Leon and the Spitting Image

by Allen Kurzweil

  “Chain,” Thomas managed.

  “Correct…. Miss Brede, number one?”

  “The first stitch of virtue is the running stitch, Miss Hagmeyer.”

  “Correct…. Mr. Zeisel, number six?”

  “Umm, satin?”

  “Incorrect!” snarled Miss Hagmeyer. “The answer is directly above your head.” She pointed at a poster taped to the wall.

  “Overcast?” Leon said sullenly after glancing at the picture of the severed hand stitching up a seam. He’d spent so much time struggling to master the stitch, he hadn’t memorized its numerical rank.

  “Bravo, Mr. Zeisel,” Miss Hagmeyer said sarcastically. “For the future, I expect you to know all stitches of virtue both alphabetically and by number.” She put down her needle. “Right. Let’s move on to my worksheets.”

  As the handouts made their way around the room, Miss Hagmeyer registered some snickering.

  “Miss Jasprow, does something amuse you?”

  “No, Miss Hagmeyer,” Lily-Matisse said, suppressing a giggle.

  “Perhaps you would like to share your wit with the rest of the class.”

  “It’s just that it says ‘animiles’ on the top of the page,” said Lily-Matisse.

  “It’s supposed to,” Miss Hagmeyer replied curtly. She retrieved her chalk holder and wrote the following word on the blackboard:

  animiles

  “It’s a medieval variant of animal and shares a Latin root with ‘animate,’ as in living or making alive. All the creations sewn in my class will be called ‘ani-miles’—not ‘ani-mals.’ Why? Because ani-mals tend to be smelly, uncontrollable beasts that bite and bray and refuse to show respect. On the other hand, ani-miles … ”

  Miss Hagmeyer turned and tapped the blackboard.

  “… ani-miles do not bite. They do not bray, and … ”

  She paused to glance at Lily-Matisse.

  “… they do not giggle disruptively. It is my expectation that by making ani-miles you will cease to act like ani-mals. Does everyone understand?”

  A chorus of “Yes, Miss Hagmeyers” filled the room.

  “Good,” she said crisply. “Now begin.”

  Leon felt tense as he leafed through the handout, a nine-step project that was supposed to transform a scrap of material into a decorative stuffed snake.

  Step one required Leon to measure a six-inch-by-ten-inch rectangle on the towel he’d brought from home. That was a snap. Step two—cutting along the marks—wasn’t too tough either. The trouble only started with step three. That’s when the actual sewing started.

  Leon managed to make an okay-looking chain stitch down the middle of the towel, and he succeeded in backstitching the bottom and sides of his material. But then his fingers began to cramp.

  He paused for a moment to look over his handiwork. It resembled a tattered tube sock more than a stuffed snake. The word PROPERTY ran up the side, with the last two letters hidden inside a seam.

  Leon sighed. This snake is not proper, he said to himself. He wished Maria could help with the remaining stitches.

  From the front of the room, Antoinette called out, “I’m up to step seven, Miss Hagmeyer. The handout says I’m supposed to see you about special supplies?”

  “Excellent,” said Miss Hagmeyer. “Come with me.”

  Leon and the rest of the class watched as teacher and teacher’s pet went to the supply cabinet. Miss Hagmeyer unlocked the doors and pulled out the unmarked drawer that was cram-packed with panty hose.

  “Dig in!” she said.

  Antoinette balked.

  “Don’t be bashful. Go on, dig in!”

  “Into … into your panty hose?” Antoinette stammered.

  Leon looked down at his desktop. He knew that if he made eye contact with Lily-Matisse or P.W., he’d lose it.

  “Well of course,” said Miss Hagmeyer. “There isn’t a better stuffing in the world than cut-up old panty hose.”

  One by one, students approached the cabinet to extract panty hose. Leon soon realized that he was way behind. His classmates had practically finished their animiles by the time he’d reached the stuffing stage. He caused himself further delay by refusing to handle his teacher’s stockings directly. To minimize contact, he employed a pair of tongs as a panty hose injection device, a precaution that only made matters worse.

  “That snake is looking bloated,” Miss Hagmeyer told Leon on her next sweep of the room.

  “It is?”

  “Most definitely. It more closely resembles a football than a serpent. Thin it out at once.”

