Jacob Two-Two's First Spy Case by Mordecai Richler (illustrated by Dušan Petričić).
Title: Jacob Two-Two's First Spy Case.
Author: Mordecai Richler (illustrated by Dušan Petričić).
Genre: Fiction, children's lit, YA, spy books.
Country: Canada.
Language: English.
Publication Date: 1995.
Summary: Just as Jacob Two-Two settles into his new life in Canada, things are turned upside down! His new neighbor does double duty as a spy, his school's new principal turns out to be mean and nasty, and he makes an enemy - who could it be? Jacob Two-Two is on the case!
My rating: 8/10
My review:
♥
♥ The older he got, it seemed to Jacob Two-Two, the more difficult and complicated his life became. Once he had been appreciated, but not any longer. In the good old days, before he was even two plus two years old, all he had to do to amaze everybody in the family was to use a knife and fork, or tie his own shoelaces, but these achievements were no longer considered such a big deal. Nowadays he was expected to run errands, rake leaves in autumn and shovel a path through the snow in winter, help clear the table after dinner without breaking a plate, and put away his toys at night. He was expected to do all these things, but his two older brothers and two older sisters still considered him to be a nuisance.
♥ "Actually, I was thinking, which is a big part of a writer's job."
"What's a writer?" asked Jacob Two-Two twice.
"Well now," said his father, settling in at his desk and lifting Jacob Two-Two onto his lap, "the truth is I'm a master of magic, sort of."
"How come? How come?"
"Count the letters on my typewriter, Jacob."
There were twenty-six.
"Every morning I come up here," said his father, "toss these letters up into the air, and when they come down again I sort them out, and then there's enough money to buy hot dogs, cross-country skis, ice cream, red roses for Mummy, and maybe enough left over for a bottle of decent single-malt whisky for your devoted, ever-loving, incomparable Dad."
The very next day a reporter form Montreal's Daily Doze came to interview Jacob Two-Two's father about his latest book. Pretending to be modest, which was awfully difficult for him, Jacob Two-Two's father told the reporter, "My new book is the best I could do, given my limited abilities." But when the reporter, escorted by Jacob Two-Two's father, passed through the living room, he paused and asked Jacob, "What's it like being the son of a scribbler, kiddo?"
"My daddy's no scribbler," said Jacob Two-Two. "He's a master of magic."
"Oh, yeah," snarled the reporter. "How come?"
"There are only twenty-six letters on his typewriter," said Jacob Two-Two. "And every morning he tosses them into the air, and when they land he just sorts them out and then there's enough money to buy himself a bottle of whisky and some things for us."
The headline on the book page of the next morning's Daily Doze read:
LOCAL SCRIBBLER CLAIMS TO BE MAGICIAN
Misleads Innocent Child
Alongside, there was a cartoon of Jacob Two-Two's tottering father, wearing a magician's tattered robes, holding a broken wand in one hand and a bottle of whisky in the other.
♥
"I am a world traveler. A man who has done many astounding things. I have had a bath in Turkey and eaten turkey in a city called Bath. I once gobbled a sandwich in the town of Rainy River and later waded in a rainy river in the Sandwich Islands. You are looking at a chap who once went out with a fair maiden called Florence in a city of Adelaide, and then kept company with another, called Adelaide, in the city of Florence. I have, in my time, gorged myself on Toulouse sausages in the Canary Islands and kept a canary in a city called Toulouse. Long ago, in my days as a struggling young man, I went hungry in the city of Hamburg, but, by Jove, I lived to eat hamburgers in Hungary," he said, and then he handed Jacob Two-Two his card. It read:
X. BARNABY DINGLEBAT
Master Spy
No Job Too Small
Free Estimates On Request.
♥ "..and Perfectly Loathsome Leo never gets invited anywhere else."
"No wonder," said Jacob Two-Two's mother.
