by Marcia Wells
“L-O-N-N-R-O-T.”
People always ask how to spell my name. It’s European and looks pretty unusual, but it’s easy to pronounce: Lawn-rot. Some family down south owned my ancestors back in the slave days, and the name stuck.
“And Edmund is your son?” she asks my father with a smile, polite like it’s obvious and yet . . . there’s doubt. I share my dad’s dark skin and need for thick glasses, but the genetics end there. He is a mammoth, and I am a chipmunk.
“That is correct.”
“Sir, we’d like to take your statement soon, but your son is a priority due to his—”
“Photographic mind, yes,” my father replies, beaming with pride. Oh brother, here we go.
Before he can get to talking about how I’m enrolled in a school for gifted kids, the policewoman vanishes and reappears with an older man whose big fuzzy blond mustache makes him look like Sherlock Holmes. But instead of a pipe, he pulls out a fancy coal pencil and a sketchpad.
“Edmund, this is Mr. Wright. He’s a sketch artist, and will be drawing the man you saw. Just describe him the best you can.” She gestures to an empty desk with two seats. “Let me know if you need anything.”
Mr. Wright shakes my hand and sits, motioning for me to follow. His blue eyes crinkle at the corners. “You can call me Phil,” he says. “Let’s start with any striking details you remember, okay? And then we’ll think about the shape of his face, his eyes, if his nose was long . . . things like that. Sound good to you?”
I nod, picturing the man’s face in my head. My dad is distracted, talking to another cop a few feet away, which is just as well or he might seriously interfere with this process.
We work on the picture for twenty minutes. I describe, Phil draws.
“How’s this?” Phil asks. He leans forward, sliding the picture across the table. In this close proximity, I become painfully aware of the tufts of hair growing out of his ears and nose.
“The eyes aren’t quite right,” I reply. “They were a different shape, and farther apart. It’s like he was Chinese, but not. More almond-shaped, I guess.”
Phil nods and pensively begins to erase some markings. I don’t have the heart to tell him that none of it looks right. The beard is too full, the hair not stringy enough. And don’t even get me started on the nose and forehead.
I fiddle with a pen and zone out as he labors away. I can hear what my dad is saying two desks over:
“There were two men fighting. I pulled them off each other. One was clearly hurt. Knife wound, I think. He was probably the one who yelled for help. He was clean-shaven, Caucasian, and completely bald. A young guy. Shaved his head so it shined. Not in a skinhead way, though. He seemed pretty preppy to me. Probably one of those guys who’s prematurely bald so he decided to just shave it all off.”
My dad starts to pontificate about the guy’s background, but the cop gently steers him back to the task at hand. My father could talk all night if they let him.
“All right. Well, the bald, wounded man took off running once I separated them. An extremely tall fellow. I’m a big guy and he had some inches on me. Six foot six at least. Very thin. And then there was the man with the long hair and beard, the one my son saw.”
My dad moves his head in my direction when he mentions me. Quickly I pretend to be engrossed in what Phil is doing. Or not doing, which is the case. He has completely botched my description of the eyes, going from bad to worse.
“Anyway, the guy with the beard . . . I’ve decided his name is Marco, by the way. He sort of looked like an Asian Marco Polo.” My dad chuckles at his joke. No one else laughs.
Clearing his throat, he continues: “Marco had a knife in his hand, so I put my fists up, ready to punch. I’ve taken self-defense classes. He saw me preparing to defend myself, and I probably outweighed him by a hundred pounds, so he ran. I chased after him but then I saw my son under the bench, so I stopped.”
I’m pretty sure my dad stopped because he hasn’t jogged for twenty years, let alone sprinted, but I stay quiet and let him keep his dignity.
“How about this?” Phil’s voice interrupts my thoughts.
“The mustache had a different shape, thinner in this area,” I say, grabbing a pencil and making a few line adjustments on the paper.
Phil gasps as if I just marked up an original Picasso.
He snatches the sketchpad back, and his arm tenses as he erases the lines in angry, jerking bursts. I sigh. We’re going to be here all night.
