Harriet the Spy, Double Agent by Maya Gold

Author:Maya Gold [Gold, Maya]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780307421098
Publisher: Yearling
Published: 2007-04-18T12:45:17+00:00

Chapter 7

Harriet woke up the next day with her mind full of questions. She looked at the flashlight on her night table, which the night before had flashed its usual nine-thirty semaphore, just as if nothing were different. Everything’s different, she thought. Her parents had been upset with her lengthy midday disappearance (though not as upset as they would have been if they’d known where she had gone, she consoled herself). Harriet had had enough presence of mind to place a call to Janie, urging her to say, if and when questioned, that they’d been together.

“Where were you really?” Janie had asked.

“That’s classified. Urgent spy business.”

“Oh.” Janie’s voice flattened. “That.” But she had agreed to hold up the story, so Harriet’s only transgression was not having let her parents know in advance where she’d be for three hours. For this, she’d been grounded, and had to spend all day in her house doing homework, no TV, no phone calls. It would be a dull Sunday.

Good time to catch up on my notebooks, she thought. Sometimes Harriet liked to sit down and reread a volume or two to see if she’d failed to report anything of significance. Now she resolved to go all the way back to the first time she’d met Annie, aka Rosarita Sauvage.

Harriet brushed her teeth, dressed, and went down to the kitchen for breakfast.

Morning light slanted in from the street-level windows in front and the snow-covered garden in back. She poured cornflakes into her favorite bowl and reached into the fruit bowl for a banana. On the counter beside it, she spotted a letter in Ole Golly’s unmistakable back-slanted handwriting, with the dark and light strokes of a chiseled calligraphy pen. It must have arrived in yesterday’s mail, she thought. Why didn’t anyone tell me? She ripped the envelope open and read.

Dear Harriet, Ole Golly had written,

I can no more explain falling in love than I could explain how to breathe. Both are involuntary and both are essential. Poets have pondered the subject for centuries.

Mr. H. L. Mencken edited a superb dictionary of quotations, grouped by topic rather than author. The entries for love run a full sixteen pages. I will leave you with just this one, from Elizabeth Barrett Browning: “Whoever lives true life, will love true love.” As ever,

Catherine Golly Waldenstein

P.S. Promise me that you won’t grow up too fast. I want our baby to meet you when you’re still my Harriet.

Harriet read the letter three times before she poured milk on her cornflakes. That’s really no help, she thought, lifting her spoon to her lips. It certainly doesn’t explain Annie’s older man.

Annie met her the next morning in front of her door. “I called you yesterday and your mom wouldn’t let you talk. What’s up with that, H’spy?”

“I forgot to leave her a note when I went to Janie’s on Saturday.” Annie shrugged. “At least she was worried about you. My mother wouldn’t have noticed that I was gone. She’d be too busy writing some play.

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