I did.” Mrs. Welsch looked at Harriet as though expecting an answer.

Harriet didn’t know what she felt about school.

“Drink your milk,” said Mrs. Welsch. Harriet always waited until her mother said this, no matter how thirsty she was. It made her feel comfortable to have her mother remind her. She drank her milk, wiped her mouth sedately, and got up from the table. Ole Golly came into the room on her way to the kitchen.

“What do you say when you get up from the table, Harriet?” Mrs. Welsch asked absentmindedly.

“Excuse me,” said Harriet.

“Good manners are very important, particularly in the morning,” snapped Ole Golly as she went through the door. Ole Golly was always horribly grumpy in the morning.

Harriet ran very fast all the way up to her room. “I’m starting the sixth grade,” she yelled, just to keep herself company. She got her notebook, slammed her door, and thundered down the steps. “Good-by, good-by,” she yelled, as though she were going to Africa, and slammed out the front door.

Harriet’s school was called The Gregory School, having been founded by a Miss Eleanore Gregory around the turn of the century. It was on East End Avenue, a few blocks from Harriet’s house and across the street from Carl Schurz Park. Harriet skipped away down East End Avenue, hugging her notebook happily.

At the entrance to her school a group of children crowded through the door. More stood around on the sidewalk. They were all shapes and sizes and mostly girls because The Gregory School was a girl’s school. Boys were allowed to attend up through the sixth grade, but after that they had to go someplace else.

It made Harriet sad to think that after this year Sport wouldn’t be in school. She didn’t care about the others. In particular about Pinky Whitehead she didn’t care, because she thought he was the dumbest thing in the world. The only other boy in her class was a boy Harriet had christened The Boy with the Purple Socks, because he was so boring no one ever bothered to remember his name. He had come to the school last year and everyone else had been there since the first grade. Harriet remembered that first day when he had come in with those purple socks on. Whoever heard of purple socks? She figured it was lucky he wore them; otherwise no one would have even known he was there at all. He never said a word.

Sport came up to her as she leaned against a fire hydrant and opened her notebook. “Hi,” he said.

“Hi.”

“Anyone else here yet?”

“Just that dumb boy with the purple socks.”

Harriet wrote quickly in her notebook:

SOMETIMES SPORT LOOKS AS THOUGH HE’S BEEN UP ALL NIGHT. HE HAS FUNNY LITTLE DRY THINGS AROUND HIS EYES. I WORRY ABOUT HIM.

“Sport, did you wash your face?”

“Huh? Uh… no, I forgot.”

“Hmmmm,” Harriet said disapprovingly, and Sport looked away. Actually Harriet hadn’t washed hers either, but you couldn’t tell it.

“Hey, there’s Janie.” Sport pointed up the street.

Janie Gibbs was Harriet’s best friend besides Sport. She had a chemistry set and planned one day to blow up the world. Both Harriet and Sport had a great respect for Janie’s experiments, but they didn’t understand a word she said about them.

Janie came slowly toward them, her eyes apparently focused on a tree across the street in the park. She looked odd walking that way, her head turned completely to the right like a soldier on parade. Both Sport and Harriet knew she did this because she was shy and didn’t want to see anyone, so they didn’t mention it.

She almost bumped into them.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

That over, they all stood there.

“Oh, dear,” said Janie, “another year. Another year older and I’m no closer to my goal.”

Sport and Harriet nodded seriously. They watched a long black limousine driven by a chauffeur. It stopped in front of the school. A small blonde girl got out.

“There’s that dreadful Beth Ellen Hansen,” said Janie with a sneer. Beth Ellen was the prettiest girl in the class, so everyone despised her, particularly Janie, who was rather plain and freckled.

Harriet took some notes:

JANIE GETS STRANGER EVERY YEAR. I THINK SHE
MIGHT
BLOW UP THE WORLD, BETH ELLEN ALWAYS LOOKS LIKE SHE MIGHT CRY.

Rachel Hennessey and Marion Hawthorne came walking up together. They were always together. “Good morning, Harriet, Simon, Jane,” Marion Hawthorne said very formally. She acted like a teacher, as though she were one minute from rapping on the desk for attention. Rachel did everything Marion did, so now she looked down her nose at them and nodded hello, one quick jerk of the head. The two of them went into the school then.

