Jacob Two-Two-'s First Spy Case

CHAPTER 1

nce there was a boy called Jacob Two-Two. He was two times two times two years old. He had two older sisters, Emma and Marfa, and two older brothers, Daniel and Noah. He was nicknamed Two-Two because, as he himself admitted, “I am the littlest in the family. Nobody hears what I say the first time. They only pay attention if I say things two times.”

Jacob Two-Two used to live in a rambling old house on Kingston Hill, in Surrey, England, but one day his family sailed across the ocean on a big ship and moved into another rambling old house, this one in Montreal, Canada, where Jacob Two-Two's
parents had been born in what Marfa called olden times.

“You'll never believe this, Jacob,” said Emma, “but when Mummy and Daddy were kids there was no television, or jet airplanes, or computer games, or even take-out pizza.”

“Nobody had heard of the Rolling Stones yet,” said Daniel.

“And in those bygone days,” said Noah, “only farmers wore jeans. How about that, Jacob?”

“Well, I don't know,” said Jacob Two-Two, because he could never be sure that Noah was telling the truth. Once, when Jacob was a mere two plus two years old, Noah had led him to the globe of the world in his father's library, pointed out Australia on the bottom, and told him that the upsidedown people in that country had to wear special magnetic shoes lest they fall into outer space, landing – bumpety-bump – on the planet Venus, where little kids who were still too young to be allowed to watch a horror movie on tv, ride a two-wheel bike, or stay home alone, had to serve breakfast in bed to their older brothers and sisters every morning.

“Or the planet Pluto,” said Marfa, “where all that the youngest in the family ever got to eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner was broccoli.”

“Yuck,” said Jacob Two-Two. “Yuck.”

The older he got, it seemed to Jacob Two-Two, the more difficult and complicated his life became. Once he had been appreciated, but not any longer. In the good old days, before he was even two plus two years old, all he had to do to amaze everybody in the family was to use a knife and fork, or tie his own shoelaces, but these achievements were no longer considered such a big deal. Nowadays he was expected to run errands, rake leaves in autumn and shovel a path through the snow in winter, help clear the table after dinner without breaking a plate, and put away his toys at night. He was expected to do all these things, but his two older brothers and two older sisters still considered him to be a nuisance.

Daniel would kick him out of the living room whenever his friends came round to listen to records or just to shoot the breeze.

“Why can't I stay?” Jacob Two-Two would ask twice.

“Because we'd have to watch what we were saying if there was an innocent kid in the room.”

Marfa wouldn't allow him into her bedroom if she was going to paint her toenails or try out different
hairstyles in the mirror, which seemed to be most of the time.

Noah and Emma wouldn't let him into their
CHILD POWER
Command Tent in the backyard unless he paid an entry fee. There they would sit, those two bigshots, wearing bath towels draped over their shoulders like capes, plastic swords fastened to their belts, drinking cranberry juice out of a wine bottle left over from their parents' last dinner party, pretending to be the dynamic duo, the fearless O'Toole and the intrepid Shapiro, who struck fear into the hearts of big people who didn't like children.

“May I come in?” Jacob Two-Two asked one afternoon. “May I come in?”

“That depends,” said Emma.

“What did you bring us?” asked Noah.

“I've got two slices of Mummy's apple turnover cake.”

“Did you bring forks?”

“I forgot.”

“Can't you do
anything
right, Jacob?”

No. Or so it seemed to Jacob Two-Two. And nowadays he also had to stick up for his parents, whom he loved, to Daniel, Noah, Emma, and Marfa.

“They're always going kissy-kissy in the kitchen,” said Marfa, “
at their age
.”

“So what?” said Jacob Two-Two. “So what?”

“They're so boring,” said Daniel.

“Why do you say that?” asked Jacob Two-Two. “Why?”

“I have to apologize for Mummy at school,” said Emma, “because she hasn't got a career, but is always at home teaching us things, reading us stories, cooking and stuff.”

“What's wrong with that?” asked Jacob Two-Two.

“It's disgustingly old-fashioned,” said Marfa, “but you're still too young to understand such things.”

“And Daddy doesn't even go to work like real dads,” said Noah. “Instead he's always banging away on that prehistoric typewriter of his upstairs.”

He worked very hard, said Jacob Two-Two's mother, to provide for them. But one day when Jacob climbed up to his father's office, which was on the top floor of the house, to investigate …
he found him snoring on his sofa
.

“I thought you worked very hard in here to provide for us,” said Jacob Two-Two.

“Oh, but I do,” said his father, rubbing his eyes.

“You were asleep,” said Jacob Two-Two. “You were asleep.”

“I was only pretending to be asleep,” said his father. “Actually, I was thinking, which is a big part of a writer's job.”

“What's a writer?” asked Jacob Two-Two twice.

“Well now,” said his father, settling in at his desk and lifting Jacob Two-Two onto his lap, “the truth is I'm a master of magic, sort of.”

“How come? How come?”

“Count the letters on my typewriter, Jacob.”

There were twenty-six.

“Every morning I come up here,” said his father, “toss these letters up into the air, and when they come down again I sort them out, and then there's enough money to buy hot dogs, cross-country skis, ice cream, red roses for Mummy, and maybe enough left over for a bottle of decent single-malt whisky for your devoted, ever-loving, incomparable Dad.”

The very next day a reporter from Montreal's
Daily Doze
came to interview Jacob Two-Two's father about his latest book. Pretending to be modest, which was awfully difficult for him, Jacob Two-Two's father
told the reporter, “My new book is the best I could do, given my limited abilities.” But when the reporter, escorted by Jacob Two-Two's father, passed through the living room, he paused and asked Jacob, “What's it like being the son of a scribbler, kiddo?”

“My daddy's no scribbler,” said Jacob Two-Two. “He's a master of magic.”

“Oh, yeah,” snarled the reporter. “How come?”

“There are only twenty-six letters on his typewriter,” said Jacob Two-Two. “And every morning he tosses them into the air, and when they land he just sorts them out and then there's enough money to buy himself a bottle of whisky and some things for us.”

The headline on the book page of the next morning's
Daily Doze
read:

Alongside, there was a cartoon of Jacob Two-Two's tottering father, wearing a magician's tattered robes, holding a broken wand in one hand and a bottle of whisky in the other.

“Oooh,” said Jacob Two-Two's father, rocking his head in his hands. “After all the sacrifices I've made for you, Jake, look what you've gone and done.”

“Serves you right for being such a braggart,” said Jacob Two-Two's mother.

Daniel, Noah, Emma, and Marfa agreed. But Jacob Two-Two was tearful. Once more he had meant well but had done something wrong. “I'm sorry, Daddy. Really I am.”

“Oh well, I guess I'll drive you to school anyway,” said his father, taking Jacob Two-Two by the hand.

No sooner did they open the front door than they were greeted by a surprise. A moving van was parked in front of the house next door, which had been vacant for months. Jacob Two-Two and his father watched, spellbound, as the movers began to unload items which seemed very unusual, to say the least. Three crates of carrier pigeons. A huge telescope. A clothing rack, possibly ten feet long, laden with military uniforms from all nations as well as other costumes. A trunk so heavy it had to be carried by two men:
SECRET CODES, EYES ONLY
was imprinted on its side. Not one, not two, but three barrels
labeled
. An enormous crate marked
MILITARY SECRETS AT REDUCED PRICES
, another marked
DISGUISES
, and a third identified only by the warning
KEEP TIGHTLY SEALED AT ALL TIMES
. Then a wiry old man, his smile jolly, leaped out of the cab of the moving van. He was wearing a pith helmet, a safari suit, and jungle boots.