Say What

by Margaret Peterson Haddix

  Sukie didn’t move. She seemed frozen, midyell, right on the edge of a tantrum.

  “That’s you, Sukie,” Brian said. “You can sit down. You’re the witness. That’s better than ‘you there,’ isn’t it?”

  Sukie took a deep gulp of air and said in a small voice, “So what are you going to do about Mom and Dad? How are you going to fix them?”

  Brian hadn’t thought about that at all. The way Sukie was looking at him, with her eyes all big and trusting—well, it was almost like she did believe he was as powerful as a king, as wise as a judge. It wouldn’t be so bad having a little sister if she’d always look at him that way.

  Except he didn’t know what to do about Mom and Dad. He was almost twice as old as Sukie, and he didn’t know any better than she did why they might be acting weird.

  “Hmm,” he said. “I believe we need more evidence. You there. Have you noticed Mom and Dad saying the wrong things?”

  He was talking to Reed, but Reed just kept staring off into space. Sukie poked him in the side.

  “REED! BRIAN ASKED YOU A QUESTION! HAVE MOM AND DAD SAID ANYTHING WEIRD TO YOU?” she yelled.

  Reed blinked at her, like he’d just arrived from Pluto and hadn’t quite adjusted to Earth.

  “Um, I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t usually listen to them.” He looked up at Brian. “Have they said anything weird to you?”

  Brian frowned and admitted, “I don’t pay much attention either. It’s always the same thing. ‘Clean your room.’ ‘Be nice to your sister.’ ‘Do your homework.’ Every word that comes out of their mouths I’ve already heard a billion times. But Sukie, she’s little. She’s dumb enough to think they might actually say something new.”

  “I am not!” Sukie said.

  “Are too!” Brian said.

  “Am n—Wait a minute. I was right this time. They are saying different stuff. So there.” She stuck her tongue out at Brian.

  “Okay, okay,” Brian said quickly. He was sure that real kings and judges didn’t have to put up with people sticking out their tongues at them. “Here’s what we’ve got to do. We’ve got to gather evidence.”

  “Huh?” Sukie said.

  “We’ve got to be bad. On purpose.”

  CHAPTER 6

  REED SPENCER ROBINSON, the world famous spy, had his back pressed tightly against a wall. Or—wait a minute—how could a spy be world famous? If everybody knew who he was, he wouldn’t be a very good spy, would he? Maybe his name was famous, but nobody had ever seen his face. Maybe he was a master of disguise. Yeah, that was it.

  “Hey, Reed. Whatcha doing?” It was Dad.

  Oh, no. Caught already. Reed Spencer Robinson, world-renowned master of disguise, jumped away from the wall. Then he smiled a crafty smile. Reed Spencer Robinson, famous spy, knew how to turn around any situation. He, Brian, and Sukie had agreed that they would try to get Mom and Dad to yell at them, and see what they said. This was a perfect opportunity

  “I’m putting handprints on the wall,” Reed said. “As many as possible.”

  Handprints were a big no-no in the Robinson household. The way Mom and Dad acted, you’d think a single smudge on the wall was the crime of the century.

  “Handprints?” Dad’s eyes seemed to bug out a little.

  “Yeah,” Reed said. “And then I’m going to go smear my fingers on every window in the house.”

  That should do it. Dad’s eyes just had to bug out a little bit more, and then he’d be yelling about how much work it took to keep a house clean, and how everyone in the house needed to help out and that meant … Well, Reed wasn’t sure what the rest of the lecture was, because he’d never paid attention before. But he was ready to pay attention now.

  Dad seemed to gulp, and then he said, “Eat your vegetables.” And walked away.

  Reed whipped out the little notebook he’d tucked in his back pocket and wrote down, “Handprince—eat vejibuls.” He wasn’t sure he’d spelled all the words right, but, hey, even a world-famous spy couldn’t be good at everything.

  CHAPTER 7

  IT WAS EVEN WORSE than Brian had thought.

  He, Reed, and Sukie were having their second kid meeting in two days. They’d spent the past twenty-four hours doing everything they could to get Mom and Dad to yell at them the right way. Brian had spilled orange juice all over the kitchen floor, but instead of saying, “Clean it up,” Mom had said, “Shut the door. You think we can afford to air-condition the whole outdoors?”

