Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 35, No. 10, October 1990

“I will talk to the boy. Rest assured, Mrs. uh — Lansdale, I will deal with Charley. In the meantime, if he must repeat the fourth grade, then so be it. It will undoubtedly be a lesson for him.”

Mrs. Lansdale, who had been prepared to defend her grading policy with everything in her extensive teacher’s arsenal, was somewhat irritated. She thrived on parental confrontation, and to be denied a challenge to her experience was a major disappointment. Still, her authority had not been threatened. Perhaps this Burton individual was simply wise enough to recognize educational power when he encountered it. Yes, that was the way she would read the situation. Dealing with mothers was really more rewarding, but the occasional father she ran up against provided the variety she probably needed.

Robert Burton made a note to talk with his son the next time they met. That would probably be after dinner. When he was at home, as opposed to traveling, he did try to arrange a few minutes daily with Charley. The encounter provided no pleasure to either man or boy, but both recognized it as something that was expected. Under most circumstances they were able to limit their meetings to under fifteen minutes. Burton hoped that the present school crisis would not unduly prolong this evening’s session.

Ordinarily, Charley’s mother would have borne the brunt of Mrs. Lansdale’s displeasure, and Robert Burton would have heard, without listening to, his wife’s account of the situation. But these were not ordinary times. Alma Burton, always frail, had died some five months ago. She was sorely missed by her doctor, who recognized an annuity when he saw one, but her passing was not particularly noted by her husband, who had not been overly aware of her when she was alive.

Charley, however, did miss his mother. He missed her very much indeed. While she was a rather vague lady to others, she did have one wonderful quality that meant the world to Charley. She could tell a story. Lord, how that woman could tell a story. Everything she encountered was a takeoff point for a story. Her imagination never flagged. And best of all, she could tailor a story to the mood of the moment. Charley’s mood for the past year had been centered on spies. The hardest word he had ever learned to spell was espionage, and he lived in secret delight of someday daunting Mrs. Lansdale with the word, letter by letter. He longed to see her jaw drop and her eyes fill with wonder when she recognized that he, Charley, knew such a word. For that knowledge and all the stories that went with it, Charley thanked — and missed — his mother.

The loss of his mother represented Charley’s first encounter with death. Oh, he had met the idea, of course, in his stories. Spies were always being threatened with death or even actually dying, but that was part of the game. Espionage was a game to Charley, who was a totally solitary fourth grader because his classmates preferred ball games and running and jumping. They easily grew bored with the idea of playing custodian of secrets to Charley’s spy. But a spy was never bored. A spy was always spying even while other things were going on. The spy was always undercover, and that was where the excitement was. Being undercover. Pretending to something that wasn’t. Making others believe that what wasn’t really was.

From the moment of his mother’s death, Charley had convinced himself that she was still alive but undercover. She had obviously told too much in her tales of spies in the night and had been called back to headquarters — there was always a headquarters somewhere — to go undercover until the other side, whatever it was, was taken care of. Charley recognized that it could be a long time before he saw her again. But a good spy, he had learned at his mother’s knee, knows how to wait. So for the past five months he had been doing his best to protect his mother’s endeavor. He no longer told the truth about anything. He, too, was undercover, and while his identity changed from day to day, his purpose was ever steady. The whole key to being undercover, as Charley saw it, was to bypass all things that were normal. So he couldn’t do much of his homework for Mrs. Lansdale. She might see him as a fourth grader, but he knew he was an agent. His book report couldn’t be done because an exiled Indian prince was depending on Charley to seek out the jewels of Ranchipur. His arithmetic had to take second place to his search for the space shuttle’s blueprints. He did try to do his geography because a good spy has to know where he is every minute, but he didn’t have time to learn the raw products of Brazil when he was busy trying to steal the secret minutes of the Security Council.

“I would appreciate it if you would try to do better in school,” Charley’s father said to him that night. “I had to meet with your Mrs. Lansdale this morning, and she said that you would not be promoted this term.”