“Can you see what she has?” Petra whispered. Calder walked quickly behind their teacher, his eyes on the counter. Ms. Hussey never turned her head.
“Murder and a big art book — Never something,” he muttered to Petra when he returned.
Ms. Hussey left the store with her purchases. A moment later, Petra ducked outside empty-handed, her cheeks burning.
She was furious with herself.
Powell’s had always been her private hideaway, her refuge. Now she’d spoken to Calder there. She’d practically attacked him. And he’d seen her spying on Ms. Hussey.
What had she started?
Twenty minutes later, Petra opened her notebook on the desk in her bedroom. Letters. Think about letters.
The 5:38 southbound train went by Petra’s window exactly three seconds before it passed Calder’s. In between, it shot by the Castiglione’s and then the Bixbys’ — Petra had once calculated that it passed a house per second on Harper Avenue. She liked the trains. Looking out, she saw the bright shout of a red hat, a child in a purple jacket pressed against the window, a bald head just rising over a stiff rectangle of newspaper. She’d noticed that colors sometimes left their shapes when things flashed by so fast.
She wrote:
October 12
Yellow leaf: surprise.
Loud hat, square coat, bald head like moon: red, lavender, salmon.
Question: What does Ms. Hussey really want us to see?
“Petraaaa! Can you get me some TOY-let PAY-per?”
“CAA-ming!” Petra sighed heavily and got up to help her younger sister.
Petra’s household was a tornado where life swirled in noisy circles. Sneakers, books, and backpacks traveled through the rooms on unseen currents, and there was always food underfoot and an old frying pan or two on the steps outside the back door. The cats and dog drank from the toilets, having despaired of getting their water bowls filled every morning, and everyone in the family talked to one another at the top of their lungs.
Petra wished that things were different. She wished that her parents would sit quietly at dinner and ask her how her day was, and that her four younger brothers and sisters would carry tissues with them instead of wiping off rivers of goo on their shirtsleeves in public. She wished she wasn’t shy, that she wasn’t shaped like a lima bean, and that her left ear didn’t stick out farther than her right. She wished she was a famous writer already, and didn’t have to go through the unfamous stage. She wished her mother wouldn’t ever put baba ghanoush in her lunch box. When Denise Dodge had towered over her at lunchtime, saying, “Eeeeeuuuwn! What’s that?” Petra had wanted to murder her on the spot, but only came out with a pathetic “Don’t you wish you knew!” As Denise moved away, Petra heard her saying loudly to her friend, “Blech! Aren’t you glad you don’t have to eat baby gush for lunch?”
The family socks basket was another thing Petra didn’t like — she always ended up with one sock either too big or too small. Since no one wanted to sort all the clean socks that went on to fourteen feet every morning, the socks went straight from the dryer into a gigantic, handwoven basket, and it was every person for themselves. Each fall Petra’s mom bought the same color socks for all seven of them so that, in theory, there was always a size that fit. But reality in the Andalee family was never that tidy.
Like many kids in Hyde Park, Petra was a club sandwich of cultures. Her father, Frank Andalee, had relatives from North Africa and northern Europe, and her mother, Norma Andalee, was from the Middle East. Petra didn’t think much about what racial category she belonged to — her family had let go of that way of looking at things a long time ago.
She did know that for many generations on her mother’s side, every first child who was a girl had been named Petra. She also knew that Petra was the name of an ancient stone city in Jordan, a sophisticated and graceful city that had risen out of the desert more than two thousand years ago. Three-quarters of its ruins were still covered with shifting sand; she liked the thought that she was named after a mysterious place of buried secrets.
The last “first daughter” had been her grandmother, who lived in Istanbul now. When she had visited Chicago a couple of years ago, she had told Petra that all of her namesakes had grown up to be very beautiful and very lucky. The younger Petra had looked doubtfully at her grandmother, who just looked whiskery and wispy, and who seemed to spend all day losing everything she needed, like her slippers or her black eyeliner or even the bathroom.
