Harriet the Spy: Chapters 7–9

Harriet looked toward Ole Golly’s room. It stood vacant, silent, its yellow door open. Harriet walked toward it. Standing on the threshold, she looked into the neat emptiness.

It had been almost this neat when Ole Golly was in it, but there had been flowers. Ole Golly had always managed to have a sprig of something alive in the room.

If I have one good thing to thank the Lord for today, it is that I did not have to gaze upon the jowls of an aging movie star.

I have the distinct feeling that I can hear you thinking.

She looked over at a large picture of Ole Golly, in which teeth figured prominently.

After breakfast she took a few cursory notes—comments on the weather, the cook, her father's choice of tie, etc.—then got her books and walked to school.

Harriet always did her work swiftly and in a very routine way, signing everything Harriet M. Welsch with a big flourish.

I don’t know how big a spectacular we could have in the time allotted us.

Beth Ellen shot a terrified glance at Marion Hawthorne, who had been sending her a barrage of notes.

Laura Peters was terribly shy, so shy that she smiled at everybody all the time, as though they were about to hit her. “I think that’s a good idea too,” she quavered, and sank gratefully back into her seat.

The Boy with the Purple Socks stood up and said in an offhand way, “Why not? I’d just as soon be a Christmas dinner as anything else.”

Everyone but Marion Hawthorne and Rachel Hennessey looked terribly disgruntled.

They all got up and filed after Miss Elson out of the classroom, down the stairs, into the courtyard, through the courtyard with the little patch of green called the back lawn, and into the gymnasium, where a scene of utter pandemonium greeted them.

Hairpins were falling out and her glasses were askew as she whipped through waist after waist, hip after hip.

She always seemed to be laboring under the impression that she was Miss Elson’s understudy.

“Come along there, Harriet,” she said imperiously.

“Now we’ll stand here and wait our turn with Miss Berry and I don’t want any talking. The din in this place is unbearable.”

Her hair was pulled into a wispy ponytail, as though it were pulling her eyes back.

“I will NOT do it.”
“Harriet, that’s enough. We won’t have any more of this impudence. You ARE an onion.”

I think it would be nice to take each thing from its inception to the time it arrives on the table.

“You two”—she pointed to Marion Hawthorne and Rachel Hennessey—“can be the gravy…." At this Harriet, Sport, and Janie broke into hysterical peals of laughter and had to be quieted by Miss Elson before Miss Berry could continue.

“...I want you to feel—to the very best of your endeavor—I want you to feel that one morning you woke up as one of these vegetables, one of these dear vegetables, nestling in the earth, warm in the heat and power and magic of growth, or striving tall above the ground, pushing through, bit by bit in the miracle of birth, waiting for that glorious moment when you will be...”

She gave an embarrassed titter, then started afresh.

She trilled a bit of laughter to let them know she was still there.

Miss Berry turned one inquiring eye over her shoulder to face a royal snub from Miss Elson.

The costume corner looked like Macy’s on sale day. Quantities of tulle flew through the air.

Mrs. Robinson was running around it in ecstasy.

It was an enormous, but enormous—perhaps six feet high—wooden sculpture of a fat, petulant, rather unattractive baby.

The head was completely round and carved out of butcher’s block so that it resembled a beautifully grained newel post with a face carved in it.

"Why, the sculptor. She is marvelous...she is brilliant...she is a white star in the firmament.”

She slammed the book shut, feeling something akin to rage.

He was in full command of an array of food that would have fed the Marines for a week.

“Dead, killed, truck smashed to bits, eccolà...Dio...Dio...mio figlio...” And she swooned.

The others gathered round, with the exception of Little Joe, who took this opportunity to filch a piece of gorgonzola.

Her parents kissed her good night in a rather melancholy way and went out.

She reached for her notebook and was starting to write when she heard her father say, sotto voce, on the steps, “Yes, it makes me feel I don’t even know my own child.”

She pulled the ropes gingerly. They worked smoothly at first, but just as she reached the parlor floor there was a terribly loud creak.

Harriet could see the maid standing primly to one side of the bed.

At that moment there was a querulous shout from Mrs. Plumber.

She sat, looking dejectedly at the park. As she stared at the black trees one tear rolled down her cheek.