Sport

by Louise Fitzhugh

  Praise for Harriet and her friends

  SPORT

  *“A worthy successor to Harriet the Spy®—and that is high tribute.”

  —Booklist, Starred

  “[A] sharp perception of exactly what it is like to be young in a world of grown-ups.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  THE LONG SECRET

  * “Written with subtlety, compassion, and her remarkable ability to see inside the minds of children.”

  —School Library Journal, Starred

  HARRIET THE SPY

  “[A] superb portrait of an extraordinary child.”

  —Chicago Tribune

  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

  THE LONG SECRET, Louise Fitzhugh

  HARRIET SPIES AGAIN, Helen Ericson

  THE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH, Norton Juster

  SAMMY KEYES AND THE SEARCH FOR SNAKE EYES

  Wendelin Van Draanen

  PURE DEAD WICKED, Debi Gliori

  BUD, NOT BUDDY, Christopher Paul Curtis

  HOLES, Louis Sachar

  SKELLIG, David Almond

  THE SMUGGLERS, Iain Lawrence

  BOOK

  One

  CHAPTER

  One

  “Don’t you understand that I was once fifteen years old? That I looked at my mother the same way you’re looking at me? That I see the hatred in your eyes and the despair and the love and all of it?”

  “I’m eleven,” said Sport. “I’ll be twelve next month.” Charlotte Vane had turned away. Her long, thin body leaned toward the window, her forehead touched the drape for one brief second, and then she turned back again.

  “You’ve got a goddamned literal mind. You listen to me, little boy, because you’ve got one or two things you better get into your head right now. I’m not a dreamer like your father. I like money. I like money very much.”

  Sport sat looking up at his mother, his face blank. He shifted one leg uneasily.

  “And don’t wiggle. If there’s anything I hate more than little boys, it’s wiggling little boys.”

  Sport had a dark feeling, like being an unfriendly spider. I want to get out of this room, he thought, I want to get out and go back home and make my father pick up his socks.

  “Your grandfather, Simon Vane, the old wretch, is down there in that sitting room dying right this minute. Your grandfather liked money a lot. Your grandfather made thirty million dollars. Made it. Do you understand that? He made it himself. He got up in the morning and he went downtown and he made it.”

  Sport thought of the thin, small body downstairs, of the hands you could see through, the gaunt, tiny head, the clouded, unseeing eyes, eyes that used to light up, and the mouth that used to say, “Ah! Here’s my boy! Here’s my real son,” whenever Sport walked into the room.

  “He didn’t sit around all day in front of a stupid toy, tap-tapping, tap-tapping, that damned tapping, you couldn’t get away from it. He didn’t dream … dream about writing a book. Where did a book ever get anybody?”

  Sport opened his mouth and then closed it. He had wanted to say, “But he published the book. Dad published the book and it was good. He gets royalties. I know just how much.” But there wasn’t any use. What were those royalty checks next to thirty million dollars? The figure loomed in Sport’s mind. He saw himself writing it in his ledger, the one where he kept track of the household spending for himself and his father. He saw it written in red ink. Imagine owing thirty million dollars.

  “I know what’s in your dirty little boy’s brain,” said Charlotte loudly. Sport jumped. “I know you want to get away from me. I know you wish to God I’d go back to wherever I came from and never come back. You want to crawl back to that dirty hole of an apartment your father lives in, where he can’t even buy you a pair of shoes, much less enough to eat.” Charlotte turned and screamed, “He’s no good. He’s a rotten, no-good bum, your father!”

  Sport held his breath. He felt somehow that this was the dead end of his mother’s rage. She couldn’t go any further. There was no further to go. He waited, watching her gasp, start, and then stop herself from continuing and turn away.

  With her back turned to him, she said quietly, “Get out. Get out of this house.”

  Sport got up quickly. He went out the door and closed it quietly behind him. Once in the dark hall, all his breath came out in a long whoosh. He stood a minute listening, looking into the gloom of the big old house, then ran as fast as he could down the steps.

  CHAPTER

  Two

  As Sport put the key in the door to his apartment, he heard a loud groan from his father. He looked toward the kitchen and saw immediately that his father had, as usual, boiled the coffee left over from breakfast.

  “I just can’t get the hang of it,” said Mr. Rocque sadly.

  “There isn’t any hang to it, just watch it so it doesn’t boil,” said Sport.

  “I know,” said his father. “I just start working and forget it’s there.” He started to go back into his study; then, remembering, he looked at Sport. “How did it go?”

  “Okay,” said Sport, going into the kitchen. Mr. Rocque came after him. Sport tried to busy himself by looking in the icebox, but there was nothing in the icebox to look at.

  “How was your mother?” said Mr. Rocque finally.

  “Okay,” said Sport.

  “How’s the old man?”

  “Dying.”

  “Well put. Did you see him?”

  “Yes.”

  There was a silence. Mr. Rocque went over and sat down at the kitchen table. “It isn’t pretty, death.” His voice was quiet.

  “No,” said Sport.

