Liar & Spy by Rebecca Stead Read Free Book Online Page A

call my dad.”
    Candy smiles and retreats to the kitchen.
    “Your dad’s a teacher?” I ask Safer.
    “Kind of. He owns a driving school.”
    “Is it Sixth Sense?”
    “Yeah. You know it?”
    “I used to walk past it every day on my way home from school.”
    I call Dad on his cell and ask if I can stay. He says yes, but I feel kind of bad, picturing Dad eating alone, until he tells me he’s over at the hospital, saying hi to Mom, so maybe he’ll just stay and have something with her.
    “Want to talk to her?” he asks. “I’m down in the cafeteria, grabbing a cup of tea, but you could call back in five minutes.”
    I tell him Safer and I are busy right now, but that I’ll get my homework done early so we can watch some baseball when he gets home. Dad sounds happy about that. The truth is that I did all my homework at school, during lunch, when other kids were talking and stuff.
    When I get off the phone, Safer says, “Ready to get down to business?”
    “Sure.”
    “We need to keep track of when Mr. X comes and goes. We’re going to try out a new piece of equipment.”
    Phew. No lobbycam.
    He holds up a gum wrapper and says, “Ta-da!”
    “That’s equipment?”
    “The best spy equipment doesn’t look like equipment, Georges. Here’s how it works: Right before you go to bed tonight, you zip upstairs to Mr. X’s and stick this gum wrapper between the door and the frame, at about knee height. When he opens the door to leave in the morning, it’ll drop onto the doormat. I’ll start checking really early, so I’ll know when he goes out.”
    We’re sitting in the beanbags, facing each other, so it’shard to avoid his eyes. But I’m not sure I want to be a part of this. I mean, what if the guy opens his front door at the very moment I’m standing on his doormat fiddling with a gum wrapper?
    Safer is still talking. “And then I’ll put the wrapper back between the door and the frame, so that we’ll know if he’s come back. If the wrapper is still in the door when you get home from school, he hasn’t come home yet. That means we have a window of opportunity.”
    “Opportunity for what?”
    “We’re not up to that part yet.”
    “So I have to put the gum wrapper in at night and then check it after school?”
    “Exactly.”
    Great. So that’s twice a day I’ll be standing on the doormat of doom.
    “Why a gum wrapper?”
    Safer smiles. “Think about it, Georges. A piece of paper on the floor is suspicious. But a gum wrapper provides its own story—someone unwrapped a piece of gum and dropped the wrapper on the floor. People are slobs! End of story. No suspicions.”
    “Huh.”
    “Besides, we need a cover story in case one of us actually runs into Mr. X. I mean, what are we doing squatting on his doormat, right? So if you see him, all you have to do is straighten up, hold out the gum wrapper, shake your head, and say ‘People are slobs!’ Then walk away, nice and slow.”
    Safer thinks of everything. It makes it hard to turn him down.

    We hang out and watch the parrots until dinner. Safer doesn’t mention anything else about Mr. X, so I don’t either. I learn to focus the binoculars and actually see one of the parrots fly out of the nest. Safer tells me that even though it looks like a messy bunch of sticks, the nest has three different areas, almost like little rooms.
    Candy announces that dinner is ready, and then Safer’s mom comes out of the kitchen. It’s the first time I’ve actually seen her since that first night in the lobby when I had to pretend I didn’t know Candy. She smiles at me and shakes my hand and tells me I’m very welcome in their home. Which is nice.
    Right before we sit down to eat, the door bangs open and a thicker, much taller version of Safer walks in. He’s got dark wavy hair. A pair of sneakers with the laces tied together hangs over one shoulder, and he’s wearing black jeans and a faded T-shirt.
    “Who’s this?” he asks, pointing at me and