Missy Piggle-Wiggle and the Whatever Cure by Ann M. Martin

Author:Ann M. Martin
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781250100191
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends

8

The I-Spy Cure

THERE WAS TROUBLE at the Goodenoughs’ house. Everyone in Little Spring Valley agreed about that. And they were very grateful that this particular kind of trouble hadn’t affected their own families.

“It’s Rusty,” the grown-ups whispered to one another at the supermarket.

“Spying,” they said as they sipped coffee and watched their children’s early morning soccer games. “Eavesdropping.”

Even Rusty’s teachers noticed. “I’m glad he’s not in my class,” Mr. Bovine said to Mrs. Justice.

“Try being his sister,” Tulip said to Melody as they walked to school one day.

Melody didn’t have a brother (or a sister) but had always thought she would like one. “He spies on you?” she said.

“All the time. He’s getting ready for a career in espionage.”

Rusty was quite a nice boy apart from his unwelcome dedication to espionage. He was polite to his teachers. He brought home report cards with mostly As and only a few Bs and Cs, and once a D. He did his chores without being prodded. He didn’t interrupt, even when adults were telling boring, meaningless stories about their childhoods. He could make sad people laugh and lonely children feel that they belonged. He always volunteered to show new students around school.

But he spied. He wanted to hone his skills early to one day get the best possible job in the spy trade.

“He spies through keyholes and underneath doors,” Mr. Goodenough told his next-door neighbor, Mr. Potter. “It’s like his eyes are everywhere.”

Mr. Potter’s face grew red. “Last weekend I snuck out to our garden shed to eat a cupcake. Harriet and I have been on a diet for two weeks. That was the first time I cheated, and Rusty caught me. I looked at the window of the shed, and I could just see his hair and the very tops of his eyes. Then he slowly ducked down.”

Mr. Goodenough shoved his hands into his pockets. “I’m sorry,” he said. Then he added, “I think he has a periscope, in order to see around corners and above his head.”

“How annoying.”

At Melody’s house one afternoon, Tulip exclaimed, “He knows everything about me! Things that are supposed to be secret.”

Melody hadn’t known Tulip long enough to ask what her secrets were. Instead she said, “How does he find out your secrets?”

“He listens at doors, he eavesdrops on my phone conversations, and he spies. He’s always spying! He’s good at it, too. He has a periscope, like a movie spy. Once I was in the bathroom writing a private note, and I noticed the top of the periscope outside the window. He was down below, balanced on the porch roof. I opened the window and yelled at him, but he just slid off the roof and ran away.”

“Why do you think he wants to know everyone’s secrets?” asked Melody.

Tulip rolled her eyes. “For his career. But it’s not right! He’s found out all sorts of things. He saw me borrowing Mom’s diamond earrings. Well, not borrowing, I guess, since she had told me I wasn’t allowed to wear them.

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