Glamour might have been easier in the past. Petra was sure that every Petra before her hadn’t had to put up with thick glasses with blue-and-purple-speckled frames. And every Petra before her probably hadn’t had to worry about what she was going to step on first thing in the morning — dried cranberry juice or a plastic dragon or something coughed up by the dog.
On her way to get toilet paper, Petra stepped heavily on a headless soldier. Served her right for being so nosy about Ms. Hussey.
Then Petra heard her parents arguing downstairs.
“But everyone has something to hide!” her dad was saying angrily. He was a physicist at the university, and Petra knew he’d been worried about his job. She heard her mom say something in an impatient tone, and then the words “letter” and “forgotten” and the quick, harsh sounds of tearing paper. What could this be about? Her parents hardly ever disagreed.
A forgotten letter! She wouldn’t bring a family secret to school, but she had to look. When she crept downstairs later, however, the garbage was empty.
Calder was in a bad mood. The letter assignment felt too hard. How could he ever write Ms. Hussey an unforgettable letter? And where was he going to find a stupendous letter now that Grandma Ranjana was gone? Good letters were no longer written. He was sure of it.
Calder’s dad, Walter Pillay, was slicing eggplant in the kitchen. As he stacked the pale slices neatly next to the frying pan, he looked over at his son. Calder was sketching a fierce column of five-piece pentomino squares down the margin of his notebook.
“Anything wrong?” asked his dad.
Calder opened his mouth when the 5:38 train went by, rattling the windows, making the floor-boards bounce, and filling the kitchen with the whoosh whoosh of passing steel. As Calder mouthed, “Nope,” his dad grinned at him and mouthed back, “Good.”
Calder, like Petra, was a hybrid kid. His dad was from India, and he had a calm way of speaking that made everything sound important. His job had to do with planning gardens for cities. Every year he brought home a new batch of plants to try out in the yard; by August, the front walk had vanished beneath a tangle of green. This year a trumpet vine leaned eagerly against a cool lily, pointy leaves fought to see who could take over the steps, purples and blood reds argued loudly with each other. It was a good yard for hiding things.
Calder’s mom, Yvette Pillay, had short hair the color of an apricot and a jingly laugh that made other people laugh even when they didn’t know why. She was Canadian and taught math at the university.
Calder had never seen either one of them look amazed when they opened the mail. He was suddenly tired of the whole idea. He didn’t think he wanted to hear about letters. If he asked his mom and dad, they’d probably tell him too much. That was the problem with being an only child: Your parents were always paying attention to you. He envied kids whose families forgot about them once in a while.
Walking down the block the next morning, Calder stirred the pentominoes in his pocket. He pulled out the P.
Funny, Petra was walking ahead of him. He was beginning to think he had been kind of lame yesterday, following her and then ruining her adventure.
He ducked into a driveway and crept through a number of backyards. Under a lilac bush, around an old boat, then over two fences. The only way out was a raspberry patch. He dove in, yelped with pain, and burst out on the sidewalk just ahead of Petra.
“Sheesh, you scared me!”
“Sorry!” he said, pretending to be surprised. “You scared me, too
.”
Petra did not look pleased. “What were you doing?”
“Oh, Tommy and I always used to go to school this way….” Feeling a stinging on his cheek, Calder wiped off some blood. Right. This conversation wasn’t going the way he’d planned. They walked in silence for several minutes.
“Heard anything from Tommy?” Petra asked finally, though she’d hardly said a word to Tommy Segovia in her life.
“Not much.” Calder groped madly for something to say, but everything he thought of sounded stupid. He was going to tell Petra that all the kids in Tommy’s new neighborhood had crew cuts, but that was pretty nothing. His pentominoes were making a loud clacking sound.
“Hey, what do you think about Ms. Hussey? She’s let us do cool stuff so far, don’t you think? I mean — cool for school.” Petra, embarrassed by her accidental rhyme, looked sideways at Calder to see if he had noticed. A raspberry twig was standing upright over one of his ears. He looked like a lopsided bee. She was saying dumb stuff, but she hoped Calder would get the message: What happened yesterday in Powell’s didn’t need to be mentioned.
