Leon and the Spitting Image

by Allen Kurzweil

  “A four-ounce pastry and a four-ton bus should not be handled at the same time, Mr. Groot. Satisfy your sweet tooth after we have parked. And with regards to the matter of safety, return to your seat at once, Mr. Zeisel.”

  On his way back, Leon hit a roadblock.

  “Hey, Sir Panty Hose,” said Henry Lumpkin. “You skipped me.”

  Leon tried to push through the muscled olive drab arm that now doubled as a tollgate, but he couldn’t get by. Lumpkin repositioned his hand on Leon’s shoulder and gave it a painful squeeze.

  “Would thouest like to wear those desserts like you wore the Hag’s underwear?” Lumpkin said.

  Leon tried to pull away.

  “What’s going on back there?” Miss Hagmeyer asked.

  “Nothing, Miss Hagmeyer!” Leon and Lumpkin both cried.

  “Back in your seats,” she admonished.

  Lumpkin refused to let go. “So what’ll it be?” he said in a dark, low voice.

  Even with his bladed birthday ring, Leon knew he was no match for Henry Lumpkin.

  “Now, Mr. Zeisel!” Miss Hagmeyer commanded.

  “Here, help yourself,” said Leon, suppressing the impulse to shmoosh a napoleon straight into Lumpkin’s face.

  It was a picture-perfect November day when the bus pulled into the parking lot of the Cloisters. A crisp breeze gave the air a pungent odor of wrinkled apples. With Lumpkin temporarily bribed, Leon felt a brief sense of calm—until Antoinette started showing off, calling out architectural terms that she had plundered from the Medieval Reader.

  “Turret! I see a turret!” she squealed. “And those are definitely crenels. And look! One, two, three … four loopholes!”

  “Maybe we’ll get lucky and she’ll find that dungeon I was hoping for,” said P.W.

  “And if we’re really lucky,” said Leon, “it’ll have two empty cells. One for her highness and one for Lord Lumpkin.”

  “Aren’t you forgetting the Hag?” said Lily-Matisse.

  “Excellent point,” said Leon. “Make it three cells.”

  At the museum ticket desk, Miss Hagmeyer quickly remedied the alphabetical chaos she had endured during the bus ride.

  “Okay, pay attention,” she said. “A through Gs stay with me. Coach Kasperitis will take the H through Ns. Ms. Jasprow will monitor the rest of you rapscallions. We regroup at the tapestries in exactly one hour. Do not be late.”

  Leon was less than thrilled that his last name separated him from Lily-Matisse and P.W., but at least he hadn’t gotten stuck with Miss Hagmeyer. Leading the O through Zs into the courtyard, Regina Jasprow explained to her charges how the museum’s ancient stone buildings had been shipped from France and Italy. “Every brick, every stone, every roof tile was numbered in white chalk,” she said breathlessly. “If you think your Lego constructions are complicated, try pulling apart a medieval church, complete with flying buttresses. Then try wrapping it up, sending it across the ocean, unwrapping it, and snapping it back together!”

  At an archway, she stuck out her tongue at a carved stone monster that was making a similarly rude gesture. “See that gargoyle? What do you think caused the black stains on its teeth?”

  “Didn’t floss enough?” said Thomas Warchowski.

  “Nice try.”

  “Chewed too much tobacco, like the coach?” Leon offered.

  “Getting warmer,” said Ms. Jasprow. “The gargoyle did do a lot of spitting in its time. Any guesses what it spat?”

  “Boiling oil?”

  “No, that’s too warm,” Ms. Jasprow said. “Actually, it spouted harmless rainwater. But if you come with me through this arch, I can show you something more satisfyingly deadly.”

  Ms. Jasprow guided her group into an herb garden and spoke about plant poisons, then continued on, to a library gallery, where she provided an overview on toxic pigments.

  “See the red paint in that illuminated manuscript?” Ms. Jasprow said, pointing at a peaceful castle landscape. “Artists call that color vermilion. Chemists, however, know it as mercuric sulfide. It’s highly poisonous. And the yellow on the knight’s banner? That’s orpiment. Orpiment contains arsenic, which is the principal ingredient in rat bait. And farther up, that golden sun, any guesses what that’s made out of?”

  No one had a clue.