  “I wasn’t sure you should go over there at all,” said Mr. Rocque. “Your mother insisted.” He sighed and looked out the window. “She has certain custody rights, you know. Since she’s out of the country so much, she feels that whenever she comes back, she can get you over there.”

  Get me over there to yell at me, thought Sport.

  “When the old man dies, your mother will be a rich woman.” Mr. Rocque looked searchingly at Sport.

  Thirty million, thought Sport.

  “Is your mother still beautiful?” asked Mr. Rocque.

  Like a witch, thought Sport. He climbed on the stool and got some peanut butter down from the shelf.

  “I suppose she is,” said Mr. Rocque, not expecting an answer.

  “She’s ugly,” said Sport. “Ugly and mean.”

  Mr. Rocque’s mouth dropped open. “Was she nasty to you?”

  Sport looked at him. If I tell him what happened, he thought, he’ll get mad and call her up, then she’ll get mad and then they’ll both end up yelling and then everybody will be yelling.

  “She’s just mean. I see she’s mean.”

  “She is that. But did she say anything to you?”

  “She said that Grandpa was dying, and that he had thirty million bucks, and that he worked for it every day.” Nobody can make anything of that, thought Sport with satisfaction. It’s all true.

  “Thirty million! Whew!” Mr. Rocque gave a long whistle of astonishment. “No wonder that old geezer fought so hard to get you. Imagine leaving all that loot to her. She’ll juice it d
own the drain of every gambling table in Europe.”

  “Fought to get me?” Sport looked at his father.

  Mr. Rocque looked at Sport. “You’re old enough to talk about it. He tried to get your custody away from me or your mother. He wanted to raise you himself. He used all the power he had, which is considerable. But the court couldn’t see turning you over to an old man in a big empty house, no matter how much money he had. Your mother was, of course, unfit.”

  Unfit, thought Sport.

  “I guess you wonder what unfit means,” said Mr. Rocque. “It means to the court that having you would have been the same to her as having a trained poodle. You would have been left in every hotel room in Europe and the Far East. I don’t think she has any more notion of how to raise a child than Lawrence of Arabia. So you got stuck with me.” Mr. Rocque grinned and Sport grinned back, “Not that I’m much better at it. Sometimes I think you’re raising me.”

  Sport laughed. His mouth was full of peanut butter sandwich, so it wasn’t easy.

  “Drink some milk, son,” said Mr. Rocque. “Get strong and grow up and support your old man.”

  Sport laughed some more. He felt at home. All of those old decisions about his life had been made when he was four years old. It was all a long time ago and he had had no part in it. Of his life before living with his father he remembered only a white sunny room and a white starched nurse. He had had visits with his mother every time she was in town, but they had been strange, impersonal trips to Brooks Brothers to be outfitted, then lunch at a restaurant. He hadn’t even been able to eat because his mother had given him so many directions about table manners that he had become frozen, had finally sat, stiff and starving, while she ranted about the terrible ways he was learning from his father. None of it had ever made any sense. He was always watching the time, waiting until he could get out of the long black car, run up the steps and into the cheerful mess that meant home.

  “Speaking of money,” said his father, “do we have any?”

  Sport stopped chewing and looked at his father.

  “I know, I know,” said Mr. Rocque, “but I don’t need much.”

  Sport calculated quickly in his head.

  The last royalty check, which had come in April, was gone. Another wouldn’t be here until next month, October, and there was no telling what that would be. The checks for him which came erratically from his mother were not to be depended upon. The checks which had come regularly from his grandfather had stopped abruptly with his illness. Sport’s ledger showed that after the seventy-five dollars they paid for rent had been deducted, they would have thirty-two dollars and eight cents.

  “What do you want it for?”

  “I’ve been seeing a girl…”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Now don’t get excited, Sport. This one doesn’t like expensive things. I just want enough to take her to a movie.”

  “Is she coming here?”

  “Yeah, for a drink, at six.”

  “A drink … of what?”

  “Don’t we have anything?”

  “No, and we can’t buy any.”

  “A beer then.”

  “One beer,” said Sport.

  “You drive a hard bargain.”

  Sport clenched his teeth. One beer and that was it.

  “What about dinner?” he asked his father.

  “Well, I thought I’d take us all to the Olde Heidelberg. That knockwurst and sauerkraut is great and doesn’t cost much. She doesn’t care, honest, Sport. She’s a nice girl.”

  Sport looked at his father closely. His father looked out the window, a trace of embarrassment on his face.

  Nice girl, nice girl. How often have I heard that, Sport thought. I’ve yet to see one who could live on our income. In fact, why didn’t any of them take us to dinner? If a man obviously didn’t have any money, wouldn’t you think it would occur to them? But no …

  “Okay,” he said finally. “That means forty cents for the quart of beer. Three dollars each, at least, at the restaurant. That makes six dollars. I’ll stay home. There’s a can of soup. Then two-fifty each for the movie …

  “Can’t you take her on a walk through Carl Shurz Park?”

  “Look, I’ll tell you what…” Mr. Rocque began.

  “Do you realize you’re already up to eleven dollars and forty cents and you haven’t even tipped the waitress?”