Perfectly Loathsome Leo Louse's suit was so shiny you could just about see your reflection in it. His shirt collar and cuffs were badly frayed. He used a rope, instead of a belt, to hold up his trousers. One of his socks was brown, and the other black, to match his smelly shoes, one black, the other brown.
..Whenever he came to the house, Perfectly Loathsome Leo Louse would pretend to be fond of Jacob Two-Two when the other men were around, but played nasty tricks on him if he caught him alone.
..
Later he caught Jacob Two-Two alone in the kitchen and immediately indicated an imaginary spot on his shirt. "Hey, is that a bumblebee I see there?" And when Jacob Two-Two lowered his head to look, Perfectly Loathsome Leo flicked Jacob's nose hard with his bent finger. "Gotcha, didn't I?"
♥ .derovalf etalocohc ylbareferp ⹁maerc eci fo but a erahs ot tsuj ro ⹁foor ym no peek I snoegip reirrac eht deef em pleh ot kcolc'o xis ta dnuor emoc yam uoy snaem ti petsrood tnorf ym no pu denil era selppaenip xis ⹁dnah rehto eht no ⹁fI .Ɛ
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.gniretne ton ⹁gnivael erew uoy kniht dluow srehctaw neddih taht os ,sdrawkcab gniklaw esuoh ym dehcaorppa uoy rehtar dluow I ⹁tcaf nI .ट
)dengis(
TABELGNID YBANRAB .X
ypS retsaM
(3. If, on the other hand, six pineapples are lined up on my front doorstep it means you may come round at six o'clock to help me feed the carrier pigeons I keep on my roof, or just to share a tub of ice cream, preferably chocolate flavored.
4. Please make sure you are not being followed before entering my safe house.
5. In fact, I would rather you approached my house walking backwards, so that hidden watchers would think you were leaving, not entering.
(signed)
X. BARNABY DINGLEBAT
Master Spy)
♥ Watery soup was followed by itsy-bitsy chunks of fatty meat floating in a lukewarm muddy sauce. The bread rolls were either three days old or came form a cement factory and dessert was a mashed brown mush.
..What made matters worse for the boys was that every day, their eyes filled with longing, they had to watch as a special luncheon tray was wheeled in for Mr. I.M. Greedyguts. Today it was a sizzling two-inch-thick rib steak, served with a mountain of crisp French fries, and followed by a foot high banana split, topped with hot chocolate sauce.
"Unfortunately," explained Mr. I.M. Greedyguyts, "I suffer from ulcers, dyspepsia, stomach acid, heartburn, constipation, gas, iron, aluminum, tin, and zinc deficiencies, and allergies too numerous to mention, and can only look on in envy at your daily gourmet repast."
♥
♥ Jacob Two-Two considered his father a pal. After he had finished work, he often took Jacob Two-Two out for a walk.
The next afternoon, in fact, they wandered as far as his father's old neighborhood, which Noah had once described as DADDY'S HARD TIMES TOUR, a trip each child in the family had to endure at least once, obliged only to say "oooh" or "aaah" at the right moments.
.."Why when I was your age, the school I attended didn't even serve lunch to children. No sirree. I had to get up in the wintry dark, shake out the ice that had formed on my blanket during the night, and make my own lunch. Usually a lettuce sandwich made with one-day-old bread, which my mother could buy more cheaply than fresh bread."
"Oooh," said Jacob Two-Two. "Oooh."
"And sometimes," said his father, "I had to share that stale bread sandwich with boys who were even poorer than we were."
"Aaah," said Jacob Two-Two. "Aaah."
"You see that building over there?" said his father, pausing to blow his nose. "It's the Stuart Biscuit Company. When I was your age, they used to let us in a side door, where we could buy a bag of broken biscuits for two cents, and sometimes a couple of us chipped in to buy a bag."
"Oooh," said Jacob Two-Two. "Oooh."
On the next street Jacob Two-Two's father said, "In winter, we used to play street hockey out here, using a piece of coal for a puck, because that's all we could afford."
