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

Getting in proved to be the easy part. Now that he was here, what was he supposed to do? Well, a good spy would check out the material on the desk right away. Charley knew that, and he headed for the desk, which occupied the area in front of large windows that let the light stream into the room. If the whole point of this exercise was to prevent his father from being a creature of habit, then something would have to be changed. As he was looking over the neat papers on the desk, two folders caught his eye. The first one was labeled copper, a word Charley was familiar with from studying the raw materials of Chile. He removed two sheets of paper, one headed Zambia and the other headed Zaire. That ought to make some difference in routine, he thought. He folded the papers and put them in his pocket and then reached for the second folder that had caught his attention. It was labeled PALLADIUM, a word Charley sounded out carefully. He didn’t know the word, but he liked the look of it. He rolled the word on his tongue and tasted it — “palladium.” It sounded like something a spy would be concerned with. He felt comfortable with the familiar “copper,” but this new word was exciting. From the folder he took two charts that seemed to be full of numbers and added them to the store in his pocket. He took a quick look at the rest of the materials on the desk, but the headings on various sections and folders that read SWISS FRANCS and DEUTSCHEMARKS meant less than nothing to him. He thought carefully for a few minutes and then turned two of the folders upside down. There, that should do it. Whatever his father’s habit pattern was, it was broken. His father could not be caught now the way his mother had been. Being undercover is a tremendous responsibility, Charley realized as he locked the study door and returned the key to its appropriate place. Now he was going to have to figure out how to get the papers back to his father’s files but in a way that the bad guys could not anticipate. He thought carefully, and then remembered his current homework assignment involving a report on the postal system. Of course, he thought triumphantly. He could mail the papers back to his father. That way the chain of habit was broken, his father’s work was restored to its original location, and anybody who was expecting his father to be caught spying was doomed to disappointment. Charley nodded his head enthusiastically. It had been a long time since he had felt this good, in fact, not since his mother had gone away. He, Charley Burton, had done an important thing to save the good guys. Being undercover was not only challenging, it was fun!

But now came the hard part. It should have been the easiest, and it would have been for just about anyone other than Charley, who was, after all, only a fourth grader. He had never mailed anyone a letter in his whole life. While he thought he Understood the process of writing to someone, he had never practiced the procedure. He knew he had to have an envelope, he had to address the envelope, and he had to put a stamp on the finished product. But he didn’t have an envelope, he had never written an address on an envelope, and he didn’t have a stamp. He didn’t even know if one stamp was enough. He thought and thought about it for a long time. He rejected the idea of sneaking back into the study and stealing an envelope. That would be a dead giveaway if one of his father’s own envelopes was used. Charley knew he was helping his father in his work, but he didn’t want him to know the source of his variation in routine. One of the primary things his mother had drilled into him in her tales of spies was the idea of keeping one’s identity a secret. You can’t very well be a spy if everybody knows you’re one, can you?

When inspiration struck, Charley was really quite proud of himself. One of his mother’s frequent reminders about the duties of spies was that they often found it necessary to improvise. There was an interesting word, and Charley knew precisely what it meant. To improvise, to take advantage of existing situations — these were things spies did as a matter of course. So when Charley approached Mrs. Lansdale after class the next day, he had a well-rehearsed story to tell.

“It’s about my report on the post office,” he began.

“The postal system, Charley. Always be precise. Now, how may I help you with your report?” While she was an authoritarian, Mrs. Lansdale really was a concerned teacher, and if her student needed some help, well, she was going to be right there to see that he got it.