Calder was wondering if Petra had any interest in pentominoes or puzzles. Did she know what was in his pocket? Forget it — he’d sound like he was showing off if he asked her. He noticed that she had a couple of Rice Krispies stuck in her hair but decided not to say anything about that, either.
By the time they got to school, both were worn out by trying to think of something to say, and trying not to say what they were really thinking.
The cold cereal and the twig were still in place as they headed in opposite directions to their lockers.
Ms. Hussey had looked strangely pleased when the assignment failed.
After two days of hunting, no one in the class had come up with anything worth sharing. There were several letters about distant relatives dying, school and job acceptance letters, invitations to weddings.
Ms. Hussey suggested that they go back a few hundred years.
“Like find old books of letters and stuff?” Petra asked, thinking of Powell’s.
There was a wave of grumbling.
“How about paintings? All you have to do is look.” Ms. Hussey said she’d noticed that art often showed what was important to people in any given time. It revealed things. Besides, she’d said with a smile, she was tired of being in school all day. It was time for a field trip.
Everyone sat up.
“Something else,” she went on. “Getting an unforgettable letter happens once or twice in a lifetime. Writing an unforgettable letter is a pretty tough thing to do unless you have something very real to say. It shouldn’t be artificial. Perhaps I made a mistake.”
She always said the same thing after she had an idea, and always with an undercurrent of we’re–in–this–together–and–it–might–be–dangerous: “Do you agree? Should we bag the assignment for now?”
There were whistles and cheers. Calder caught Petra’s eye, and she shrugged and almost smiled. Everyone looked relieved. This year was beginning to feel either like something was very right or very wrong — it was hard to tell which.
On the following Monday they took the train to the Art Institute and walked several blocks in the October sunshine. It was difficult to keep up with Ms. Hussey’s bouncy stride. Calder noticed with approval that she never even looked back to see if everyone was with her; she was one trusting teacher.
After they ate bag lunches next to the bronze lions on the steps of the museum, they fanned out in the European wing.
Petra took off on her own. She passed the Degas dancers, the big painting made completely of dots, the Monet haystacks and bridges, and headed into the older works.
When she was in third grade, she’d had a baby-sitter who took her to the Art Institute once a month. The baby-sitter would sit in front of a painting, sigh a great deal, and sometimes write things down. She’d tell Petra to stay in one area, but not to bother her.
Petra would walk around looking. Soon she began to wonder which paintings would be fun to go into, or which ones she might like to take home to her room. She thought about which of the children in the paintings she’d like to play with. Her baby-sitter gave her a pad and pencil, and Petra made lists. She once counted all the paintings with red clothing in them. Another time she secretly counted all the bare bottoms. She also counted all the hats and found 123.
Now she walked slowly from room to room, hugging her clipboard. She was sure there was a letter somewhere near an angel … or was it rolled up in someone’s hand? They had one hour to look, and she knew she’d find something.
When Calder saw Petra disappear, he decided to follow her.
He stayed a gallery-length behind, and was so busy trying not to be seen that he barely noticed what was on the walls. Then, quite suddenly, Petra was gone.
Calder walked slowly through the next two galleries. It was getting late. He’d better start hunting on his own.
Turning a corner, he spotted something promising. It lay on a bedside table inside a French painting by an artist named Auguste Bernard. The date was 1780. Calder looked around — he was alone. He leaned against the wall opposite the painting and began in a businesslike way to take notes.
The letter was folded up, but had a red wax seal that had been broken. He knew this meant it had been opened. The woman next to the letter was rolling her eyes, and her dress was ridiculously small for the top part of her body. Calder concentrated on the table, which also had a necklace of beads and a book with French words on it. He was copying the words down — L’Art D’Aime — when the wall behind him moved.