  “Dried cow urine,” Ms. Jasprow said matter-of-factly.

  Thomas raised his hand. “Ms. Jasprow?” he said. “I think it’s been an hour. Miss Hagmeyer is probably expecting us.”

  “And we certainly shouldn’t keep the Ha—Miss Hagmeyer waiting,” said Ms. Jasprow. But on her way to the meeting point, she had a change of heart. “I can’t resist a quick detour,” she said with a conspiratorial wink.

  Ms. Jasprow hustled the O through Zs into a room dominated by a beautiful stained glass window. “Isn’t it a joy to watch the light shine through this? It’s like medieval motion pictures!”

  She was just launching into a speech about the dangers of glassmaking when she was interrupted by a tooting sound.

  The coach came running up, proudly displaying a clay whistle, shaped like a jester’s head, that he had purchased in the Cloisters gift shop. “Uh, Regina? Phyllis is getting a little, well, you know … ”

  “Impatient?” the art teacher suggested. “Fidgety? Restless?”

  “You got it,” confirmed the coach.

  “At last!” Miss Hagmeyer said as the O through Zs joined the A through Ns at the entrance to the tapestry room. “You’re seven—no, eight—minutes late!”

  “It’s my fault,” said Regina Jasprow.

  “Of course it is,” said Miss Hagmeyer. She leveled a look of intense displeasure at her tardy colleague before marching everyone into a large stone hall.

  “These,” she said, waving her needle, “are the reason I arranged this trip.”

  “Rugs?” said Lumpkin.

  “Not rugs—tapestries. Seven of the most exquisite tapestries in the world.”

  “And each one has a unicorn!” Antoinette blurted out. “That’s why you had us make unicorns!”

  “That is correct, Miss Brede. I gave you that assignment so that you could better appreciate the master pieces on these walls.”

  Guiding the group to a hanging on the far side of the room, Miss Hagmeyer said, “I would like you to focus your attention on that rose right there. It required no fewer than thirty-four stitches per inch—you heard me correctly, thirty-four s.p.i.”

  “I’d settle for six,” Leon whispered.

  Miss Hagmeyer neutralized Leon with a glower before continuing. “That exquisite rose is one of six hundred and twenty-seven similarly exacting flowers that blossom on The Start of the Hunt. I know because I tallied them up—twice. In addition to examples of the seven stitches of virtue that all of you should know, this master piece incorporates tent stitches, stem stitches, knot stitches—”

  Miss Hagmeyer suspended her speech. “Did you wish to add something, Ms. Jasprow?”

  All heads turned toward the art teacher, who was whispering to the coach. “What?” said Ms. Jasprow. “Add something? Me? Uh, no.”

  “You are quite sure?” said Miss Hagmeyer. “We wouldn’t want to deprive the class of an artist’s perspective.” The snideness in her voice was unmistakable.

  Ms. Jasprow turned red. “Sorry for the disturbance. Please go on.”

  “It’s hardly a disturbance, Regina. Enlighten us.”

  “Well, if you insist,” said Ms. Jasprow. “I was just telling Coach Kasperitis here that I find your perspective slightly”—she took a moment to choose the right word—“numbery.”

  “Numbery?”

  “You know what I mean. This many knots. That many flowers. When I look at these tapestries I tend to see something a little more, well, magical.”

  “Perhaps you should share your viewpoint more fully,” Miss Hagmeyer said icily.

  P.W. whispered to Leon, “Let the joust begin.”

  “Quiet!” Miss Hagmeyer yelled. “I wish to he
ar what Ms. Jasprow has to say.”

  Everyone froze. Even the coach remained motionless, despite the wad of tobacco wedged against one cheek.

  “Go on, Regina,” Miss Hagmeyer goaded. “Educate us on the magic of medieval and Renaissance embroidery.”

  “Very well.” The art teacher waved her hand around the room. “All of this is not about numbers, Phyllis. It’s about adventure. It’s about mystery. It’s about struggle. And, above all, it’s about passion.”

  Miss Hagmeyer gave Regina Jasprow the onceover. “This from a woman who wears place mats!”