By the sixth round of show-and-tell, Phil is beyond annoyed, a grimace twisting his once friendly mouth. I try to be helpful:
“Sir, I’m pretty good at drawing. Do you mind if I try? In addition to your picture, I mean. For backup.” Backup? Is that even the right word in this situation?
“Kid, this is a professional job, not some project for school.”
I paste on my most charming smile. “Please, I won’t get in the way. I think it could be helpful. I won an art contest last year. Your picture is great and all . . . It’s just to have a different perspective.”
He eyes me for a moment, his fuzzy mustache twitching like an irritated caterpillar. “Fine. Let’s see what you can do.”
I know a dare when I hear one. He slaps a fresh sheet of paper down on the table and walks away chuckling as if he’s humoring the silly boy with his silly art ideas. I notice he takes his writing instrument with him. No cool police sketching coal for me.
I pick up a pencil from the desk and quickly start to sketch, imagining I’m in art class. If I think about how the man I’m drawing had a knife and could have left me fatherless, I get rattled. So I pretend he’s just a long-lost weirdo relative who I have to draw for my grandma’s birthday gift. So what if he’s white and has bizarre facial hair? He’s adopted. Marco Lonnrot. Every family has one.
I grip my pencil from the side to make quick, fluid strokes. I sketch an oval head, centering the eyes, nose and mouth. Marco’s mouth was wider than normal, his cheekbones protruding. I measure the proportions mentally, his face as clear in my mind as if he were standing in front of me.
Phil walks by and snickers. The picture looks weird with its rough scribbles and geometric outlines, but I’m not done yet. Darn you and your fancy charcoal, Phil.
I speed up, loosening my shoulder and making big sweeping motions on the paper.
Eyes were big but angled at the corners. Wisps of hair flowing from his chin. Hair on head stringy, straggling down to his shoulders. Shading behind the eyes so they don’t pop from the paper. Shade and erase. Shade and erase. I wish I had charcoal. Much easier to work with.
A group of people has gathered behind my shoulder, whispering. I try to ignore them.
“Hey, Chief! Come take a look at this,” a guy calls out from my right.
An older man in a sharp navy blue uniform walks over, the top of his left shoulder lined with four gold stars. His weather-worn face is stern but his eyes curious.
The chief of police is watching you! Don’t mess this up! Swallowing my nerves, I put final touches on everything with crisper lines. One more rub of the eraser . . . proportions correct, photograph complete. Welcome to the room, Marco.
Someone whistles; a couple people clap.
I can tell my father is about to explode with pride as several onlookers compliment him on his gifted geek son. I sit back and admire my work. Not my best, but not bad, under the circumstances. It took about ten minutes.
Phil examines my drawing for a moment, then gazes down at his own, a warped, hollow imitation of the real thing.
“Beginner’s luck,” he snaps. He turns on his heel and stalks away, head held high as if he has much more important places to be. I overhear the nice cop lady say, “Don’t worry, Phil. You’re still the best artist in the precinct. In the whole city, in fact.”
I don’t think there’s one person in the room who believes that, considering the way they are all looking at me now.
Sorry, Phil.
Chapter 3
Glory
January 14
“That is totally Alamo,” whispers Jonah during math class the next morning. I decided to tell him what happened first, before the story breaks and I get swarmed by the rest of the sixth grade. Privileges of the best friend.
“Yeah. Totally Alamo,” I agree, not actually knowing what he’s talking about. Something to do with battle strategy.
I can track the years of my life with Jonah’s military obsessions. They usually coincide with whatever language we’re studying. We learn a different language each year, and the theory is that by seventh grade we’ll be able to make an “educated decision” about what we’d like to study for good. As if my seventh grade mind can predict that I’ll enjoy French at age eighteen. But the school stands by their system.
Anyway, two years ago when we studied German, Jonah fixated on the Red Baron and World War I. (I use the term “studied” loosely. More on that in a moment.) Last year, it was Napoleon (French class). And don’t even get me started on the third grade and his whole Braveheart William Wallace mania involving blue paint and a whole lot of Scottish plaid. Those guys don’t wear anything under their kilts, you know.