“Are they not too much?” Janie said and looked away in disgust.

Carrie Andrews got off the bus. Harriet wrote:

CARRIE ANDREWS IS CONSIDERABLY FATTER THIS YEAR.

Laura Peters got out of the station wagon bus. Harriet wrote:

AND LAURA PETERS IS THINNER AND UGLIER. I THINK SHE COULD USE SOME BRACES ON HER TEETH.

“Oh, boy,” said Sport. They looked and there was Pinky Whitehead. Pinky was so pale, thin, and weak that he looked like a glass of milk, a tall thin glass of milk. Sport couldn’t bear to look at him. Harriet turned away from habit, then looked back to see if he had changed. Then she wrote:

PINKY WHITEHEAD HAS NOT CHANGED. PINKY WHITEHEAD WILL NEVER CHANGE.

Harriet consulted her mental notes on Pinky. He lived on Eighty-eighth Street. He had a very beautiful mother, a father who worked on a magazine, and a baby sister three years old. Harriet wrote:

MY MOTHER IS ALWAYS SAYING PINKY WHITEHEAD’S WHOLE PROBLEM IS HIS MOTHER. I BETTER ASK HER WHAT THAT MEANS OR I’LL NEVER FIND OUT. DOES HIS MOTHER HATE HIM? IF I HAD HIM I’D HATE HIM.

“Well, it’s time to go in,” said Sport in a tired voice.

“Yeah, let’s get this over with,” said Janie and turned toward the door.

Harriet closed her notebook and they all went in. Their first period was Assembly in the big study hall.

Miss Angela Whitehead, the present dean, stood at the podium. Harriet scribbled in her notebook as soon as she took her seat:

MISS WHITEHEAD’S FEET LOOK LARGER THIS YEAR. MISS WHITEHEAD HAS BUCK TEETH, THIN HAIR, FEET LIKE SKIS, AND A VERY LONG HANGING STOMACH. OLE GOLLY SAYS DESCRIPTION IS GOOD FOR THE SOUL AND CLEARS THE BRAIN LIKE A LAXATIVE. THAT SHOULD TAKE CARE OF MISS WHITEHEAD.

“Good morning, children.” Miss Whitehead bowed as gracefully as a pussy willow. The students rose in a shuffling body. “Good morning, Miss Whitehead,” they intoned, an undercurrent of grumbling rising immediately afterward like a second theme. Miss Whitehead made a short speech about gum and candy wrappers being thrown all over the school. She didn’t see any reason for this. Then followed the readings. Every morning two or three older girls read short passages from books, usually the Bible. Harriet never listened. She got enough quotes from Ole Golly. She used this time to write in her book:

OLE GOLLY SAYS THERE IS AS MANY WAYS TO LIVE AS THERE ARE PEOPLE ON THE EARTH AND I SHOULDN’T GO ROUND WITH BLINDERS BUT SHOULD SEE EVERY WAY I CAN. THEN I’LL KNOW WHAT WAY I WANT TO LIVE AND NOT JUST LIVE LIKE MY FAMILY.

I’LL TELL YOU ONE THING, I DON’T WANT TO LIVE LIKE MISS WHITEHEAD. THE OTHER DAY I SAW
HER IN THE GROCERY STORE AND SHE BOUGHT ONE SMALL CAN OF TUNA, ONE DIET COLA, AND A PACKAGE OF CIGARETTES. NOT EVEN ONE TOMATO. SHE MUST HAVE A TERRIBLE LIFE. I CAN’T WAIT TO GET BACK TO MY REGULAR SPY ROUTE THIS AFTERNOON. I’VE BEEN AWAY ALL SUMMER AND THOSE HOUSES IN THE COUNTRY ARE TOO FAR AWAY FROM EACH OTHER. TO GET MUCH DONE I WOULD HAVE TO DRIVE.

Assembly was over. The class got up and filed into the sixth-grade room. Harriet grabbed a desk right across the aisle one way from Sport and the other way from Janie.

“Hey!” Sport said because he was glad. If they hadn’t been able to grab these desks, it would have been hard passing notes.