  Sukie had coughed right in Dad’s face without covering her mouth, a dozen times, and all Dad said was, “Money doesn’t grow on trees, you know.”

  Reed had worn his muddy shoes into the living room, with its stupid cream-colored carpet that Mom was always so worried about, and all Mom had said was, “I don’t care who started it. I’m stopping it.”

  Brian sorted through the notes littering his bed, most of them in Reed’s bad handwriting.

  “Look here,” Brian said. “Dad even said, ‘Use your words,’ when I was bouncing the basketball in the family room.”

  “What’s ‘Use your words’ mean?” Sukie asked.

  “Don’t you remember?” Brian said. “Mom and Dad used to say that all the time when you were really little and you’d get mad and start hitting Reed or me. You used to bite Reed too. It never made sense to me. When you started saying, ‘I hate you! You’re mean!’ instead of hitting or biting, they’d give you a time-out for that, too.”

  “Oh,” Sukie said. “I didn’t remember that.”

  Brian kind of expected her to say, “You’re making it up, right? I’m sure I never bit anyone. Not me.” Because that’s how girls were. Prissy. But she didn’t say it. She just sat there looking white faced and worried.

  Strange how that bothered Brian. It was bad when even Sukie wasn’t acting normal anymore.

  Reed reached up for the stack of notes Brian had taken.

  “I bet I know why Mom and Dad are acting weird,” he said, looking at the notes.

  “Why?” Sukie asked eagerly.

  “They’re really robots,” Reed said. “Maybe they’ve always been robots, but we never noticed before. But now their voice boxes got scrambled, so they’re saying all the wrong things. We just need to have them taken back to the robot shop and get their voice boxes fixed. Or maybe—I just thought of this—maybe our real mom and dad have been kidnapped by aliens, and the aliens replaced them with fakes that look just like our real mom and dad, except the aliens messed up on the voice command, and—”

  “I DON’T WANT ROBOTS! I DON’T WANT ALIENS! I WANT MY REAL MOMMY AND DADDY!” Sukie yelled.

  Brian dived off the bed and clapped his hand over Sukie’s mouth. At the same time, Reed reached over to shut her up too. So they ended up, all three of them, in a giant pile on the floor. Brian had both hands over Sukie’s mouth and so did Reed.

  “Stop it! You’re scaring her!” Brian said.

  “It’s not my fault our parents have turned into robots or aliens,” Reed argued. He had that look in his eye that meant he was going to keep talking, and probably say something even scarier.

  Brian took one hand off Sukie’s mouth and clamped it over Reed’s.

  “Listen,” Brian said. “I’m the oldest kid. What I say goes. In a crisis like this, it doesn’t do any good to panic. We have to be calm. You have to do what I say.”

  “Unt oo uu unt uh oo oo?” Sukie grunted. But she grunted calmly, so Brian removed his hand. Reed did too.

  “What do you want us to do?” Sukie repeated quietly.

  Oops. Brian hadn’t thought of that.

  Then he heard Mom yell from out in the living room, “Kids! Bedtime!”

  Brian felt the relief wash over him. It was kind of nice to hear Mom say something that made sense, even if she was telling them to go to bed. And this saved him from having to come up with some brilliant plan right away.

  “That’s it,” Brian said. “I don’t have time to give you your orders tonight. Think
when you go to bed. We’ll rendezvous again in the morning.”

  He could tell from their blank expressions that Sukie and Reed had no idea what “rendezvous” meant. He wasn’t so sure himself, but he’d heard a general say that once in a war movie.

  A general. Hmm. Maybe that was the right role for Brian….

  CHAPTER 8

  REED SPENCER ROBINSON, the famous spy, was out of bed. He tiptoed down the hall, keeping an eagle eye out for the telltale red lines of the laser security system.

  Okay. Really, he just had to make sure that he didn’t step on any of the toys he, Brian, and Sukie had left littering the hall.