"Aaah," said Jacob Two-Two. "Aaah."
"And when the game was over, we'd fight over who got to keep the piece of coal, which could be added to the furnace fires that kept our homes from freezing."
♥ At lunch, Mr. I.M. Greedyguts rose from his multipillowed throne at the head table, burped loudly, wiped his three wobbly chins on his sleeve, and called, "What do we say before we start pigging it, boys?"
"THREE CHEERS FOR MR. I.M. GREEDYGUTS, FROM WHOM ALL GOOD THINGS FLOW!" they chorused back.
For lunch the boys were served soup made form hot water poured over a carrot, followed by rubbery chicken legs with boiled potatoes that were raw in the middle and, for dessert, gluey rice pudding; and Jacob Two-Two was served two portions of each, which just about made him sick to his stomach.
"Poor Jacob," said Miss Lapointe.
Meanwhile, Mr. I.M. Greedyguts devoured a whole roast turkey with chestnut stuffing, washed down with a bottle of champagne, and followed by an entire cheesecake.
♥ Poor Mr. Dinglebat was in a state. He had, he told Jacob Two-Two, recently invested a good deal of money in buying Canadian military secrets, and now he was stuck with them. "No customers," he said.
Mr. Dinglebat showed Jacob Two-Two the ad he had placed in The Certified Snooper's Monthly Journal:
ONCE IN A LIFETIME OFFER
BUY ONE CANADIAN MILITARY SECRET
GET ONE FREE!!!
Write to X. Barnaby Dinglebat
Master Spy
But there were no offers. "Not even a nibble," said Mr. Dinglebat. "But, fortunately, my dear boy, I have another source of funds. Wait for me here."
Mr. Dinglebat retreated into his dressing room and, when he emerged again, he was wearing an Afro wig, an earring, mirrored sunglasses, a sheepskin vest, numerous gold chains, purple trousers, and yellow platform shoes. "In this outfit," he said, "nobody will give me a second look downtown, and that's where we're headed. I can now safely join the passing parade, where I will appear to be merely another misunderstood, unappreciated teenager, who is getting no satisfaction, to quote the teenagers' great poet, Mr. Mick Jagger."
♥ "But what if it doesn't work?" asked Jacob Two-Two.
"It's fail-safe, 100-per-cent guaranteed, my dear boy."
"I could get nervous and mix things up."
"But it is also a gamble."
"I'm scared."
"Good. Because no secret agent worthy of his name ever went into action without being frightened. Now we will practice the procedures together all the way home. Okay?"
"Okay. Okay."
"And then, Jacob, do as I instruct you, and we shall prevail tonight. Promise?"
"Promise," said Jacob Two-Two, gulping twice. He was worried, very worried, because he was still a little boy who never got anything right. Ask Noah. Ask Emma.
Ask anybody.
♥ "Very funny. Ho ho ho," said Perfectly Loathsome Leo Louse, and, to himself, he added, You made me look like a fool, Jacob Two-Two. And I'll get you for this, oh yes I will.
That night Jacob Two-Two skipped off to bed happily, unaware that he had made an enemy, and that there was real trouble in store for him. I did it, he thought. I got something right. I got something right even though I'm still little and have to say everything twice, because nobody hears what I say the first time.
♥ He was speaking to his eighty-five-year-old mother, with whom he lived in the basement of an apartment building they owned in the old neighborhood. The sign outside read:
ABSOLUTELY NO CHILDREN ALLOWED HERE.
NO PETS, EITHER.
RENTS PAID IN ADVANCE.
CASH ONLY.
♥ On Monday morning, Perfectly Loathsome Leo was still brooding about his losses at the poker table, which he blamed on Jacob Two-Two. That child swindler, that under-age cheat. But he found some comfort flitting about his enormous kitchen, preparing the day's school lunches, with the help of his mother. Testing a spoonful of soup, spitting it out, he said, "This won't do, Mumsy. It's almost tolerable. Let's fill a pail with stagnant dishwater, pour it in, and bring the broth to the boil again."
