The Long Secret

by Louise Fitzhugh

  For more than forty years,

  Yearling has been the leading name

  in classic and award-winning literature

  for young readers.

  Yearling books feature children’s

  favorite authors and characters,

  providing dynamic stories of adventure,

  humor, history, mystery, and fantasy.

  Trust Yearling paperbacks to entertain,

  inspire, and promote the love of reading

  in all children.

  OTHER YEARLING BOOKS YOU WILL ENJOY

  HARRIET THE SPY®, Louise Fitzhugh

  SPORT, Louise Fitzhugh

  HARRIET SPIES AGAIN, Helen Ericson

  THE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH, Norton Juster

  A WRINKLE IN TIME, Madeleine L’Engle

  BUD, NOT BUDDY, Christopher Paul Curtis

  ALL-OF-A-KIND FAMILY, Sydney Taylor

  HOLES, Louis Sachar

  SKELLIG, David Almond

  THE WRECKERS, Iain Lawrence

  For Connie, Dr. Slaff, and Ursula,

  the nicest fanatics I know

  he notes were appearing everywhere. Everyone was talking about it. The first time Harriet and Beth Ellen ever saw anyone get one was one day in July when they were in the supermarket in Water Mill. They were standing at the checkout counter waiting to pay for their cookies. The woman with mean eyes who always checked them out was getting ready to charge them, when she suddenly drew her hand back from the cash register as though bitten by a snake.

  “What in the world …?” she shrieked, and Harriet almost broke her stomach in two leaning over the counter to see. The woman held up a large piece of paper on which was written awkwardly in red crayon:

  JESUS HATES YOU

  “What is that? What in the world is that? Why would someone do that? What could they mean by that? Why would they say that to me? To me … to me?” The woman screamed on and on. A clerk came running. The manager of the store came running. Harriet stood with half-closed eyes, watching. Beth Ellen stared. Everyone began talking at once.

  “Jake at the feed store got one.”

  “They’re all over town. Everybody in Water Mill has gotten one.”

  “Why doesn’t somebody do something? What is this?”

  “They have. Mr. Jackson went to the police.”

  “What happened?”

  “Well, they’re looking around. What can they do? They can’t find out who’s doing it.”

  “Maybe they’re protecting somebody.”

  “Yeah. Didn’t have none of this all winter. One of those summer people flipped, maybe.”

  For some reason everyone turned and looked at Harriet and Beth Ellen. Harriet was so busy writing down everything in the notebook she always carried that she didn’t notice, but Beth Ellen started to back out of the door.

  “This all you have, kids?” The woman at the register suddenly became very sharp and businesslike.

  “Yes,” said Harriet in what she hoped was a disinterested way.

  Beth Ellen was already out on the street. Harriet saw her streaking for the long black car.

  “Well, I’ll tell you,” said the checkout lady as she put the cookies in a bag, “there’s some mighty strange people in these parts of a summer.”

  Harriet stood a minute with the bag in her hand, hoping the woman would say more, but she just looked at Harriet expectantly. Feeling foolish, Harriet turned abruptly and left the store.

  Outside, she walked slowly to the car. The air on this early morning was sweet, faintly wet, and clinging. She felt the same nostalgic joy that she felt every year. The memories of every summer of her life seemed to make the air thick and rich. It was all so beautifully familiar: the short stretch of stores along the Montauk Highway, the flag in front of the tiny post office, the sign saying YOU ARE ENTERING WATER MILL, NEW YORK. SLOW DOWN AND ENJOY IT, which now was a virgin-white with black letters but by the end of the summer would be scrawled with drunken wit.

  Even Beth Ellen, who sat waiting in the backseat of the big car driven by Harry, the Hansens’ chauffeur, seemed a patient memory. Funny about Beth Ellen, thought Harriet as she climbed into the backseat. I never see her in the winter the way I do Janie and Sport, even though I go to school with her; and in the summer she’s my best friend, just because she lives in Water Mill too, I guess.

