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“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.
“Dostoyevsky.”
“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. “Set 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. “Goodbye, goodbye,” 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 girls’ 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 beside 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 towards 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 towards 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 afterwards 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.
Miss Elson stood at her desk. She was their homeroom teacher. Harriet looked at her curiously, then wrote:
I THINK MISS ELSON IS ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE YOU DON’T BOTHER TO THINK ABOUT TWICE.
She slammed the notebook shut as though she had put Miss Elson in a box and slammed the lid. Miss Elson called the roll and her voice squeaked: “Andrews, Gibbs, Hansen, Hawthorne, Hennessey, Matthews, Peters, Rocque, Welsch, Whitehead.”
Everyone said, “Here,” dutifully.
“And now, children, we will have the election for officer. Are there any nominations?”
Sport leaped to his feet. “I nominate Harriet Welsch.”
Janie yelled, “I second it.” They always did this every year because the one that was officer controlled everything. When the teacher went out of the room the officer could write down the names of anyone who was disorderly. The officer also got to be the editor of the Sixth Grade Page in the school paper.
Rachel Hennessey got up. “I nominate Marion Hawthorne,” she said in her prissiest voice.
Marion Hawthorne shot Beth Ellen Hansen a look that made Harriet’s hair stand on end. Beth Ellen looked terrified, then got timidly to her feet and, almost whispering, managed to stammer, “I second it.” It was rigged, the whole thing, every year. There were no more nominations and then came the vote. Marion Hawthorne got it. Every year either Marion or Rachel Hennessey got it. Harriet wrote in her book:
YOU’D THINK THE TEACHERS WOULD SMELL A RAT BECAUSE IT’S FIVE YEARS NOW AND NEITHER ME NOR SPORT NOR JANIE HAS EVER GOTTEN IT.
Marion Hawthorne looked terribly smug. Sport, Janie, and Harriet scowled at each other. Janie whispered, “Our day will come. Just wait.” Harriet wondered if she meant that when she blew up the world Marion Hawthorne would see what they were made of. Or maybe Janie meant to blow up Marion Hawthorne first, which wasn’t a bad idea.
It was finally three thirty-seven and school was over. Sport came up to Harriet. “Hey, whyncha come over this afternoon?”
“After the spy route, maybe, if I’ve got time.”
“Aw, gee, Janie’s working in the lab. You both are always working.”
“Why don’t you practise? How’re you ever going to be a ball player?”
“Can’t. Have to clean the house. Come over if you get time.”
Harriet said, “OK,” then “goodbye,” and ran towards the house. It was time for her cake and milk. Every day at three-forty she had cake and milk. Harriet loved doing everything every day in the same way.
“Time for my cake, for my cake and milk, time for my milk and cake.” She ran yelling through the front door of her house. She ran through the front hall past the dining room and the living room and down the steps into the kitchen. There she ran smack into the cook.