"Oh, what a wonderful idea, my sweetums," she said.
Dipping a finger into a tub of mashed potatoes, he growled, "Why, this taste almost decent. Our reputation could be ruined!"
"Think of something," she said.
"I've got it," said Perfectly Loathsome Leo, and he fetched an emergency bucket of gravy, almost raw potato lumps that he kept in the refrigerator, and emptied it into the tub. "Stir it well, Mumsy."
"Hee hee hee," she said, "you are a genius, my truly loathsome one."
Ever watchful, Perfectly Loathsome Leo moved on to a stack of sausages. "Just as I feared," he said, "these aren't sufficiently greasy. Let's drown these sausages in hot bacon fat, and cool the pile before delivery."
"You know something, Perfectly Loathsome," his mother cooed, "sometimes I wonder if I really deserve to have been blessed with such an enchanting son."
Perfectly Loathsome Leo was delighted with his mother's five-foot-long meat loaf. "One hundred and ten per cent terrific, Mumsy. You can actually taste the sawdust in it."
♥ Mr. Dinglebat outfitted Jacob Two-Two with a fedora, dark glasses, a handlebar mustache, a T-shirt, jeans, and scuffed tennis shoes. Then he rubbed a mixture of beer and cigarette ash into their clothes. "It's the small details," he said, "that have saved many a boy from being hanged by his thumbs, or from submitting to the Norwegian pickled herring torture."
"What's that?" asked Jacob Two-Two."
"Better you don't know."
.."We're here because we're planning a cover story on the Outstanding School headmaster of the Year. But if you're too busy to see us, we'll go quietly."
"No, no, no. Please come in. Make yourselves comfortable, gentlemen," said Mr. I.M. Greedyguts, and then he waddled over to sit down behind his desk.
There was a jar of jellybeans on his desk, a plate of assorted cheeses, and two foot-long Toblerone chocolate bars. The desk's surface was also covered with letters, bills, notes, and an opened diary.
"Something about the little fellow strikes me as fmailiar," said the dreaded Mr. I.M. Greedyguts and, looking directly at Jacob Two-Two, he added, "Do I know you from somewhere?"
Jacob Two-Two gulped twice.
"Let me introduce you to Jacques Deux-Deux," said Mr. Dinglebat, "two-time winner of the World's Best Midget Photographer Award."
♥ Mr. I.M. Greedyguts left just after midnight, enabling him to get to his favorite late-night delicatessen before it closed, so that he could relieve his hunger pangs. Miss Sour Pickle, now that she was alone, could indulge in her secret passion: ice hockey.
She had taped that evening's game, Montreal Canadiens vs. the Boston Bruins, but before slipping the tape into her VCR, she hurried into her bedroom and, as was her habit on such occasions, got into her Montreal Canadiens uniform, including a helmet, laced on her skates, fetched her hockey stick out of a closet, fished a six-pack of beer out of the fridge, and then settled into an easy chair in front of her TV set. No sooner did her beloved Canadiens skate out onto the ice than she hollered, "GO, HABS, GO! GO HABS, GO!"
The first period was scrambly, not to her taste, but early in the second period there was some exciting action at last. Patrice Brisebois, a Canadiens defense-man, speared Raymond Bourque of Boston. "ATTA BOY," shouted Miss Sour Pickle, banging her hockey stick against the floor. "TEACH HIM A LESSON, PAT!"
The two players dropped their gloves and began to slug it out. Leaping out of her chair, waving her stick at the TV set, an enthralled Miss Sour Pickle yelled, "SMASH HIM, PAT. PULVERIZE HIM! KNOCK HIS TEETH OUT!"
