Harriet the Spy

The next day, Mrs. Welsch takes Harriet to see a special doctor who wants to talk to her. Harriet says of Dr. Wagner, “He had bright red hair that stood straight up behind a bald crown, an enormous mouth grinning with yellow teeth, funny glasses with big black rims, and he was very, very tall—so tall he bent over a little” (253).

The doctor wants to play a game, so Harriet chooses Monopoly. As they play, she notices that he is taking notes about her. The doctor picks up on her interest and asks if she would like a notebook, too. When he provides one, Harriet eagerly dives into writing down her thoughts once more. When it is time to go, the doctor takes back the notebook he gave her.

Later that afternoon, Harriet visits Janie, who is still angry with her. Afterward, she tries to visit Sport, whose father just sold a novel and is elated. Harriet is curious about what it feels like to sell a book. Sport’s father says, “It’s heaven, baby, sheer heaven” (262). Sport isn’t ready to forgive Harriet either, so she leaves. That night she has another nightmare about Ole Golly, and her mother comes in to find her weeping and calling her nanny’s name.

The next day, Harriet sleeps until noon. Downstairs, she hears her parents mumbling about her behind a closed door. They are having a phone conversation with Doctor Wagner, but Harriet can’t pick up much. The doctor seems to have concluded that there’s nothing wrong with her and that she’s very bright. He then makes a suggestion that Harriet can’t hear. The doctor also recommends some kind of special project for Harriet, but she isn’t sure what this means.

For the next two days, Harriet remains home from school but continues her spy activities. Mrs. Plumber’s doctor said that she can leave her bed, and she is throwing herself into social activities with a vengeance. The Dei Santi family has rehired Little Joe. Old Harrison Withers seems happy again because he’s found himself a new cat.

Harriet then spies on the clubhouse and sees that some of the girls are trying to take over and exclude Sport and Janie from the decision-making. By her third day out of school, Harriet is extremely bored. That afternoon, her mother gives her a letter that just arrived from Ole Golly.

Her former nanny encourages her to turn her random observations into stories and send them to her. She also provides both guidance and a warning to the young writer. There is no point in writing the notebooks if she doesn’t tell the truth in them, but they must be kept private. If someone happens to read them, “You are going to have to do two things, and you don’t like either one of them: 1) You have to apologize. 2) You have to lie. Otherwise you are going to lose a friend” (277).

Harriet takes this advice to heart. The next day, she returns to school and learns that the teacher wants to appoint her as the new editor of the sixth-grade newspaper. Much to her surprise, the other students elect Harriet to the position because they hate the current editor more than they hate her.

When the first edition of Harriet’s paper comes out, she worries about how her stories will be received. Surprisingly, everyone seems intrigued by her oddball narrations about Mrs. Plumber and the Dei Santi family. She also starts printing gossip that alerts Janie and Sport that they’ve been double-crossed by their fellow club members.

At home, Harriet’s father mentions something called a “retraction” because he’s irritated about an inaccuracy that appeared in his newspaper. This conversation gives Harriet an idea: She asks the senior editor to run an apology from Harriet to her classmates in the next edition. The day the retraction comes out, Harriet stays home from school because she is embarrassed. Instead, she spends the day working on one of her stories.

That afternoon, she goes to sit in the park and thinks about seeing the world through the eyes of other people. Much to her surprise, she notices Janie and Sport approaching her, and she finds herself able to imagine their perspectives: “She made herself walk in Sport’s shoes, feeling the holes in his socks rub against his ankles. She pretended she had an itchy nose when Janie put one abstracted hand up to scratch” (299). They walk up and wait for her to finish the notes in her journal. Then, the three of them walk wordlessly together along the river.