Harriet Spies Again by Helen Ericson

Author:Helen Ericson [Ericson, Helen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Harriet the Spy (Fictitious character), Detective and mystery stories, Girls & Women, Spies, Mystery & Detective, True Crime, Juvenile Fiction, New York (N.Y.), Nannies, Mysteries & Detective Stories, General, Fiction, Interpersonal relations, Humorous stories, Schools, Classics, Friendship, Espionage, Mystery and detective stories
ISBN: 9780440416883
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2003-08-25T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 8

Harriet sighed and unrolled her time line. It was now a good three feet longer than it had been originally, as Harriet had been forced to tape on several more pages. Certain pivotal events simply could not go unrecorded. Its edges were a little frayed from all the rolling and unrolling. She had wanted it to remain crisp and neat, filled with fascinating reminders of her twelve years of life—well, twelve next week, just before Halloween—but it hadn’t worked out that way. Some of the ink had smeared. There was a footprint on the entry of her poison ivy at age nine. And somehow a raisin had been smashed and stuck to the section marked EARLY CHILDHOOD SUCCESSES, where she had briefly noted her mastery of reading at age five, as well as her amazing ability—at three and four—to hold her breath for long periods of time, even though she had had an argument with Ole Golly about that notation.

“I’d hardly call that a success,” Ole Golly had said, looking down at the breath-holding entry. “They were tantrums. You kicked your feet and held your breath until you turned blue. Your mother always wanted to call an ambulance, but I told her that it was simply a kind of manipulation.”

“But remember you timed me in the bathtub? And I put my head underwater and stayed for an astounding length of time?”

“That was much later, Harriet. You were at least eight. You had fins and a snorkel.”

When Harriet thought about it, she realized that Ole Golly was, not surprisingly, correct. She usually was. But the breath-holding notation was written in permanent marker—Ultra Fine Sharpie—so it couldn’t be changed.

Carefully Harriet peeled the squashed raisin away and glared with distaste at the small stain it had left. She weighted the BIRTH end of the time line and crawled beside the length of the unrolled paper until she reached AGE TWELVE at the other end, which extended through the door of her bedroom into the hall. She lifted one leg of the telephone table and placed it on a corner of the paper to keep it flat. Then she stared at TWELFTH BIRTHDAY, wondering what events she might list, even though the birthday itself was still a week away.

Previous birthday notations included

SIXTH: CHICKEN POX; FIFTH: TRIP TO CIRCUS

with a subheading:

THREW UP ON FATHER’S TROUSERS (MIXTURE OF CRACKER JACK AND LEMONADE)

and

ELEVENTH: VISIT TO HARDWARE STORE WITH AUTHORIZED CHARGING PRIVILEGES (PURCHASE OF COMPLETE SET OF SPYING EQUIPMENT, INCLUDING BOY SCOUT KNIFE WITH SCREWDRIVER AND FLASHLIGHT WITH BLINKING AND FILTERING CAPACITY).

Recalling her eleventh birthday, just a year ago minus one week, Harriet smiled happily. Fondly she felt her tool belt—purchased on that birthday along with the spying tools, all of it on her father’s charge account, and with his permission—and the loop that just fit the dangling flashlight, though it was not dangling there at the moment. Harriet kept the flashlight in the drawer of her bedside table when she didn’t need it.

A shadow fell across

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.