Which is exactly when three policemen knocked down her door and spilled into her living room, the first one tumbling head over heels, the second tripping and sent sprawling by the third. All three of them were brandishing revolvers.
A terrified Miss Sour Pickle began to scream.
"Don't worry, lady," said the first policeman, retreating a step.
"You're safe now," said the second, the hand that held his revolver shaking.
♥ "But now I'm bound to suffer from indigestion for the rest of the day."
"No wonder," said Jacob Two-Two's mother.
Mr. I.M. Greedyguts belched twice, farted once, and then pointed a finger thick as a sausage at Jacob Two-Two.
♥
♥ "I'll wager that before I live to see a little person appear before me who is innocent, I'll find a whale who can play a Beethoven concerto on the piano, or a poodle who can stand on his hind legs and bat .400 in the American League. ..Let me guess what your unspeakable crime is this time," said Mr. Justice Rough. "You were sent down to get something out of the freezer and left the door open all through the night. Or you turned up at school with your shirt-tail hanging out. Or you're so dumb you couldn't even tell your geography teacher the name of the capital city of Fiji. Or you were caught reading in bed with a flashlight. I've seen all kinds here. Nothing surprises me any more. Why, earlier today I had a little girl on here, no more than three years old, who wakened her mummy and daddy at three a.m. to ask for a glass of water."
"Shocking," said a member of the jury.
"Incredible," said another.
♥
♥ "Count on me," said Emma.
"And me," said Noah.
"But it is my duty to warn you in advance," said Jacob Two-Two, "that on this mission it's 'Moscow rules.'"
"What's that?" asked Noah.
"If the operation fails, and we are caught," said Jacob Two-Two, "Mr. Dinglebat will deny we were working for him. In fact, he will say he never laid eyes on any of us."
"Gosh," said Emma.
♥ The watchers left to take up their posts and then Jacob Two-Two and Mr. Dinglebat hurried over to McDonald's and sat down to wait. In order not to call attention to themselves at their command table, they were, of course, disguised. Mr. Dinglebat wore a top hat, a swallow-tailed jacket, a purple velvet cape, and carried his gold-topped sword cane, just in case. Jacob Two-Two, sporting a safari hat, shoulder length black dreadlocks, and a Van Dyke beard, wore a heavily studded bomber jacket, black leather trousers, and cowboy boots.
♥
♥ "What do we do now?" asked Jacob Two-Two.
"Why, if at first you don't succeed, you try, try, and try again. I will put on my thinking cap and come up with something. Count on it, Jacob."
"I do," said Jacob Two-Two. "I do."
♥ Perfectly Loathsome Leon and his miserly mum had two visitors. A bent-over old man trailing a long white beard and holding the hand of a fat, freckled little boy with curly red hair, possibly a wig, and red button nose that just might have been false. "Let me introduce myself," wheezed the old man. "You are looking at a world traveler. In my time, I have kept a dog in the town of Moose Jaw, in Canada, and eaten mooseburgers on the Isle of Dogs, in England. In days gone by, I survived on sardines in the city of Kiev, and the Ukraine, and went on to feast on chicken Kiev on the island of Sardinia. To make a long story short, I am a gourmet, an internationally known food expert, and this is my grandson, Jacov Shtyim-Shtyim."
♥ The parlor was a sight to behold. There was a bushel basket filled with little plastic packets of mustard, another overflowing with ketchup packets, and a third spilling over with plastic knives and forks. Sardine tins served as ashtrays. A plastic Javex bottle had been made into a lampstand, with no lampshade covering the light bulb. The ancient sofa was bleeding stuffing, and springs popped through the seat of the only armchair. A rickety table, standing on a tar-paper rug, was strewn with broken cups and saucers, some of them already mended with glue. Over the mantelpiece there hung a photograph of a witch wearing a tall, cone-shaped black hat, a black cape, and riding a broomstick. Underneath, there was a lighted candle.
"Who's that?" asked the boy. "Who's that?"
