Leon and the Spitting Image

by Allen Kurzweil

  Repeatedly.

  NINE

  The Three-Piece Dinosaur

  When the first bell rang the next day, Miss Hagmeyer marched into class and hung up her cape, which Leon, P.W., and Lily-Matisse all instantly noticed was missing its glass eyeballs. They gave one another puzzled looks but kept quiet. They knew not to ask questions while Miss Hagmeyer was arranging her desk.

  She positioned her container of cottage cheese, clipboard, and instructional needle where the homemade cookies and coffee had rested the night before, then removed a stack of worksheets from her satchel.

  Miss Hagmeyer shuttled between rows of the desks, handing out assignments. “The photocopier was broken, so the animile project we were supposed to start today will have to be postponed. Luckily, I unearthed these handouts from a previous year.”

  Leon, as usual, had to wait to receive his assignment. Even so, he had a pretty good sense of what to expect because of the classroom clamor.

  “I got a T. rex!”

  “Mine’s a pterodactyl!”

  “Miss Hagmeyer? This iguanodon looks funny. Can I make his spikes spikier?”

  “Miss Hagmeyer? I thought hadrosaurs had webbed feet. That’s what they said on the Dinosaur Channel.”

  “Quiet down, all of you!”

  A worksheet eventually fluttered onto Leon’s desk. It said DIPLOCAULUS and showed a picture of a fishlike creature with a head shaped like the point of an arrow. The list of materials indicated that the project required only three pieces of cloth, two of which were exactly the same shape.

  The simplicity of the assignment surprised Leon. It almost seemed easier than the first. He decided to find out if his classmates’ dinosaurs were as beginnery as his.

  Pretending he needed to sharpen his pencil, Leon walked to the front of the room. As he did, he peeked about.

  Lily-Matisse had snagged a triceratops that had fourteen pieces, including a nose horn, two side horns, and a jazzy neck frill.

  Antoinette had received a complex ten-piece T. rex.

  P.W. scored a duck-billed corythosaurus, a fantastic eight-piecer with terrifying body armor.

  Lumpkin got a stegosaurus.

  At least that makes sense, Leon told himself. Stegosauruses, he knew, were the pea brains of the dinosaur kingdom. But his comfort disappeared when he spied that Lumpkin’s dinosaur required six pieces of material—twice the number his animile demanded.

  By the time Leon returned to his seat, he was feeling thoroughly down. Why couldn’t he get spikes or horns or neck frills?

  He read through the worksheet. It turned out his animile wasn’t even an actual dinosaur. It was, according to the text, a “weak-limbed, bottom-feeding amphibian.”

  Leon knew what Miss Hagmeyer was up to. She had given the cool-looking, complicated dinosaurs to the coordinated students and had stuck him with the beginner’s kit, a three-piece fake.

  Miss Hagmeyer tapped the cabinet doors with her needle. “Since we do not know what dinosaur skin actually looks like, I’m allowing everyone to choose his own fabric.”

  In the general rush for the cabinet, P.W. tested his earlier theory. “Miss Hagmeyer?” he said. “What about the dinosaur eyes?”

  “They’re a mystery, too. That’s why I didn’t put them on the worksheets.”

  P.W. beamed. “And why she didn’t put any eyeballs on her cape,” he whispered to Lily-Matisse, who passed the info along to Leon.

  This revelation did little to improve Leon’s mood. He hated that his dinosaur was so lame. In fact, Leon was so disappointed that when it was his turn at the cabinet, he settled for the first three scraps he touched: a blue-and-white striped cotton for the top of his diplocaulus, solid green corduroy for the bottom, and a piece of black-and-red polka-dotted material for the mouth.

  Two weeks after the start of the second animile project, the finished bin started to fill. Lily-Matisse’s triceratops was the trash can’s first occupant. Antoinette’s T. rex soon followed. P.W. deposited his corythosaurus a couple of days later. Even Lumpkin binned his pea-brained stegosaurus.

  Leon lagged behind. Once again, everything seemed to go wrong. The first time he tried stitching the body together, he sewed the inside of the cotton to the outside of the corduroy.

  Miss Hagmeyer made him start over.

  The second time around, he matched the two halves correctly, but ripped through the head of the diplocaulus by pushing too hard with the tongs.