  “Yes, Miss Hagmeyer.”

  While Leon removed wadded-up panty hose from his snake, the rest of the class began submitting their snakes for final inspection. The procedure was the same for everyone. Miss Hagmeyer would survey the animile for loose threads, measure seams, and take extensive notes on her clipboard. If she liked what she saw, she would authorize a trip to the finished bin, a large bag-lined trash can located next to her desk. After that, students were free to practice their stitching or read the Fun Fact sections of their Medieval Readers.

  Not long before the period was to end, Miss Hagmeyer reappeared at Leon’s desk. “Well, I suppose the snake’s shape is a tad better,” she acknowledged. Her tone was one of mild disappointment. “But do hurry up. Skip the eyes. Just finish up the tongue and mouth.”

  “Yes, Miss Hagmeyer,” Leon said.

  Although his hands were cramping and his head ached from lack of sleep, Leon pushed on. A few minutes later, Miss Hagmeyer called him up to her desk. “The bell’s about to ring, so show me what you have.”

  Leon plopped down his snake.

  Miss Hagmeyer inspected it closely. “The stitches on the belly are all crooked.”

  “I know,” Leon said miserably.

  Miss Hagmeyer removed a tape measure she had draped over her neck and pressed it against the snake’s mouth. “This overcast stitching is significantly below standard. It only registers two s.p.i.!”

  “Two s.p.i.?” said Leon. He had no idea what Miss Hagmeyer was talking about.

  “Stitches … per … inch, Mr. Zeisel—s.p.i. for short. An animile’s seams should always register at least four s.p.i. Do you think you can tighten up the stitching?”

  “I’ll try,” Leon said through clenched teeth.

  “I certainly hope so,” said Miss Hagmeyer. “And when you do, make sure the fabric doesn’t bunch up. I don’t want the mouth to pucker.”

  You mean like yours? Leon said to himself, looking at his teacher’s pursed lips. “If I can’t fix the problem, Miss Hagmeyer, I could call the snake Pinch.”

  “You will do no such thing, Mr. Zeisel. Animiles never get named.”

  “Why not?” asked Leon.

  “If you named them, you’d get attached to them. And we certainly cannot have that.”

  “Why not?” Leon repeated.

  “Simply put, I keep all animiles made in my class.”

  “Every single one, Miss Hagmeyer?”

  “Yes,” she said stiffly. “Every single one.”

  “But—”

  “No ifs, ands, or buts, Mr. Zeisel. Go back to your desk and fix what needs fixing.”

  The recess bell rang. Leon gave Miss Hagmeyer a hopeful look.

  She shook her head. “Repair your animile now.”

  As Leon worked on his overcasting, he could hear jump-rope songs and shouts of “You’re it” coming from the playground. Tennis balls and basketballs flew past the window as he struggled to produce a thin, unlumpy, unpuckered snake.

  “Let’s see what we’ve got,” Miss Hagmeyer said when Leon resubmitted his animile fifteen minutes later.

  “Hope it’s okay,” he said.

  “As do I,” said Miss Hagmeyer. She picked up the snake and took a measurement. “I’m still not happy about your stitch count. Two s.p.i. is entirely unacceptable. The minimum, as I just told you, is four. Still, your mouth stitching does show some improvement.”

  I
wouldn’t mind stitching her mouth shut, Leon said to himself.

  Miss Hagmeyer looked at her watch. “I’m feeling charitable. Deposit the animile in the finished bin as is and go catch the rest of recess.”

  Leon didn’t have to be told twice. He binned the snake and hightailed it outside.

  The Classical School playground was divided into four areas. There was the wall ball section, the jungle-gym section, the place near the fence where the jump ropers jumped rope, and the basketball courts. Smack in the middle of these four distinct quadrants, bursting through the asphalt like a leafy geyser, was a hardy maple circled by a cedar bench.

  Leon dashed over to the tree, relieved to be free of Miss Hagmeyer and her stitch counts. He jumped onto the bench that rimmed the maple’s trunk and ran the circuit in search of his two best friends.

  He spotted them on the jungle gym and rushed over.

  “P.W. figured out about the eyeballs on the cape,” said Lily-Matisse. She was hanging upside down by her knees when she made this announcement.