  The car glided off. She punched the button which raised the glass between the backseat and the front. She liked privacy. Besides, she liked pushing all those buttons.

  “No, no,” said Beth Ellen and pushed it again so that it lowered, “we have to tell him where we’re going.”

  “I have to go to your house. I left my bike there,” Harriet said, pushing the button again briskly. “Then shall we go to the beach?”

  Beth Ellen looked frightened, but that was so much her normal expression that Harriet thought nothing of it. “I don’t know if I can ride good enough to go that far.”

  “Sure you can. How’re you ever going to learn if you don’t try it? What good is a bike if you just ride around your driveway?”

  “But I only learned a month ago.” Beth Ellen began to munch a cookie in a distracted way.

  “Well, I don’t care if you come or not.” Harriet delivered this last looking sideways at Beth Ellen. It worked.

  “I didn’t say I wasn’t going. I want to go.”

  “I know what let’s do.” Harriet made her eyes into slits and pushed them so far sideways her head hurt. “Let’s just run past the Evil Hotel on the way.”

  Beth Ellen turned an intense red.

  “Hee, hee,” said Harriet and looked out the window.

  “If you want to,” said Beth Ellen, trying to look bored. She succeeded only in looking faintly sick to her stomach.

  “If I want to!” said Harriet rudely. “HAH!”

  “I thought you were writing a story about it,” said Beth Ellen.

  “I am,” said Harriet, “but only because we’ve spent practically the whole summer there! I haven’t anything else to write a story about! What have I seen this summer? Only that silly Bunny! And what have I heard this summer? Only that silly Bunny play the piano!” She sounded quite angry. “Well!” she said emphatically and stopped.

  “Well, you don’t have to come,” said Beth Ellen with a little smile.

  “I’m coming,” said Harriet. “I have to finish my story now, don’t I?” She grabbed for the cookie box and stuffed three in her mouth. Beth Ellen smiled. Harriet saw her and said with her mouth full, “Listen, Mouse, for a mouse you sure get your own way all the time.” Beth Ellen looked out the window to hide her tiny smile.

  The car turned into the driveway of Beth Ellen’s house. “I have to go and see my grandmother before I go,” said Beth Ellen in a rather mournful way.

  “That’s okay,” said Harriet. “I’ll just fool around here.” She didn’t even look at Beth Ellen, because she was watching Harry. She had been spying on him all summer, and he bore careful watching. Harry seemed to lead a very curious life.

  “And anyway,” said Beth Ellen as she slammed the door to the car, “it’s you that call it the Evil Hotel. I don’t.”

  Harriet started to shout something after her, but Beth Ellen shot through the door. Hhrumph, she thought, I just called it that to bug her. I never saw anybody with such a crush. I hope I never have one.

  She marched off to the servants’ quarters, which were attached to the garage. Covering her course as well as she could by a row of hedges, she stationed herself at the window of Harry’s room.

  eth Ellen knocked on her grandmother’s door. “Come in,” came a sharp voice from behind the door. She walked in and saw her grandmother propped against a mass of pillows. Susie, the maid, was standing beside
the bed, looking very pale.

  “Hello, darling. Come in and sit down,” said her grandmother, giving her a brief smile and turning back to the maid. Beth Ellen went over and sat on the chaise.

  “It is not a question of that,” her grandmother continued to Susie. “I do not want to go into it any further. I simply want it understood that it is not to happen again.”

  Beth Ellen looked up at the strange sound in her grandmothers voice. Mrs. Hansens voice was an unusually soft one most of the time, but today it sounded brittle, clipped, hard. Her face seemed cold. Susie looked frightened.

  “That’s all now,” said Mrs. Hansen and turned to Beth Ellen as Susie left the room. “Well, dear, are you off to the beach?”

  “Yes,” said Beth Ellen simply and looked at the floor. She never knew quite what to talk about with her grandmother. She always wanted to sparkle and say a lot of things that would interest her, make her look up and gasp at Beth Ellen’s wit and sophistication. But she was always overcome by shyness, by a timidity so powerful it turned her mind to dough.