  “What did you expect?” Miss Hagmeyer said sourly. “Those tongs were never meant for that purpose.” She took him over to the finished bin and tapped her boot against the side.

  “I have a math problem for you, Mr. Zeisel. Are you ready?”

  “I guess,” Leon said.

  “A class has eighteen students. Each student is required to make two animiles. If only thirty-five animiles have been handed in, how many students have failed to complete their assignments?”

  Leon took a nervous swallow. He knew the answer without doing the math.

  “Sorry, Miss Hagmeyer. If it’s about my dinosaur—”

  “Sorry will not do,” she said harshly. “You need to pick up your pace. Perhaps my countinghouse tally will spur you on. Tallies were highly effective during the Middle Ages.”

  Even before he learned the nature and function of the countinghouse tally, Leon sensed he wouldn’t like it.

  Miss Hagmeyer confirmed his prediction later the same day.

  “I want everyone to pick a medieval title,” she announced just before recess. “Duke, prince, lady … the choice of title is up to you. Write it down, along with your name, on the gummed labels I’m handing out.”

  While the class worked on their labels, Miss Hagmeyer placed an empty wooden spool on each student’s desk. “Attach your labels to your spools, then pass them up,” she said.

  Once she had collected the labeled spools, she threaded them onto eighteen pieces of orange yarn and strung the yarn across a sturdy sheet of poster board. The handmade tally allowed the spools to move back and forth like beads on an abacus.

  Top to bottom the tally went from QUEEN ANTOINETTE (Brede) to SIR LEON (Zeisel), stopping along the way to register MASTER DHABANANDANA, LADY LILY-MATISSE, LORD LUMPKIN, PRINCE WARCHOWSKI, and the rest of the class.

  On the left-hand side of the chart Miss Hagmeyer wrote SEPTEMBER. On the right-hand side she wrote MAY.

  “This countinghouse tally,” she said, “will serve as an animile timeline. Nine months of school, nine animiles. Every time you finish a monthly project, I will push your spool one space to the right.”

  Leon recognized the evil implications of the chart instantly. It was a public record of everyone’s standing. It advertised who was ahead and—much more worrisome—who was behind.

  “Mr. Zeisel? Could you stay for a moment,” Miss Hagmeyer said when the recess bell rang and the class stampeded toward the door. “When might we be able to advance Sir Leon?” she asked.

  “Soon, I hope,” came the woeful reply.

  “Dinosaurs are supposed to help us study eons—not take them. You should be on to your third animile by now. Everyone else is.”

  “I know, Miss Hagmeyer,” Leon said, his voice quavering. “It’s just I can’t seem to get the seams tight.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, let me see.”

  Leon retrieved his unfinished diplocaulus and offered it up for inspection. Miss Hagmeyer took a measurement. The results prompted her to shake her head. “You’re still averaging two s.p.i.,” she said disapprovingly.

  Leon responded with a hopeless shrug.

  “Are you getting enough sleep, Mr. Zeisel?”

  “I think so.”

  “Maybe you should stay in during recess and work on your technique.”

  “What if I practice at home?” Leon said desperately.

  Miss Hagmeyer mulled over the counterproposal. “I suppose we can try that. But remember, I want these seams tightened up.”

  “Oh, they will be,
” said Leon. “I promise.”

  He headed for the playground before Miss Hagmeyer could change her mind. As usual, P.W. and Lily-Matisse were perched on the jungle gym.

  “Why’d she keep you back?” Lily-Matisse asked. She was hanging upside down by her knees.

  “Guess,” said Leon glumly.

  “Your dinosaur?”

  “Yup,” said Leon, pulling himself up to the highest crossbar.

  “What do you think about the medieval tally?” P.W. asked him.

  “L-A-M-E,” said Leon.

  “I’ll tell you what I think is lame,” Lily-Matisse said. “The way the Hag holds on to what we make.”

  Leon swung down. “I got my mom to ask about that at Parents’ Night. The Hag refused to answer. Probably she’s keeping the animiles to monitor our progress.”

  “What makes you think she’s keeping them?” said Lily-Matisse.

  “What do you mean?” P.W. asked.

  Lily-Matisse gave a coy shrug.

  “Did your mom tell you something?” Leon demanded.

  “Maybe.”