  “At least I don’t turn my students into garment workers,” Ms. Jasprow snapped. “Tell me, Phyllis, are the kids making quota? I swear, if the school didn’t give me a break on tuition, I’d have yanked Lily-Matisse off your animile assembly line the minute I learned about the stitch counts and tally charts.”

  Coach Kasperitis stepped forward. “Ladies,” he said nervously. “I think that’s enough.”

  Miss Hagmeyer cut him off. “Butt out, Skip! Ms. Jasprow here is still telling us the true meaning of these hangings.”

  Ms. Jasprow took a deep breath and exhaled very slowly. She then gazed up at a tapestry that portrayed a slain unicorn and said, “The artists who made this extraordinary work employed their needles and thread the way an alchemist mixes potions—to restore, to resurrect, to transform. They believed that a slain unicorn could be brought back to life through a supernatural occurrence we call art but that they, wisely, never named.”

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake, Regina!” Miss Hagmeyer said derisively. “Supernatural occurrence? Do you honestly expect my kids to buy that piffle?”

  “I do!” the art teacher replied fiercely. “Passion can reanimate the dead,” she insisted. “Passion can make fabric come alive.”

  FOURTEEN

  The Master Piece

  After the unicorn animiles came greyhounds and after the greyhounds came stallions. Once the stallions were corralled in the finished bin, lions had to be made. Then lambs. Then falcons. With each new project, Miss Hagmeyer changed the eyeballs on her cape and moved the spools on the countinghouse tally closer and closer to May.

  Naturally she kept dishing out the usual fourth-grade fare—math, English, social studies, science—but none of those subjects pleased her as much as the sight of a completed animile dropping into the finished bin.

  Miss Hagmeyer monitored Leon with extra-special attention. She was forever asking him to straighten a crooked limb, thin a bulging belly, redo a substandard seam. And still Leon’s s.p.i.s remained borderline. His promotion to fifth grade was far from guaranteed.

  That wasn’t the only thing bugging Leon. Where were all his animiles ending up? This mystery drove Leon and the rest of the class nuts. But try though they did, Miss Hagmeyer’s students never managed to uncover even the tiniest detail about their teacher’s sideline business. Then one day in April, all that changed.

  “I found out where the Hag’s taking our animiles,” Lily-Matisse told P.W. and Leon while swinging on the jungle gym. “Mom overheard her making arrangements in the teachers’ lounge.”

  “What kind of arrangements?” Leon asked.

  “Shipping arrangements,” said Lily-Matisse. “She was on the phone talking about a shipment of animiles, and she was looking through a black binder that said SOV on the cover.”

  “What’s SOV?” P.W. asked.

  Lily-Matisse shrugged. “It’s not like Mom could go over and ask her. She hasn’t spoken to the Hag since the Cloisters blowup. But she did check the phone book. All she found was a number for the Society of Ventriloquists.”

  “A Society of Vampires would be a better bet,” said Leon.

  “Or a School of Victims,” P.W. suggested. “I saw the Hag leaving yesterday with another garbage bag full of animiles. And when I checked the finished bin this morning—”

  “It was empty, right?” said Lily-Matisse.

  “Bingo,” said P.W.

  “Someone’s got to stop her,” said Lily-Matisse.

  “Yeah,” said Leon. “Someone should deposit her in the finished bin.”

  * * *

  After recess, Miss Hagmeyer began class by writing two words on the blackboard:

  master piece

  “Can anyone tell me what this means?” she asked. “You may recall I used the phrase during our visit to the Hall of Unicorns.”

  A forest of hands sprouted up.

  “Miss Brede?”

  “An awesome thing?”

  “That’s a start,” said Miss Hagmeyer. “But what’s the nature of the awesomeness? What exactly makes a masterpiece a master … piece?”

  The forest of hands fell. Miss Hagmeyer had to answer her own question. “A master piece is a special object crafted by an apprentice to gain entrance to the guild. I suppose you could call it a medieval final exam.”

  The words “final exam” instantly made the whole class antsy.

  “Settle down and let me explain,” Miss Hagmeyer said. “Suppose you were a lad living in the Middle Ages, and you were sent off to make wagon wheels. Where would you go?”

  Pencils twiddled and feet tapped, but no one spoke.