  Looking up from the floor, Beth Ellen realized that her grandmother was not thinking about her at all, was in fact looking out of the window with a rather angry expression. When she began to speak, she continued to look out the window.

  “The importance of remaining a lady at all times cannot be overestimated. There are moments when this becomes very trying.”

  Beth Ellen had heard this speech a number of times. She knew what it meant. It meant “Don’t get angry.” There were other versions, such as “Ladies never lose control,” “Composure is the first mark of breeding,” and “There is no sight so ugly as the human face in anger,” but they all meant the same thing.

  Mrs. Hansen continued: “Susie has given me cause at this very moment to become enraged. … A very simple thing she did, really. … I suppose an old woman gets crotchety… but she MOVED my perfume bottles!”

  Beth Ellen felt like laughing but restrained herself.

  “We must always leave it to God to carry out our punishments.” Mrs. Hansen had turned to face Beth Ellen as she said this and now seemed to see her for the first time. She smiled as though she weren’t mad at all and said in a sweet voice, “I meant to tell you, darling, I think you’ll have a lovely surprise in a few weeks!”

  “Oh, what?” asked Beth Ellen, wondering if they were to take a trip.

  “I don’t want to tell you now because it may not happen, but this time I am fairly sure it will.”

  Beth Ellen looked at her expectantly. “What is it?”

  “Oh, but it wouldn’t be a surprise then, would it, dear?” Mrs. Hansen had a beautiful smile when she really smiled. “You’d better run along, hadn’t you, darling? You don’t want to miss all that lovely sunshine.”

  Beth Ellen got up and went to receive a kiss on her forehead.

  “Have a good time, dear,” her grandmother said absently as Beth Ellen closed the door.

  hen she got downstairs, Beth Ellen found Harriet laughing her head off.

  “What’s funny?” asked Beth Ellen, beginning clumsily to climb onto her bicycle.

  “Harry got one of those notes, and I stole it after he left his room, as evidence,” Harriet said triumphantly. “Evidence?”

  “Sure, we’re going to catch this note leaver.” Harriet was straddling her bike, looking at the note with a magnifying glass. Naturally she just saw some big red letters. “Here, look at this.” She passed the note to Beth Ellen, who read:

  NO MAN CAN SERVE TWO MASTERS

  “What’s funny about that?” Beth Ellen asked.

  “Don’t you know?”

  Beth Ellen shook her head.

  “Well,” said Harriet, looking pompous, “I happen to know something you don’t know, then, and that is that Harry has been running a limousine service with that car. When he’s supposed to be sitting here waiting to see if your grandmother wants to go anywhere, he’s out taking people to the airport and all over town, even New York.”

  “Really?” said Beth Ellen in a bored way. “I wondered where he went all the time.”

  “You’re a rotten spy, Beth Ellen.” Harriet said this in such a matter-of-fact way that it didn’t even bother Beth Ellen, who didn’t want to be a spy anyway, rotten or otherwise. “What I don’t get is how the person who wrote this knew that.” Harriet didn’t even look to Beth Ellen for an answer but just pushed off on her bike. Beth Ellen took off after her, wobbling a bit but upright.

  Harriet zoomed out of the driveway with Beth Ellen careening after her. When they got to the end, there was a small hill and Beth Ellen fell off.

  “Did you hurt yourself?” Harriet asked, having wheeled expertly around and gone back to where Beth Ellen lay flat, a startled expression on her face.

  “No, I don’t think so.” She picked herself up as though she were glass, looked herself all over, then stubbornly picked up the bike.

  “Listen”—Harriet was making a quick spot check of the tools hanging from the belt hooks in her shorts, so she didn’t look up—“I think we’ll go first to look at that new family.” Everything was there: her flashlight, Boy Scout knife, canteen, pouch for pencils, and pouch for notebooks. She was carrying two notebooks this year, the one regularly used for spying and a new one for writing.

  “I thought we were going to the hotel,” Beth Ellen said ever so casually. She was picking a scab on her knee.