  “Start talking,” said P.W.

  “Yeah, out with it,” Leon insisted.

  “Swear you won’t blab?” said Lily-Matisse.

  “Swear,” said Leon.

  “Promise,” said P.W.

  “Crossyourhearthopetodiestickaneedleinyoureye?”

  “I’m sick and tired of needles,” said Leon.

  “Say it,” Lily-Matisse demanded. “Both of you.”

  After the needle oath was duly sworn, Lily-Matisse said, “Okay. Here goes. Did you notice how the first batch of animiles just kinda disappeared from the finished bin?”

  “Yeah, so?” said Leon.

  “What about it?” said P.W.

  “Mom told me she saw the Hag carrying a big black plastic garbage bag out of school. Mom said she looked like the Grinch.”

  “The Grinch wears green, not black,” said P.W.

  “What difference does that make? The point is, the Hag is swiping our projects!”

  “Maybe she’s selling them,” P.W. suggested.

  Lily-Matisse swung into a sitting position. “Who’d want to buy animiles?”

  “And besides,” said Leon. “How much could the Hag make?”

  “A lot,” said P.W. “I mean think about it. Say each animile sells for five bucks. Twenty kids times—”

  “There are only eighteen in our class,” Lily-Matisse interrupted.

  “Don’t nitpick,” said P.W. “I’m just guesstimating. Let’s figure five dollars times twenty kids times ten animiles.”

  “We only have to make nine,” said Leon. “One a month, remember?”

  “Will you guys let me finish?” P.W. took a deep breath and started over. “Five dollars times twenty kids times ten animiles. That makes … ”

  The jungle gym turned silent. Then P.W., who was the fastest calculator of the three, screamed, “A THOUSAND DOLLARS!”

  They were mulling over the staggering sum when someone beckoned from below.

  “Yoo-hoo, Sir Panty Hose!”

  Leon’s stomach tightened. He recognized the voice. A quick glance downward confirmed his fears.

  “Oh, please come down, Sir Panty Hose.” Henry Lumpkin jumped up and smacked Leon on the thigh. “Please!”

  Leon tried to stay put, but the smacking intensified until he had no choice. He had to hop off and face Lumpkin.

  P.W. and Lily-Matisse dropped down, too.

  “So you think I look better with a pillowcase on my head?” Lumpkin sneered.

  “I was only kidding,” said Leon, anxiously kicking the asphalt.

  From inside his olive drab army jacket, Lumpkin removed a pair of panty hose and pitched them at Leon’s feet.

  “He’s throwing down the gauntlet!” P.W. exclaimed.

  It was a phrase they all knew from their Medieval Readers. A gauntlet was a kind of old-fashioned glove that nobles tossed to the ground when demanding a duel.

  News of the challenge spread quickly. Within minutes, a dozen or so classmates circled the two combatants, creating a human wall that screened the makeshift battleground from the teachers’ bench.

  It would be wonderful to report that Sir Leon summoned up some untapped power and that he trounced the evil Lord Lumpkin. Sadly, that did not happen. More predictably, Lumpkin dispensed a vicious array of punches, slaps, kicks, dead-arms, and bent-knuckled noogies that left Leon sprawled on the playground blacktop.

  It took him a long, painful minute to shake off the daze and stumble away.

  “Not so fast,” said Lumpkin.

  Something soft smacked Leon in the shoulder blade. Instinct told him to keep moving, but he couldn’t. A powerful hand grabbed his shoulder and spun him around.

  “Put them on,” Lumpkin snarled. “Now!”

  “What?” said Leon, pretending not see the “gauntlet” on the ground.

  Lumpkin snatched up the panty hose and brandished them threateningly, inches from Leon’s face. “I said put them on.”

  A couple of onlookers reinforced the command by chanting, “Put, them, on! Put, them, on!”

  Leon looked around. There was no way he could break away.

  Lumpkin closed in. Leon tried to duck, but Lumpkin was too strong and too fast.

  “I hereby crown you ‘Sir Panty Hose.’” Lumpkin shoved the stockings over his victim’s head.

  A gagging sensation rose up from Leon’s stomach as the stretchy material flattened his nose and turned his lips into a pair of plump slugs. The two useless legs flopped to the sides like a pair of liver-colored rabbit ears.