“What the —” Calder staggered backward into a dark doorway and stumbled over someone’s feet.
The person gave him a sharp push. Then the two of them shot back into the brightness of the gallery. A guard strode over and grabbed Calder by the elbow.
“Restricted. Can’t you read?” Too stunned to answer, Calder twisted around to see who had shoved him.
“What were you doing in there?” Petra hissed.
“How about you?” he snapped back.
The guard, a pink-and-gray sausage of a man, crossed his arms. “Storage room. No public allowed. Where’s your school group, anyways?”
Calder and Petra walked in silence, on either side of the sausage, to where Ms. Hussey was talking with a group of their classmates.
“Here’s where she turns into a regular teacher,” Calder whispered behind the guard’s back.
Petra glanced his way with a twinkle and a quick flash of “We’ll see, won’t we?”
“You in charge? Found these two in a storage room.”
Ms. Hussey looked surprised, but not shocked. The kids standing around her tittered. Petra and Calder looked grim.
“Thank you,” Ms. Hussey said to the sausage, making it clear that the conversation was over.
When the guard was out of earshot, Ms. Hussey smiled warmly at Calder and Petra, looking first at one and then the other. “Good thinking. Find anything?”
When Denise changed seats on the train, a scrap of paper floated into Petra’s lap:
CALDER AND PETRA LOST IN THE ART,
FIRST A KISS AND THEN A FART!
Petra brushed it onto the floor, hoping Calder hadn’t seen it. Why did kids have to be so stupid sometimes?
By the time everyone got off at Fifty-seventh Street, it was too late to go back to school. Ms. Hussey waved good-bye, and Calder and Petra started awkwardly down Harper Avenue.
“See you,” Petra muttered over her shoulder as she hurried ahead and zoomed up her porch steps.
“Petra?”
“What?” Petra turned around.
“What were you doing in there?”
“Just looking. Most museums have too much stuff to have all of it hanging. So if it’s not hanging, it’s got to be stuck in a closet.”
“Yeah, I guess Ms. Hussey would’ve thought that was cool, finding a letter that was off-limits,” Calder said.
�
�That’s not very nice. You don’t like her?”
Calder began stirring his pentominoes around in his pocket. “I do.”
Petra looked curiously at him. “You’re jealous of me.”
“I am not!”
“Admit it.” Petra grinned.
“Well, just about your storeroom idea.”
Petra’s face closed. “Of course.” Then she was gone.
What had just happened? Calder pulled out one of his pentominoes and tossed it up in the air. “I for idea,” he said aloud.
Or was it I for idiot?
Ms. Hussey had an extra gleam the next morning.
She agreed that the trip to the museum hadn’t exactly worked. They’d found three religious scrolls and the letter with the red seal, but that was it. Ms. Hussey said she’d enjoyed the search. She didn’t seem upset at all.
“You know, one of my favorite painters was interested in letters and made them important in a bunch of his paintings. Maybe that’s why I thought we’d see more of them. Funny how you can project things.”
She changed the subject, her voice suddenly businesslike. “So, what now? Have we reached any conclusions about communication?”
Petra raised her hand. “Maybe that it’s hard to study. How about we work on something else to do with art?” She liked exploring the Art Institute. She was sure they could come up with another worthwhile subject to investigate.
Denise said, “I thought some of the art was pretty gross. I mean, a lot of it was gory and violent, or fat and naked, or plain old boring — just people dressed up. I mean, you couldn’t make me live with some of those pictures.”
There was a murmur of agreement. Denise sniffed happily.
“I doubt you’ll need to, Denise,” Ms. Hussey said evenly, crossing her arms. Then she stood still and looked at the ceiling. When she didn’t move, the room grew quiet.
“You know,” Ms. Hussey said finally, “Picasso said that art is a lie, but a lie that tells the truth.” She was pacing now. “Lies and art … it’s an ancient problem. So if we work with art,” she said slowly, “we’ll have to figure out something else first: What makes an object a piece of art?”
Chasing Vermeer Page 2