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

Charley looked at his father with unblinking attention. He didn’t really care about not being promoted, but he had to make his father believe that things were normal. What good does it do to be undercover if your own father thinks you’re up to something?

“Yes, sir,” he managed. “I’ll try to do better.” Not caring about school but making someone believe he did — that was a good undercover exercise. Of course, it was easy to deal with this semistranger who headed the household. They got along well enough. There were never any disagreements, never any harsh words or punishments. But if things were not as they really seemed to be, Charley realized, then perhaps his father did care for him deeply. Maybe he, too, was undercover. He thought about that for a while and then rejected the idea. While he really didn’t know what his father did do, it certainly couldn’t be of any importance. After all, he was practically always home working on stacks of papers in the room called the study, the room that was always locked whether his father was in it or not. Occasionally his father would go away on business for a couple of weeks at a time, but the housekeeper saw to Charley, and there was no sense of loneliness or isolation.

Both father and son retreated into after-dinner silence, each glad that the other had not tried to extend the conversation. School, after all, was not a subject that appealed to either of them. Their relationship was not endangered by Mrs. Lansdale’s pronouncement. Their disinterested camaraderie continued as before.

Charlie found the fourth grade a lot easier the second time around. Because he knew what the assignments were going to be even before Mrs. Lansdale made them, he was able to get most of them done in advance whenever he managed to have a spare hour or two. After all, even James Bond had to take time out for something other than spying. And in spite of himself, he did get turned on to reading. Missing his mother’s storytelling art was a problem at first, but when he discovered that the library was full of books on espionage, he was able to please his teacher and his imagination at the same time. Mrs. Lansdale was won over completely to Charley’s chosen field of interest when he pronounced his admiration for Nathan Hale, whom he discovered in his history lesson one day. Strange, Charley thought, that he had missed the great American spy the first time around.

“I’m pleased with your report card,” his father said one night after dinner. “Your teacher says that your reading is definitely superior now. Congratulations.” He had known Charley would grow out of his troublesome stage. It’s best, he told himself, not to make a fuss before it’s called for. Besides, it was undoubtedly the loss of his mother that had slowed the boy’s academic progress. Mr. Burton was quite satisfied with his analysis, but he didn’t discuss Charley’s mother with the boy. Cut your losses, he would have said if he’d said anything.

Charley wasn’t quite certain when he decided that his father was a spy. Not Charley’s kind of spy, of course, but a spy nevertheless. “I deal in commodities,” Robert Burton told his son in answer to a question one night. “You’re too young to understand that, of course, but when you are older you will realize just what is involved.”

Commodities didn’t sound too exciting, but that was probably just some grownup word for secret weapons, Charlie decided. In his imagination he now sought to discover where the commodities were hidden, and they sounded much more exciting than guns or bombs. When Mrs. Lansdale asked him one day what he wanted to be when he grew up, he impressed her no end by saying that he wanted to deal with commodities just as his father did. Mrs. Lansdale even made a mental note to ask Mr. Burton for some market advice at their next conference. She began treating Charley with a great deal more respect than she had in the past. After all, a good commodity analyst doesn’t grow on trees. For all she knew, Mr. Burton might someday say something to Charley about pork bellies or cocoa that could be passed on. There is no law, Mrs. Lansdale decided, that says a teacher has to retire to genteel poverty.

Because his father was a spy, Charley decided, he would have to be given very special affection. Spies evidently didn’t last too long once their cover was broken. His mother was the prime example of that. Of course, Mr. Burton couldn’t be a very good spy, not if a fourth grader could find him out. The only thing that Charlie wasn’t quite clear about was for whom his father was spying. It would have to be the good guys, he knew, but when it came to commodities he wasn’t At all sure as to just exactly what was involved. The dictionary was no help. The entry was too long and complicated for a small boy, so Charley was going to have to go undercover again to find out what he had to know.