  “Now beat it,” Lumpkin said.

  That was one order Leon was only too willing to obey. As soon as he had broken free, he whipped off the panty hose and gasped for air.

  Leon ran inside the school and headed straight for the boys’ room, where he splashed some water on his face, hoping to wash off whatever invisible panty-hose residue might still be clinging to his skin. Once he had removed all trace elements of his defeat, he stormed back to the classroom, bent on revenge.

  The room was deserted.

  Leon went straight for Lumpkin’s desk and looked inside. The desk contained a nearly complete animile—a unicorn made from camouflage material.

  It’s not fair, Leon said to himself. How come a bonehead like Lumpkin can make things I can’t?

  He gave the animile a long slow squeeze. Too bad I can’t rip Lumpkin limb from limb as easily as this unicorn….

  Leon looked at the wall clock. Ten minutes remained until the end of recess. That gave him plenty of time.

  He dashed over to the supply cabinet. As usual, it was padlocked. But a quick tour of the room turned up a pair of scissors next to the pencil sharpener. Leon took them back to Lumpkin’s desk.

  Snip. Snip. Snip.

  In no time flat, Leon had amputated the horn from Henry Lumpkin’s unicorn. Doing so removed what little magic the beast possessed. It now looked a lot like a donkey.

  Perfect! Leon told himself.

  Then, as he was cramming the horn and body back inside Lumpkin’s desk, a second, more daring, idea presented itself.

  Leon checked the clock again. Five minutes left. He could do it. There was still enough time.

  He scrounged about for a needle. He took it as a good omen that he found one already threaded. He grabbed the horn and body and briefly contemplated the two pieces before setting to work.

  It was the first time all year Leon had actually wanted to sew.

  A dozen basting stitches later, he had reattached the unicorn horn. Only he fixed it to a new location—a location where it absolutely did not belong.

  A location better left unspecified.

  TEN

  The Birdcage

  The instant Miss Hagmeyer learned of Leon’s radical surgery, she went straight to the phone in the teachers’ lounge and called Emma Zeisel.

  The hotel operator answered the call after the fourteenth ring.
“Trimore Towers—where we try more every day! How may I direct your call?”

  “Finally! I wish to speak with Emma Zeisel.”

  “Sorry, ma’am,” said the operator. “She has her Do Not Disturb light on. She’s probably sleeping.”

  “At two forty-five in the afternoon?” sputtered Miss Hagmeyer. “Get her up at once!”

  “I’m sorry, but—”

  “At once!” Miss Hagmeyer repeated. “This is about her son.”

  “About Leon?” gasped the operator. “Hold on. I’ll patch you right through.”

  Emma Zeisel sat bolt upright the moment she heard Miss Hagmeyer’s voice. “Is Leon hurt? Is everything okay?”

  “Your son is not hurt, Ms. Zeisel. However, everything is not okay. I believe you should come down to Principal Birdwhistle’s office immediately.”

  Emma Zeisel squinted at her watch. Her shift started at four, which didn’t give her much time. “I’ll be there in half an hour,” she said, pulling herself up off the living-room couch, which doubled as a bed.

  When Emma Zeisel entered Principal Birdwhistle’s office, she was frothing at the mouth—or so it seemed, because toothpaste still clung to her lips. “Sorry,” she said breathlessly. “It took ages to find a taxi.”

  Leon was tempted to ask what country her cab driver had come from, but he knew that the Birdcage was not the place to bring up his taxi-driver collection. In fact, the Birdcage didn’t seem like a good place to discuss anything. Leon decided to keep his mouth shut.

  “Oh, goodness gracious, don’t apologize,” Principal Birdwhistle said nervously.

  “Can we proceed?” Miss Hagmeyer said impatiently, without so much as a hello to Emma Zeisel. “I’m on a very tight schedule.”

  “Very well, Phyllis,” said Principal Birdwhistle. She turned to Emma Zeisel. “At Miss Hagmeyer’s suggestion, I’ve been looking over your son’s record. He is a bright boy, there’s no doubt about that. But Miss Hagmeyer is concerned that … well, perhaps it’s best if she explains.”

  Miss Hagmeyer got straight to the point. “I’ll be frank, Ms. Zeisel. We have a problem. A serious problem. Take a look.”