Spyhole Secrets by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

monster that was fighting with Rapunzel.
    She was still checking out the mask when the door directly across from the big window opened and suddenly there he was: Zachary himself. Hallie gasped and almost slid off the trunk, and then wondered why. Why was she so amazed to see Zachary there in the apartment when she was almost sure he was theperson she’d seen in the witch-doctor mask and also caught glimpses of behind the love seat? Ever since she’d met him in the library, she’d been certain the little monster, the fuzzy-headed couch spy, and the wannabe psychiatrist were all one and the same person. Even so, it was a real rush to see the familiar big-eyed, knobby-kneed kid bouncing into the blue-lit room. As usual, he was carrying a couple of big books.
    Hallie went on staring, feeling as thrilled and excited as if she were catching a glimpse of a movie star, while Zachary crossed the room and stopped for a moment to look up at the mask on the mantelpiece. Hallie held her breath, hoping he’d take it down and put it on. But instead he turned away and, disappointingly, disappeared into the corner of the room that she couldn’t see, the corner where the man with the long legs usually sat.
    Of course, Zachary’s legs were too short to stick out, so he quickly became completely invisible, but Hallie could see him very clearly in her mind’s eye, curled up in his father’s chair with his nose in one of the fat books. She could picture the chair too. A big, thick-armed leather chair like the one that had been her father’s.
    She was still picturing the chair and how Zachary looked curled up in it when the door opened again and another person entered the room.
    It was the same guy, all right. Hallie recognized the profile she’d seen in the gray car. The samelong-legged man who usually sat in the hidden corner was walking across the room, carrying a newspaper in one hand and a glass in the other.
    Immediately, before the man had reached the center of the room, Zachary was back in sight too, as if he’d jumped out of the chair and scurried away. It was almost as if… Hallie smiled, remembering how Zeus used to act when someone came in and found him sleeping on a chair he wasn’t supposed to get up on.
    The man turned toward Zachary and began to talk. Hallie could see his lips moving. Then Zachary was saying something back and holding out his book. Maybe telling his father about what he’d been reading. Yeah, that was probably it, holding out the open book and telling his father about it. He was still talking, his lips moving rapidly, when the man turned his back and disappeared into the invisible corner.
    Finally Zachary stopped talking. But he was still looking toward the hidden corner where his father was probably sitting in the chair, putting his drink on a side table and shaking out his newspaper. Sure enough, the legs came back in sight then, long legs and big feet in shiny black shoes. Zachary went on standing there, staring into the corner, for a long time before he slowly closed the book, turned around, and went out of the room.
    After Zachary disappeared, Hallie went on watching for a while to see if something else was going to happen. But nothing did. Before long she got tired oflooking around the bare-walled, boring room and watching the motionless black shoes, and she decided to leave.
    She was on her way across the attic when she thought again about the way Zachary had jumped up, and how it had reminded her of Zeus. She started to smile again, remembering Zeus’s guilty-faced retreats, but the smile fizzled out suddenly when she decided it wasn’t really all that funny. It was funny when a dog got up and scurried away looking guilty, but a kid who did it when his father came into the room …
    It wasn’t until she was going down the stairs that she started smiling again, this time remembering how, when she was a little kid, she used to fight with her dad over his big leather chair. She would try to beat