  “I was going to say, lets wait and see. Maybe she won’t want to go to the movies.”

  “Fat chance. I never saw one that didn’t.” Sport started washing his milk glass.

  “This one’s different. Let’s wait …” Mr. Rocque smiled. “You’ll see.” He got up and started for his study.

  “Do you want any lunch?” asked Sport.

  “No,” said Mr. Rocque and was gone.

  “Are you working on the article?” yelled Sport.

  “No. The novel.” The door to the study slammed and there was silence.

  For the article, thought Sport, he could get two thousand dollars and for the novel he may get nothing. So he works on the novel. Figures. Sport smiled to himself. It was still better than living with that witch.

  He decided to go over and visit his friend Seymour.

  CHAPTER

  Three

  Seymour lived over the candy store his mother ran. He often helped behind the counter. Sometimes his mother let Sport help too while she went into the back to have coffee and rest her feet.

  Sport ducked around the corner to York Avenue. He passed the stationery store where he bought his father’s typing paper and waved to old Mr. Crane, who ran it. He passed Melnikoff’s where old Mr. Melnikoff always asked if anyone wanted a shopping bag. He turned into O’Neil’s candy store.

  “Hey, creep,” said Seymour as he entered.

  “Hey, creep,” said Sport.

  “Hi, Sport, said Mrs. O’Neil.

  “Hi,” said Sport. He hung around not knowing what to do. There was only a young boy in work clothes drinking coffee at the counter.

  “Take your coat off, Sport, you’ll catch your death,” said Mrs. O’Neil. “Hang it up in the back there. Then come give us a hand.”

  There was a table and four straight chairs in the back, and a cot for Mrs. O’Neil to lie down on. Sport hung his coat up and went back into the store.

  “What can I do?” he asked Mrs. O’Neil.

  “Feel like scrubbing?”

  “Sure,” said Sport.

  “Have a go at this sink, then,” said Mrs. O’Neil.

  Sport pushed up his sleeves and went to work. It was pleasant. Mrs. O’Neil laughed and joked with the men who came in to get coffee. Most of them were workmen from the big apartment house that was being built nearby.

  “The sink’s clean,” said Sport to Mrs. O’Neil.

  Seymour had filled the Coke machine. “Here,” he said to Sport, and pushed across the counter a sparkling, ice-filled glass of Coke.

  “I got some time off now,” said Seymour. “Wanta go upstairs?”

  “Okay,” said Sport.

  “Be back here by five,” said Mrs. O’Neil. “The rush starts.”

  “Okay,” said Seymour. They started out. Just as they got to the door, Seymour grabbed a whole pile of comic books.

  “Hey, you!” yelled Mrs. O’Neil.

  “I’ll bring ‘em back,” yelled Seymour as they ran out the door.

  They ducked into the hall and up the steps to the O’Neils’ second-floor apartment.

  “Whatcha get?” asked Sport.

  “Everything. I piled ‘em up this morning when it was raining. It’s one each of all the new ones. Only keep ‘em clean. They gotta go back on the rack.”

  “Great,” said Sport, and flung himself down in a chair.

  “You like Bims?” asked Seymour from the kitchen.

  “What’s that?” asked Sport.

  “New kind of candy bar. Man sold it to my mother but nobody buys them. I’m hooked on ‘em.” Seymour came back into th
e room with a pile of candy bars. “Here, try one.”

  “Hey, Seymour,” said Sport, his mouth full of candy.

  “Yoomph?” Seymour had put two candy bars in his mouth at once.

  “I saw my blanking mother today. She yelled her blanking head off at me.” Whenever Sport or Seymour were very upset about something, they used the worst language they could think of. It made it better somehow When things got beyond the pale, they used blanks because nothing was bad enough to express it.

  “You got a mother?” asked Seymour.

  “Yeah. You know. The one took me to that blanking Brooks Brothers for the blanking suits.”

  “Oh, yeah. I’d punch her right in the mouth.” Seymour was forever punching everybody in the mouth. He chewed pensively. “Thought she blanked around Europe all the time.”

  “Did. Back now.”

  “How long?”

  “My blanking grandfather’s blanking out altogether.” Sport felt a twinge as he said this. He rather liked his grandfather. Seymour’s eyes looked wild with curiosity. Seymour was fascinated by anything to do with death. His mother kidded him and said he would grow up to be a mortician if he didn’t watch out.

  “Yeah? What’s he got?’

  “Old age.”

  “Neat,” said Seymour. “That’s for me.”

  “Yeah,” said Sport. “I’m planning to live to ninety-six.”

  “I’m immortal,” said Seymour, eating happily.

  There was a noise at the window. Seymour jumped up and looked out. “It’s Harry,” he yelled and opened the window. “Hey, creep, come on up.” He leaned so far out, Sport thought he would disappear.

  “Guess his blanking mother’s off on a blank. I could punch her right in the mouth,” Seymour said as he went through the room to the front door.

  Harry burst into the room. He was tall and thin, a chocolate color with shining eyes.