In fourth grade I organized the “Spy Niki Club.”  The most reliable members were my friends but it had the advantage of other alliances against a common enemy, that it was possible for non-friends to join and discover they had less reason for mutual hostility than had been believed. Dodger fans predominated over Giant fans.  A couple of Yankee fans — considered a foreign culture — were tolerated.  All members were male, a bias no one thought of.  Girls didn’t spy on boys, anyway.  Well, how would anyone know?

The duties of Club members were to move around the concrete schoolyard during lunch recess, observe Niki and report to other members about her whereabouts and activities. We’d meet excitedly at the cornerstone — it was a granite block that said “1928” — and confer, I’d talk into my hand like highway police into a microphone on television (or Sky King!):

“Goldman to Taqi, Goldman to Navarro, over.”  “Come in, Goldman.”  “We read you. Over.”

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