  “What about them?” said Leon, clambering up to a crossbar one level below her.

  P.W. said, “It’s like some secret code. She chooses eyes to indicate future projects. Think about it. She came in with snake eyes yesterday, and look at what she made us do today!”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised,” Leon said. “Everything the Hag does is sneaky.”

  “Yeah,” said Lily-Matisse. “Can you believe she’s keeping our animiles?”

  “And she won’t even tell us why,” said P.W.

  “Maybe not,” said Leon. “But I know a way we might find out.”

  EIGHT

  Parents’ Night

  You have to wonder how Miss Hagmeyer got away with it. How could she force her fourth graders to make animiles that she kept for herself?

  Didn’t the kids complain to their parents? Sure they did.

  And didn’t the parents complain to the school? Nope—not much, anyway.

  Miss Hagmeyer knew just how to handle parents. She understood a fundamental truth: When it comes to school, parents are more easily fooled than children. Especially when those parents send their children to a place that believes nimble fingers make for nimble minds. (After all, if that motto were true, wouldn’t it imply that every kid with a knack for video games was a certified genius?)

  Miss Hagmeyer secured the support she needed during Parents’ Night, two weeks after her class completed its first batch of animiles.

  “If everyone will just grab any old chair,” she said, suspending her ironclad rule about alphabetical seating.

  The parents squeezed themselves behind desks intended for smaller bodies.

  “Welcome all,” said Miss Hagmeyer. “It is such a pleasure to meet the mothers and fathers of my eighteen extraordinary charges, each one so special in his or her own unique way. On the very first day of school, I told your remarkable children that there is a place for everything and that everything has its place. What I did not tell them, but what I wish to tell all of you tonight, is that their place—for me, as a teacher—is right here.” Miss Hagmeyer tapped her heart.

  “As you know,” she trilled on, “I place a certain emphasis on sewing.” She made a stitching motion in the air. “I do so because I believe strongly that learning about the life of fabric teaches us about the fabric of life.”

  Miss Hagmeyer reached behind her desk and grabbed a large metal bucket. “Behold the very first animiles of the year,” she said, brushing her free hand over the snakes, which resembled a colorful bouquet of flowers.

  “How extraordinarily divine!” said Mrs. Brede, Antoinette’s mother.

  “I couldn’t agree more,” Miss Hagmeyer replied, handing the matronly woman her daughter’s Belgian lace snake.

  “It practically screams to be worn as a boa!” Mrs. Brede gushed as she wrapped the creation around her neck.

  “That’s because it is a boa … constrictor,” said Miss Hagmeyer.

  Antoinette’s mother laughed hysterically.

  “Hey, Teach!” a stocky man shouted rudely. “Hope you don’t expect us to make stuff tonight!”

  “You must be Henry Lumpkin’s father,” said Miss Hagmeyer.

  The man guffawed. “Guilty as charged! What gave me away?”

  Miss Hagmeyer glanced at the man’s olive drab army jacket. “Let’s just say I see where your son gets his military flair.” She handed Mr. Lumpkin a snake. “I think you’ll be pleased by Henry’s pillowcase python. The racing stripes and fangs were entirely his idea. And to address your earlier concern, I do have a little exercise planned for you, but not to worry. I always go easy on grown-ups. No one will have to sew.”

  Miss Hagmeyer continued her flimflam as she strode through the room, handing out snakes. At each stop she made sure to say something tender. Even Leon’s sightless terry cloth towel snake received a kindly assessment.

  “Do you know, Ms. Zeisel, your son’s handiwork measures the same length as a Texas blind snake. Leptotyphlops dulcis also grows to ten inches exactly. Isn’t that marvelous?”

  “I guess,” Emma Zeisel answered coolly.

  “And don’t you love the way Leon’s snake says PROPER right along the side of its lumpy little body?”

  “I know he worked awfully hard on it. Could I possibly keep it?”

  “Oh, I see,” said Miss Hagmeyer, her voice hardening. “Leon must have told you about our conversation.”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact,” said Emma Zeisel.

  “Well, as I explained, I need to reclaim all animiles.”

  “You didn’t tell him why.”

  Miss Hagmeyer tensed. “Didn’t I?”

  Emma Zeisel shook her head.