  “You would undertake an apprenticeship with a master wheelwright,” said Miss Hagmeyer. “And that master would teach you his craft much the way I have attempted to teach you mine. As an apprentice, you would start with the basics. Tend the fire. Fetch buckets of water. Sweep curlicues of wood off the ground. After a year of tending and fetching and sweeping, you might get to shave down the spokes of a wheel. After another year, you might actually begin to make wheels. And after making hundreds and hundreds—under the master’s strict supervision—you might be allowed to strike out on your own.”

  “Why would you want to strike out?” Henry Lumpkin asked.

  P.W. turned to Leon and rolled his eyes.

  “Striking out on your own has nothing to do with baseball,” Miss Hagmeyer specified. “It means you would become independent. You would start to work by yourself—and for yourself.”

  “Oh,” said Lumpkin.

  “But to earn that right you would first need to be declared a master. And how would that happen?”

  Silence.

  “I’ll ask again. How does an apprentice become a master?” Miss Hagmeyer tapped the blackboard with her chalk.

  “By making a master piece?” Leon guessed.

  “Bravo, Mr. Zeisel,” Miss Hagmeyer replied coolly. “To join the Company of Wheelwrights, an apprentice would have to make a piece worthy of a master. In other words … ”

  “A master piece,” a few students muttered.

  Miss Hagmeyer gave a nod. “Naturally, apprentice wheelwrights weren’t the only ones creating master pieces. Apprentice bookbinders created them, as did apprentice goldsmiths and apprentice tailors. Now does anyone know where I might be going with this?”

  Antoinette’s hand darted forward. “You want us to make medieval master pieces, don’t you, Miss Hagmeyer?”

  “That is correct. Each one of you is to create an animile that confirms your command of the stitches of virtue. An animile that says, ‘I am a nimble-fingered master ready to handle fifth grade.’”

  “What do we have to make?” P.W. asked.

  “Ah,” said Miss Hagmeyer. “That is a crucial part of the challenge. Masters must have vision. They must create on their own, without guidance.”

  “You mean no worksheets?” said Lily-Matisse.

  “I mean no worksheets.”

  “And no handouts?” said Thomas.

  “And no handouts,” Miss Hagmeyer confirmed. “You must design your final animile from scratch, by yourselves. Draw up plans for a goshawk, if that’s what tickles your fancy. Stuff a quail. Piece together a patchwork pony. The choice is up to you. I will not intervene. In fact, I do not want to know about your projects until they are complete.”

  A buzz spread through the room. No worksheets! No handouts! No instructions! No surveillance!r />
  “Just keep one thing in mind,” Miss Hagmeyer said. “Master pieces, both in design and execution, must celebrate the skill of the master.”

  “When are they due?” Antoinette asked.

  “The day of Carnival,” Miss Hagmeyer answered. “That gives you a little more than one month.”

  Leon enjoyed his freedom—for a couple of days. But independence soon became a burden. With the possibility of flunking looming, he couldn’t decide what to make.

  Leon thumbed through an illustrated encyclopedia of imaginary medieval beasts. The book was filled with crocophants and dragons and other mythical creatures. It even pictured a rude gargoyle that looked just like the one grimacing on the Cloisters downspout. Yet none of the beasts, gargoyle included, inspired Leon. He asked for suggestions at the hotel.

  “What about a llama, Leonito?” Maria said. (Maria had a soft spot for llamas—they recalled her native Peru.)

  “Not medievalish enough,” said Leon.

  “How about a tiger?” Emma Zeisel proposed. “We’ve got the Amazing Lothar staying with us in July, and he’s bringing his entire act. I could ask him for a few whiskers. You could add them to your creature.”

  “July’s too late,” Leon moaned.

  “Don’t torture yourself, sweetie. I’m sure you’ll think of something.”

  But Leon did not think of something. And worse, Miss Hagmeyer caught wind of his waffling.

  “Have you at least drawn some sketches?” she asked one afternoon.

  “No,” Leon admitted. “I can’t seem to come up with anything.”

  “One must exercise one’s fingers to exercise one’s mind,” Miss Hagmeyer said unhelpfully.

  “But—”

  “No ifs, ands, or buts, Mr. Zeisel. If you can’t complete your master piece this year you will have plenty of time to do so next. Is my meaning clear?”

  “Yes,” said Leon, feeling a terrible sense of despair.