  Reed was feeling bad that he’d scared Sukie. He thought it’d be fun if Mom and Dad were really robots or aliens. Think how jealous all the other kids at school would be!

  But if it frightened Sukie so much—well, then, it was up to Reed to find out the truth.

  Reed reached the end of the hall and silently slipped down onto his hands and knees. He inched forward, quiet as a cat. It was hard to say what Reed Spencer Robinson was most famous for: his disguises or his ability to slip in and out of dangerous places unseen. Maybe he was known as the “Invisible Spy.” Yeah, that was it.

  “Think the hooligans are asleep yet?” Dad was saying to Mom in the family room.

  “I’ll go check,” Mom said.

  Oh, no! Alert! Alert! Mom was coming this way!

  With lightning speed, Reed rolled around and dove under the kitchen table. He bonked his head on one of the table legs but Reed Spencer Robinson, the Invisible Spy, knew better than to cry out in pain. Even torture couldn’t make him talk. What was a little bump on the head compared with torture?

  Mom walked right by without even looking down. Reed lay absolutely still, barely even breathing. A moment later she walked past again and reported to Dad, “Yep. They’re all out like logs.”

  Reed grinned silently, delighted that he’d thought to leave a body-sized lump of pillows under the covers in his bed.

  “They should be sleeping,” Dad said bitterly, “after all the ways they misbehaved today. I swear, Sandy, this plan of yours is backfiring. The kids are breaking more rules than ever.”

  Plan? Plan?

  Reed felt like his ears were snapping to attention, like antennae shooting up. For maybe the first time in his life, he had no desire whatsoever to start daydreaming. He listened intently.

  “We just need to be patient,” Mom said.

  Reed raised his head ever so slightly. Through a maze of chair and table legs, he could see Mom picking up a magazine from the coffee table.

  “See, it says in the article: ‘Some parents may experience a brief spell of increased rebellion or disobedience from their offspring, as children are puzzled by the unusual commands. But within days, children will be begging you, “No, no, tell me to pick up my clothes off the floor. Look, I’m doing what I’m supposed to.” Children secretly crave rules and order.’” She lowered the magazine. “I really do think they’re paying attention now. They’re listening every time we say the wrong thing. Even Reed, and when was the last time he listened to anything?”

  Reed felt a little insulted by that. He did listen to what other people said sometimes. Just not when it was boring.

  Dad groaned.

  “I guess you’re right,” he said. “But I keep feeling like I’m going to crack before they do. I just can’t think of enough wrong things to say. I caught Reed making handprints on the wall, and it was all I could do to come up with ‘Eat your vegetables.’”

  “That’s a good one,” Mom said comfortingly. “I actually told Sukie ‘Waste not, want not,’ last night at dinner. I don’t think my grandmother even said that. Here. Let’s look at the list in the magazine again together. Let’s see, there’s the ‘would you jump off a bridge?’ one—”

  “Used it already,” Dad muttered.

  “Um, ‘Money doesn’t grow on trees.’ ‘If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times …’ Oh, here’s one we haven’t said lately. ‘If you’re bored, I can think of plenty of chores for you to do.’ That’s a good one, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah, I guess,” Dad said. “But I’m too tired to think about this right now. Why don’t we just watch TV?”

  He flipped on the set, and a toothpaste commercial sprang onto the screen. Mom put the magazine back on the coffee table. It slipped over to the edge—the edge farthest from Mom and Dad.

  Reed Spencer Robinson, the Invisible Spy and Master of Disguises, had a mission. He was going after that magazine. It would take every ounce of skill he had—but, hey, wasn’t he the most skillful spy on the planet?

  Slowly, under the cover of the TV noise, he scooted one of the chairs out of his way. Then he crept forward on his elbows and belly, keeping down as low as possible. In seconds he was at the edge of the family room carpet. He circled around behind the couch his parents were on. So far, so good.

  Reed waited, gathering nerve for his next move, the most dangerous of all. Slowly he reached around from behind the couch. Closer, closer—his fingers were only inches away from the magazine. Then his fingertips brushed the edge of the magazine pages. He just had to pull it away quietly—

  Blomp!