This year it’s Spanish, and the Alamo, Mexico, Texas, and whoever else was involved in that mess.
If I ask Jonah what he means about the Alamo, he’ll derail into a long lecture. I need to keep him on track so I can talk about my near-death ice cream experience.
He leans closer, body rocking in his chair, sending tremors my way like a miniature earthquake. His red curly hair bounces as a wild gleam shines in his blue eyes. This is his “active boy” look, a term that my mother coined for him. It’s her polite way of saying Jonah is never allowed near her china cabinet unsupervised again.
“So can I tell people?” he asks.
“Yeah, but—”
“Boys! What are you doing?” Mrs. Reed interrupts our discussion. I guess it’s pretty obvious from where she’s standing that we’re not working on the graphing problem.
“Sorry, Mrs. Reed!” Jonah calls out in a loud voice. “Edmund was just telling me an über-cool story about a robbery and having to go to the cops’ last night. He was almost killed!”
I die of embarrassment.
The class explodes with excited questions and Mrs. Reed officially loses control of the children. Only for a moment, though.
“Everyone, settle down. I am aware of what happened to Edmund last night. His mother sent in a note. I didn’t realize he was in such mortal peril . . .” She inspects me over her glasses. How can adults do sarcasm with their eyes? Do they go to school for it? Maybe they teach it in college.
“Jonah, may I remind you that we do not use the word über in this classroom. Edmund, would you care to share your story with us since we clearly will not be able to concentrate until you do? And without exaggeration, please?”
Thanks a lot, Jonah. I frown at his dumb freckly face. His foot is tapping as he grins a toothy smile at me. I am seriously going to kill him later.
During my timid explanation, I carefully avoid the word über at all costs. Mrs. Reed is nice, but she has a temper when we abuse her good graces.
Two years ago we had an unusual German teacher, Frau Faberstein, who had some questionable theories on education. She claimed that eating German food would turn us into German speakers, as would singing mindless children’s songs, even if we didn’t understand what the words meant. So our fat levels spiked from the pounds of bratwurst sausage and Emmentaler cheese she stuffed into us, and we gained a finer appreciation for such ditties as “Funkel, funkel, kleiner Stern.” She was fired later that year.
The only thing anyone got out of the class was the word über (pronounced oober), which means “very.” Everything became “über-this” and “über-that,” kind of like our class code. I guess we über-abused it, because the teachers joined forces and über-banned it from their classrooms. You’d think they’d want us to practice our new language. Geez.
As I finish my knife-in-alleyway story, I can tell that my coolness level (or “street cred” as my uncle Jay calls it) has just shot up a few points, judging from the awestruck faces in the classroom. Even Jenny Miller, the shiest and prettiest girl in our class, is smiling at me.
“So what happened to your ice cream cone?” blurts out Milton Edwards.
“Cone?” Jonah roars. “Who cares about the stupid ice cream cone? We’re talking attack here, Milton. Life and death. Edmund employed camouflage techniques to stay alive. Quick wits and clever disguise! Cones!” he snorts, as if the question is the most ridiculous one he’s ever heard.
“Thank you, boys,” Mrs. Reed says firmly, signaling the End of the Discussion.
And my two minutes of sixth grade glory are over.
Chapter 4
Mr. Pee
No one lets me eat at lunch. They keep bugging me with questions like Did the guy have a machete? Did the cops really clap for you at the station? Was your Dad stabbed? Did he lose a finger? Did you lose a finger?
At first it’s fun but after a while the questions grow stupider and stupider and now I’m starving.
By art class my cool status has waned and things are back to normal. Jonah and I are sitting side by side on tall stools, canvases resting on easels in front of us. The classroom is plastered with pictures of lakes and forests and mountains for this week’s assignment: “idyllic landscapes.”
“So what else is wrong with you?” Jonah asks, his face crinkled up as he scrutinizes me.
