Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson

fingerprints, and so forth. “Now,” I said, “I’m going to fix your shoestrings.” I unlaced his strings and started again, skipping the second and fourth holes. This way I could make the lace long enough to provide a decent bow.
    â€œThere,” I said, tying them for him as though he were a little child.
    â€œYou left out four holes.”
    â€œCall. I did it on purpose. So they wouldn’t come loose all the time.”
    â€œThey look dumb.”
    â€œNot as dumb as you’d look in your sockfeet.”
    He pretended to ignore this and stared at his shoelaces, as though trying to decide whether to retie them or to leave them be.
    â€œWhy don’t you think of it as a secret signal?”
    â€œA what ?”
    â€œCounterspies have to have ways of identifying themselves to other counterspies. Like secret code words. Or wearing a special kind of flower. Or—tying their shoes a certain way.”
    â€œYou can’t make me believe that spies tie their shoestrings funny.”
    â€œJust ask Franklin D. Roosevelt when we meet him.”
    â€œThat’s one of your jokes.”
    â€œOh, come on. You can tie them again later, after the mission.”
    He had his mouth set to argue, but I didn’t wait for a retort. Good heavens. The war would be over and he’d still be sitting there fussing about his shoestrings. “Follow me and keep low.”
    The cordgrass was about two feet high. There was no way, short of crawling through the mud on our bellies, that we could approach the Wallace house unseen. But there is a way of feeling invisible thatmakes one almost believe it’s true. At any rate, I felt invisible, creeping bent over toward that great gray clapboard house. My heart was beating as fast and noisily as the motor of the Portia Sue .
    There was no sound of life from the house. Earlier I had heard sawing and pounding. Now everything was quiet except the gentle lapping of the water on the nearby shore and the occasional cry of a water bird.
    I signaled for Call to follow me to the southwest corner of the house, and then, keeping close to the side, we slipped silently to the first window facing south. Carefully, I raised my head until my eyes could peer over the sill into the room. It was evidently the room that the old man had chosen for his workshop. Weather-beaten chairs, their cane bottoms sagging and broken, were arranged to serve as sawhorses. The floor was covered with wood curls and sawdust. The sounds I had heard from across the marsh came from here, but the old man was no longer in the room. I gestured Call to stay down, that there was nothing to see, but of course he stuck his head up and peered in, just as I had done.
    â€œNo one there,” he said in what he mistook for a whisper.
    â€œShhhhh!” I waved my hand in a violent “get down,” but he was in no hurry. He gazed into the room as though it were full of great art rather than pine boards and wood curls.
    I gave up trying to signal him and crept ahead to the next window. Slowly, very slowly, bracing my hand against the side of the house for support, I raised my head to the level of the window—straight into a great staring glass eye. I must have screamed. At least I did something to make Call begin to run as fast as he could around the house and in the direction of the path. I didn’t run—not because I wasn’t terrified, not because I wouldn’t have liked to run, but because my feet had lost all power of movement.
    The glass eye raised itself slowly from my face and a human voice said, “There you are. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
    I tossed my head, trying vainly to imitate the counterspy of my imagination, hoping that a clever, careless remark would float effortlessly from my lips, but my mouth was dry as sawdust and no remark, careless or otherwise, was about to emerge.
    â€œWould you like to come in?”
    I turned frantically to