"Why, this parlor is also our very own museum," said Perfectly Loathsome Leo's miserly mum. "And what you are looking at is a memorial to the Bad Witch of the North, who was unjustly murdered by Dorothy, who struck her down with a flying house in The Wizard of Oz, then went on to rob the dead woman of her ruby slippers."
"Gosh," said Jacob Two-Two, tightening his grip on the old man's hand.
"And have you seen this, child?"
It was a riding whip mounted on the wall.
"That is the real whip that was used to beat lazy Black Beauty, when he was employed as a cart horse."
An apple was mounted on a pedestal.
"That is an exact replica of the apple that Snow White, that tiresome child, foolishly took a bite out of. I wish she had eaten all of it, don't you?"
A shotgun was mounted on a wall.
"That's the actual gun that a hunter aimed at Bambi."
"Unfortunately, he missed," said Perfectly Loathsome Leo.
"But we are being such inconsiderate hosts," said his miserly mum. "Can we get you something?"
"A glass of water, perhaps?" suggested Perfectly Loathsome Leo.
"Or possibly the two of you might like to share a peanut," said his miserly mum.
♥ "Had you been lucky enough to be trained in spy-craft like me," said Jacob Two-Two, "you would have made that call from a pay phone."
"But that would have cost me twenty-five cents," wailed Perfectly Loathsome Leo Louse.
"You saved yourself a quarter," said Law.
"And now you face," said Order.
"-a minimum of ten years in prison," said the Officer-in-Charge.
"Wait," said Miss Sour Pickle," I will drop all charges if this hoodlum is willing to pay for my round-the-world cruise, enabling me to while away the long hours dancing the twist, the Highland fling, the hora, the bal masqué, the square dance, the hula-hula, the Charleston, the bossa nova, and the fandango."
"Would you settle for an all-day canoe trip on the St. Lawrence instead?" asked Perfectly Loathsome Leo. "I'll paddle and provide homemade sandwiches."
♥
♥ An elated Jacob Two-Two got home from school that afternoon just in time to see a helicopter land on Mr. Dinglebat's front lawn, and to catch Mr. Dingleabat emerging from his house, wearing an admiral's uniform and carrying a suitcase.
"Are you off on another mission so soon?" asked Jacob Two-Two.
"Why, before we meet again, amigo, I will have sipped sweet water in Sunset Beach, California, and watched the sun set in Sweet Water, Alabama. A master spy's work is never done. Now, you tell your associates in CHILD POWER how much I look forward to working with them again. And, of course, with you, too, Jacob Two-Two, if not today or tomorrow, then before too long, I hope. See you anon, dear boy."
"Come home safely, Mr. Dinglebat," said Jacob Two-Two. "Come home safely, please."
And he stood there, waving, until the helicopter was no more than a dot in the sky.
♥ The Clairvoyant's Gamble Explained, As Promised
Jacob Two-Two phoned Mr. Dinglebat and said, "Hello, can you tell me if Mr. Clair-voy-ant is there, please?"
Then Mr. Dinglebat began to count, "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven-"
When Jacob Two-Two interrupted, "Is that you, Mr. Clair-voy-ant?" Mr. Dinglebat continued, "Clubs, spades, hearts-"
"Somebody would like to speak to you," said Jacob Two-Two.
"Your card, amigo," Mr. Dinglebat told Perfectly Loathsome Leo Louse, "is the seven of hearts."
The second time, Jacob Two-Two had said, "Sorry, but may I speak to Mr. Clair-voy-ant again, please?"
Mr. Dinglebat said, "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, jack-"
"Hello, is that you, Mr. Clair-voy-ant?"
Mr. Dinglebat responded, "Hearts, diamonds, clubs-"
"Somebody wants to talk to you," said Jacob Two-Two.
Perfectly Loathsome Leo grabbed the phone.
"Your card, hombre, is the jack of clubs," said Mr. Dinglebat.