  “I suppose not,” said Miss Hagmeyer, grabbing Leon’s towel snake and shoving it back into the bucket.

  Before Emma Zeisel could press her further, Miss Hagmeyer turned away and headed for the supply cabinet. “So much for the handiwork of your children,” she said. “Now it’s time to see what their parents can do.”

  She undid the padlock and retrieved a pair of shears, which she presented to a thin woman with long black hair. “Ms. Dhabanandana, I hope you will assist me.”

  P.W.’s mother gave a tentative nod.

  “Excellent,” said Miss Hagmeyer. “The rest of you can follow along. This exercise is all spelled out on the blackboard.”

  There was some rustling in the room as parents glanced at the step-by-step instructions.

  “Do we have to take notes?” someone whined jokingly.

  “Will this be on the final?” moaned another.

  Miss Hagmeyer forced herself to smile and waited for the parents to quiet down. “Okay, Ms. Dhabanandana. I want you to take your cloth and fold it like so. And so. And so. Then like this. Then like this. And then like this.”

  P.W.’s mother watched closely and repeated the multistep procedure flawlessly.

  “Superb!” said Miss Hagmeyer, impressed by Ms. Dhabanandana’s effortless dexterity.

  “I fold all the napkins at our restaurant,” P.W.’s mom explained.

  “Well, your restaurant is lucky to have you,” Miss Hagmeyer chirped. She reached into the pocket of her dress and pulled out her chalk holder. She gave it a couple of clicks and drew a dotted line across the material. “Now, I want you to take the shears and cut along the dots, Ms. Dhabanandana.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. I’m sure.”

  Snip. “Is that okay?”

  “Perfect,” said Miss Hagmeyer. “Now unfold the material and hold it up for everyone to see.”

  P.W.’s mother displayed the material. With a single slice, she had produced a stunning five-pointed star.

  “What exactly do our children gain by making stars?” Emma Zeisel blurted out, over the oohs and aahs that spread through the room.

  “Craft assignments are always tied to other subjects,” said Miss Hagmeyer. “I can use stars to introduce concepts of geometry and astronomy.�
��

  “But—”

  “Ms. Zeisel,” Miss Hagmeyer said, cutting her off. “We really don’t have time to discuss curriculum right now.”

  “Can you at least tell us why our kids spend so much time sewing stuffed animals?”

  “Ani-miles,” Miss Hagmeyer corrected. There was now a very obvious edge in her voice.

  Emma Zeisel persisted. “Are pins and needles—and panty hose, for that matter—really as important as pencils and pens?”

  “I believe they are,” Miss Hagmeyer said strongly. “But if you wish to discuss this in more detail, I suggest a private appointment.”

  “Amen to that!” Mr. Lumpkin exclaimed. “How about us hitting those cookies I see over there?” He pointed to the front of the room, where the usual Hagmeyer desk set—small-curd cottage cheese, clipboard, instructional needle—had been replaced by a platter of homemade goodies and a pot of fresh-brewed coffee.

  “A superlative suggestion, Mr. Lumpkin. As soon as everyone is done, that’s exactly what we will do.”

  The parents tended to their projects—folding, chalking, cutting—for nearly half an hour. Despite some miscalculations (and at least one bloody thumb), they all completed the assignment, which Miss Hagmeyer called “Make Yourself a Star!”

  Only two parents left the classroom unimpressed: Emma Zeisel and Regina Jasprow. They discussed Miss Hagmeyer as they exited the school.

  “Boy, is that woman wound up tight,” said Emma Zeisel. “Is she always like that?”

  Regina Jasprow nodded. “You should see her in the teachers’ lounge. If she’s not adjusting her hair, or changing her eyeballs, she’s off in a corner doing needlepoint. The woman is loony about sewing.”

  “It’s hard to tell whether she’s running a classroom or a sweatshop,” said Emma Zeisel.

  Regina Jasprow laughed. “I thought I’d lose it when she tapped her heart and said she keeps a place ‘right here’ for each child.”

  “Yeah, what a crock!” said Emma Zeisel. “She’s always going on about a place for everything and everything in its place. I sure wish someone would put her in her place!”

  Leon’s mom needn’t have worried. Someone eventually did put Miss Hagmeyer in her place.