“Nothing. I’m hungry is all,” I say, frowning at the tree I’m painting. Something weird is going on with the leaves. I adjust the edge of my canvas, which is crooked against the rickety wooden easel. The leaves still look weird.
“Are you suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder?” he presses, rearranging his paintbrushes for the millionth time and tapping his foot in perfect rhythm. Tap-tap-tap, pause-pause-pause.
“No, it’s nothing.”
Jonah is too good when it comes to reading me. This morning at home, I found an informational packet about the local middle school resting on my desk, and promptly threw it in the trash. I’m trying to force the whole changing-schools situation out of my mind. I will find a solution. Maybe Jonah will rob a bank for me. He could definitely mastermind it.
“So you rode in a cop car?” he says. “What was it like? Did you feel like a criminal?”
Tap-tap-tap, pause-pause-pause.
I shrug. “It was kind of boring. Like a taxi crossed with a jail. No door handles, and a big metal barrier separating us from the cops. All of the cool stuff was up front. I could barely see it.”
I give up on the tree and start to work on a pond, dipping my brush into the paint set that rests between us on a small table.
“Huh,” Jonah replies, fussing with his brushes again. He hasn’t made very much progress on his canvas. Just a vertical brown line for a tree and a horizontal gray squiggle that might be a cloud. Or a sickly flying worm.
Tap-tap-tap, pause-pause-pause.
Jonah has OCD, or “obsessive-compulsive disorder” in adult-speak, which basically means that he’s constantly rearranging everything into neat and orderly categories. He taps on stuff a lot, has a hard time controlling his impulses (which lands him in the principal’s office on occasion), and generally avoids any and all cracks on the ground when he’s walking. He’s also über-brilliant and makes me snort milk out my nose at lunch at least once a week from laughing so hard. And my bedroom at home is very tidy and organized thanks to his weekend visits.
“Hey, Puddles, watch out!” grunts a beastly voice behind us. A fat hand shoves Jonah on the shoulder, hard, knocking him into our tray of paints.
Robin Christopher.
Robin picks on Jonah a lot and I’m not sure why. As Jonah’s best friend I know I’m obligated to stand up for him, but Robin Christopher is huge, so I usually just stand there showering evil thoughts upon him and feeling like a puny idiot.
&n
bsp; “Ha! Ha! Ha!” His Neanderthal laugh follows him to the other side of the room.
Nobody understands what Robin’s problem is. The running theory is that he’s messed up because his name is backwards; it should be Christopher Robin, the name of that nice British boy from the Winnie-the-Pooh stories. Instead it’s twisted around, making him the opposite of the storybook character.
Robin calls Jonah “Puddles” and is trying to get other kids to do it, but no one likes Robin so they blow him off. The name Puddles comes from an ill-fated day with an incident involving me, Jonah, Wendy Friml, and our science teacher, Mr. Patterson. The only one who got stuck with a nickname after that one was the teacher.
Although my actions triggered The Incident, I swear that I was an innocent bystander in the whole thing:
We were in the lunch line and I went to grab a red apple. I turned too quickly and grabbed Wendy Friml’s elbow by mistake. (In my defense, she was wearing a red, fuzzy sweater and kind of looked like an apple.) Wendy screamed and I jumped out of my skin, dropping my tray in the process. Then the girls behind Wendy screamed, because that’s what girls do, more trays and food were dropped, and Jonah laughed so hard that he literally peed his pants right then and there. I’m talking down his leg, mess on the floor.
Mr. Patterson came over to see what was going on and slipped on a warm yellow puddle, crashing down in a tumble of science-teacher plaid and khaki. Both he and Jonah had to change their clothes. So far it’s been the high and low points of sixth grade.
Poor Mr. Patterson. At the beginning of the school year he had said, “Call me Mr. P,” but now of course when we say “Mr. P” it sounds like “Mr. Pee” because, well, he was covered in Jonah’s pee two months ago, and people start to giggle. A few days after it happened he announced, “I’d prefer to be called Mr. Patterson from now on.” Which really just made it worse.