  “Keep cool,” said Harriet. “We’ll get there. After.” She pushed off on her bike. “First let’s go see the family. This is Friday, you know,” she said over her shoulder.

  “So what?” yelled Beth Ellen. Beth Ellen was given to sudden yells.

  Harriet called back over her shoulder, “That Mama Jenkins they keep talking about arrives from the city today for the weekend. I want to see what she looks like.”

  Beth Ellen was too engrossed in the hazards of the road to answer, so they went on a way in silence. The road led down a hill, past potato fields, along a low flat place with three trees in the distance. In about three minutes they reached the Montauk Highway. Harriet stopped short and Beth Ellen skidded up behind her.

  “Be careful. Now we go across there and up that little road by the filling station.” Harriet looked up and down and then pushed off, there being not a car in sight.

  Beth Ellen followed, and they rode along through the summer day. The sun lay flat and heavy on the potato fields. The handlebars were hot to the touch. After a long road, a turn, and another long road, Harriet pulled up under a shade tree. It was cool, and their eyes began to see everything as very green.

  “It’s right over there—the second little house—but we’re getting too close now, we might be seen. So I think we better leave our bikes here and sneak around the back.” Harriet was very efficient. Beth Ellen’s heart began to rattle a little.

  Harriet propped her bike against the tree on one side, and Beth Ellen started to put hers there, then remembered the support stick and took a little time getting it to come down.

  “Come on,” said Harriet, not a little irritated.

  They were finally ready and started to sneak around the house. As they were coming around a hedge in the back a very fat boy of about their age came waddling across one of the back fields.

  “That’s Norman,” whispered Harriet, “the boy twin. He’s a pill.”

  “How old are they?” asked Beth Ellen.

  “They’re twelve,” said Harriet. “Wait’ll you see the other one.”

  Beth Ellen looked at Norman. He was rather like a gingerbread man. He had a round blob of a body with a round freckled face stuck on top, round arms, and useless splayed-out-looking legs which looked trapped in his bathing trunks. He wore enormous black high sneakers, heavy white socks, and a dirty-looking T-shirt. He went into the second house in the row.

  They started sneaking again and this time got past the first house. As they approached the side window that Harriet used she turned suddenly and whispered, “Remember the r
ules: not a sound. And if anything happens, we were just walking through this yard because we lost a ball here.”

  Beth Ellen nodded, petrified.

  They crept to the window and looked in. There was a large sunny kitchen with three children in it. One of them was Norman. There was also a thin girl of the same height, with long, straight brown hair. There was a tiny girl of about four, who sat at the table.

  “I want a quarter,” growled Norman in the direction of his twin. He had a voice like a gravel pit.

  “Why, Norman Jenkins, you just don’t get no quarter,” said the twin, all sweetness and light.

  “I want my quarter.”

  “Quawter, quawter, quawter,” crooned the four-year-old.

  “I gets a quarter when I wants a quarter. Mama Jenkins said so.” Norman began to shout.

  “Now you just hush your mouth, Norman Jenkins. You gets a quarter when you’re good, and I haven’t seen anything very good. ‘The Lord will provide.’ That’s what Mama Jenkins said. You didn’t listen real good. The Lord will provide when you’re good.”

  “I’m GOOD.” Norman looked like he might sock her.

  “Why, you … you just tell me one little old good thing you did this week!”

  They looked at each other in a stalemate. Norman couldn’t think of a thing.

  “Jessie Mae?” piped the four-year-old.

  “Yes, Magnolia, what?”

  Jessie Mae! thought Harriet.

  “When duth Mama Jenkinth come?” Magnolia wasn’t easy to understand, particularly with her mouth full.

  “She gets here tonight at seven, honey, the Lord willing,” Jessie Mae said and turned her back.

  “You’re supposed to give me my allowance.” Norman kept at it. “Matter of fact, I don’t know why you have charge of it. Why can’t I give you your allowance just as well?”

  “You know why—Mama Jenkins told you—because you care too much about money and I walk with God.”