  The magazine slipped out of his grasp and down to the floor. The noise seemed to drown out the TV Reed jerked his hand back immediately. If he’d had a walkie-talkie like a real spy, he’d be screaming into it, “Mayday! Mayday! Abort mission! Switch to rescuing spy from enemy territory!” He waited for Mom or Dad to pick up the magazine, to look behind the couch and scream out, “Young man, what are you doing out of bed?”

  Nothing happened.

  Nothing happened for a very long time.

  Reed waited through a soup commercial and a very dull song on VH1. Then he cautiously raised his head and peeked over the top of the couch.

  Mom and Dad were cuddled together, sound asleep.

  Sometimes a world-famous spy needs skill. And sometimes he just gets lucky.

  Reed stood all the way up, walked around the couch, and picked up the magazine. He thought about whistling as he walked away, but decided against it. No need to push his luck.

  CHAPTER 9

  SUKIE WAS JUST SETTLING into a very pleasant dream where mommies and daddies acted like they were supposed to, and the sun shone every day, and flowers bloomed everywhere. Oh, and little girls all had as many Barbie dolls as they wanted …

  Then someone was shaking her and whispering, “Wake up! You’ve got to wake up!”

  “Why?” Sukie murmured.

  “Read this!” Reed shoved something at her face and turned on the light.

  Sukie had barely started kindergarten. So far all she could read was her name and a few words that had just two or three letters, like “get” and “out.” She didn’t see any of those words in the magazine Reed was thrusting at her, but she said them anyway. “Get out of my room, Reed. I’m sleeping!”

  “Not now, you aren’t,” Reed said. “Don’t you see? I’ve solved the puzzle! I know the real reason that Mom and Dad are acting weird!”

  “It’s not worse than aliens or robots, is it?” Sukie asked, scrunching down in her pillow.

  “No, no, they’re just doing some stupid experiment from a magazine. Come on—we’ve got to go tell Brian.”

  Secretly Sukie was pleased that Reed had told her before Brian. Though she did kind of miss seeing what was going to happen in her dream with all those flowers and Barbie dolls. She followed Reed out of her room and into Brian’s.

  Brian was very hard to wake up. He kept rolling around in his covers and crying out, “Advance! Advance! We’ve got to be braver than the enemy!” Finally Sukie had to poke him in the side and warn him, “Brian! You’re going to get Mom and Dad in here yelling at us, and how can we hold a kid meeting then?”

  Brian sat up, blinking.

  “I call all the kid meetings,” he said.

  “So call one, already,” Sukie said.


  Brian blinked again, and said, “This meeting will now come to order. Does anyone have any—”

  Reed didn’t wait for Brian to finish his question. “I solved the mystery! I solved the mystery! See, it’s all in this magazine—”

  Brian tore the magazine out of Reed’s hands.

  “New Ways of Parenting,” he read from the cover. “What kind of a stupid magazine is this?”

  “Look, it’s this article,” Reed said, shoving pages between Brian’s fingers.

  Sukie let the boys yank the magazine back and forth, and waited for them to read it. She’d already decided the magazine had ugly pictures, so she didn’t need to see it.

  Somehow the two boys found the right article and were poring over it together.

  “’Children secretly crave rules and order’?” Brian read aloud, like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

  “What’s ‘crave’ mean?” Sukie asked.

  “That you want something really, really bad,” Brian said.

  “Rules and order?” Sukie said. “Bleck. Are you sure they don’t mean ‘hate’?”

  But Brian was shaking his head. He and Reed kept reading. Every once in a while, one of them would yell out, “Oh, no, this is crazy!” or, “That’s not true!”

  Sukie threaded her fingers together and played a little game twirling one thumb around the other. Finally she was sure she’d waited long enough.

  “Aren’t you going to tell me anything?” she begged.

  Brian looked up. His hair was sticking up all over the place because he kept tearing his hands through it every time he cried out, “Oh, man, that’s so wrong!”

  “It’s all a plot, see. They’re trying to turn us into perfectly behaved children,” he said. “It’s just—well, here’s how the article starts out.”

  And then he ripped the magazine from Reed’s grasp and read straight from the article, in his most mocking voice: