Leon and the Spitting Image

by Allen Kurzweil

  “That’s not such a hot idea,” said Leon.

  “Why not?” Lily-Matisse said.

  “Well, think about it. If I make the Hag make animiles, my doll has to make animiles, too—teeny-weeny animiles.”

  “Leon has a hard enough time with the normal-sized ones,” P.W. noted.

  “Any other ideas?” Leon asked.

  “Yes, as a matter of fact.” Lily-Matisse took a sip of milk. “We wait for the Hag to pick up her stupid chalk holder, right? Then, when she has it in her hand? When she’s about to scribble some dumb vocab word on the blackboard? That’s when you do your magic. I’ve written a list of things you can make her write.”

  Lily-Matisse flipped over the photocopy and propped it between a milk carton and some lime Jell-O. The back of the sheet said:

  No more homework for the rest of the year.

  Animiles are stupid.

  Henry Lumpkin is a Loser with a capital L.

  I promise never to argue with Regina Jasprow EVER AGAIN!

  “That’s some wish list,” said P.W. “But you spelled ‘capital’ wrong.”

  “Did not,” said Lily-Matisse. “You’re thinking of the other kind—like in the White House.”

  “Actually, it would be sweet to see the Hag make a whole bunch of spelling mistakes,” Leon suggested diplomatically.

  “Kid stuff,” scoffed P.W.

  “So what’s your plan, Einstein?” Lily-Matisse said. “You mean plans,” said P.W., stressing the last letter. “First, we get the Hag to hose Lumpkin. That’s Plan A.”

  “I don’t follow,” said Lily-Matisse.

  “Me neither,” Leon admitted.

  “It’s simple,” said P.W. “We have the Hag crown Lumpkin with a pair of her panty hose. You know, give him a taste of his own medicine.”

  “Now that I’d like to see!” said Leon.

  “And Plan B?” said Lily-Matisse.

  P.W. grinned broadly and cracked his knuckles. “Plan B is my master piece.”

  “If you do say so yourself,” said Lily-Matisse.

  P.W. ignored the sarcasm. Pushing aside his lunch tray, he removed a roll of graph paper from his backpack. “I drew this during study break.” He unfurled the graph paper and weighed down the corners with milk cartons and juice boxes.

  The sketch showed Leon’s doll cuffed to the launching arm of a complex Lego contraption equipped with pulleys, chains, and counterweights.

  “What is that?” said Leon.

  “A trebuchet,” P.W. answered proudly.

  “Never heard of it,” said Lily-Matisse.

  “Well, you should have. They showed a picture of one in the Medieval Reader. Chapter fourteen. ‘Arms and Armaments of the Crusaders.’”

  “That was extra-credit reading,” Lily-Matisse said defensively.

  “So what does the thing do?” Leon asked.

  “A trebuchet is basically your top-of-the-line catapult,” said P.W. “Highly popular during the Middle Ages.”

  “You want to turn Miss Hagmeyer into a human catapult?” Lily-Matisse exclaimed.

  “You got it,” P.W. said.

  Lily-Matisse gave him a challenging look. “Why do you need a machine to have the Hag launch stuff? Couldn’t we just have her use her arm?”

  “That’s not as cool,” said P.W.

  Leon ran his finger over the design. It reminded him of a giant mechanical slingshot, with Miss Hagmeyer serving as the sling. “We could call it the Hagapult,” he said, warming to the plan.

  “Excellent!” said P.W.

  “But we still have to figure out what to load her with,” Leon added.

  “Not a problem,” said P.W. “I was thinking—”

  “You guys are totally crazy!” cried Lily-Matisse.

  “Hey, keep it down,” Leon cautioned.

  Lily-Matisse lowered her voice to an adamant whisper. “You can’t turn the Hag into a giant human teeter-totter. If you got caught you’d get ejected from school!”

  “Ejected for making a catapult?” P.W. said. “How perfect is that?”

  “Ha. Ha,” said Lily-Matisse. “I’m serious.”

  Leon looked over the design. “Maybe Lily-Matisse is right. I don’t see how we could use the Hagapult without getting noticed. And it’s not like I’m the teacher’s pet.”

  P.W. abruptly smacked the milk cartons off the corners of the sketch. The graph paper curled up on itself.

  “Hey, don’t take it personally,” said Leon, surprised by his friend’s cranky response.

  “Hag at eleven o’clock!” P.W. whispered urgently, as he shoved the plans into his backpack. Lily-Matisse quickly slipped her photocopy under a lunch tray. Leon dropped the pouch with the master piece into his lap.

  Miss Hagmeyer suddenly was looming over them like a giant siege weapon. “You three are sounding awfully conspiratorial,” she said. “I couldn’t quite make out what you were talking about from the teachers’ table. What is it you are hatching?”

  “We were just discussing Leon’s final project,” P.W. said.

  Leon kicked him under the table.

  Miss Hagmeyer sucked her tooth. “You still don’t know what you’re doing for your master piece, Mr. Zeisel?”

  “He’s weighing his options,” Lily-Matisse said sweetly.

  Leon gave her a kick.

  “Well, I wouldn’t weigh them too much longer,” Miss Hagmeyer said sternly. “Because I have options to weigh as well.” She returned to the teachers’ table and reclaimed her seat across from Mr. Groot.

  “What a witch!” said P.W.

  “Look at her, eating that cottage cheese,” said Lily-Matisse. “We should use the doll to stick some of that disgusting stuff straight up her nose!”

  “That is so lame compared to the Hagapult,” P.W. said.

  “I don’t know,” said Leon. “At least cottage cheese up the nose gets us instant results.”

  “Yeah,” said Lily-Matisse. “Your thingy would take years to build.”

  “Not true,” P.W. said. “Besides, the beauty of the Hagapult is that it’s a twofer. It gets the Hag and its target.”

  “What target?” asked Leon.

  “What target do you think?” said P.W. He scanned the lunchroom. “Target sighted. Location: thirty feet behind teachers’ table.”

  Leon and Lily-Matisse quickly spotted the telltale fringe of orange hair.

  “I still think cottage cheese up the nose is better,” said Lily-Matisse.

  “And let Lumpkin off the hook?” said P.W.

  Leon considered his options. One friend wanted cottage cheese up the nose. The other was pressing for a more ambitious Hagapult contraption that could be aimed at Henry Lumpkin.

  Which to choose? Hagapult or cottage cheese? Cottage cheese or Hagapult? Faced with this dilemma, Leon improvised.

  “Block my sides,” he said.

  Lily-Matisse scooted in her chair.

  “A little more,” said Leon. “I’m still exposed.”

  “Want me to hold up a tray?” P.W. asked.

  “No, that’ll attract attention.” Leon removed the master piece from its pouch and nestled it in his lap, safely out of view.

  Miss Hagmeyer was just bringing a spoonful of cottage cheese to her mouth when Leon started working the hands of his doll like the levers on a crane.

  “She’s responding!” Lily-Matisse gasped.

  “You’re in range!” said P.W.

  Leon did not speak. He was too busy pulling back and forth on the arms. He made Miss Hagmeyer jiggle a spoonful of cottage cheese inches from her mouth, then had her daub the cottage cheese on the tip of her nose.

  Lily-Matisse and P.W. began giggling uncontrollably. Their outburst distracted Leon. He let go of the doll. Miss Hagmeyer snapped out of her daze and promptly used a napkin to wipe off the cottage cheese.

  “That’s it?” said P.W. disappointedly.

  “It will be if you guys keep laughing,” Leon said. “I told you in the playground—I need quie
t to concentrate.” He repositioned his fingers around the head of the doll and revived his efforts. Now each time Miss Hagmeyer attempted to eat some cottage cheese, he pulled her mouth away, instead of her hand. After a few such tests, Leon was satisfied. He reconfigured his grip.

  Shifting his gaze between Miss Hagmeyer and the master piece, he tweaked the positions of the arm, hand, and fingers. “P.W.,” he said, “you wanted a Hagapult?”

  “That’s a roger,” P.W. confirmed.

  “And, Lily-Matisse, you wanted a cottage-cheese assault?”

  Lily-Matisse gave an eager nod.

  “And we all want to get Lumpkin, right?”

  “Oh, yeah,” said P.W.

  “Definitely,” said Lily-Matisse.

  “Well, then … ”

  Leon took a moment to fine-tune the angle of the spoon.

  “Ready,” he said.

  He made a few minor adjustments.

  “Aim.”

  He made a few more.

  “Fire!”

  He gave the doll’s arm a decisive flick…. SPLAAAAAT!

  “Uh-oh,” said P.W.

  “You missed Lumpkin!” exclaimed Lily-Matisse.

  “And hit Groot!” said P.W.

  Leon groaned. “I can see that.”

  All three of them looked on as Mr. Groot blurted something at his presumed attacker.

  Leon quickly bent the doll’s head so that Miss Hagmeyer would turn away without responding.

  Mr. Groot removed a shop rag from his pocket and wiped the cottage cheese off his ear. Then, apparently calmed down, he refocused his attention to the half-eaten open-faced grilled-cheese sandwich resting on his plate.

  “I don’t get it,” said Leon. “I aimed perfectly.”

  “Remember what the coach is always telling us,” said P.W. “Passion and practice make magic. Better try again.”

  “I don’t know,” said Lily-Matisse. “Maybe once is enough.”

  “Oh, c’mon,” said P.W.

  Leon grabbed hold of the doll’s arms and shot a second spoonful of cottage cheese at Lumpkin…. SPLAAAAAT!

  “Youch!” Lily-Matisse said.

  “Not again!” moaned Leon. He couldn’t understand why his aim was so off.

  Once more Lumpkin escaped unscathed.

  Mr. Groot was not so lucky. Miss Hagmeyer’s cottage cheese hit his cheek, slid down his face, collected (briefly) at his chin, and then dribbled onto his shop smock, just above an oval patch that said MR. GROOT.

  “He is not looking happy,” P.W. observed with a smirk.

  Lily-Matisse said, “Would you be happy if you got smacked in the face with cottage cheese?”

  “Twice!” P.W. noted enthusiastically.

  Leon was so annoyed by his misfire he didn’t think to let go of the doll.

  This oversight had significant, unexpected consequences. Mr. Groot was about to demand an explanation from Miss Hagmeyer. But he stopped short when he observed her pointing a discharged spoon straight at his head. It was clear he thought Miss Hagmeyer was taunting him, using the utensil to say “Gotcha!”

  This misinterpretation prompted a change in Mr. Groot’s normally mild demeanor. He again wiped the cottage cheese from his face, picked up his half-eaten open-faced grilled-cheese sandwich, looked Miss Hagmeyer straight in the eye, paused momentarily to take aim, and returned fire.

  Regrettably, Mr. Groot’s marksmanship was just as bad as Leon’s. The half-eaten open-faced grilled-cheese sandwich missed its target and instead grazed the left shoulder of Mr. Rattles, an upper school English teacher.

  Although the half-eaten open-faced grilled-cheese sandwich didn’t make much of a mess when it winged Mr. Rattles, it did cause him to flinch. And in flinching, Mr. Rattles dropped the sandwich he was eating—a piping hot Sloppy Joe. It landed facedown on his (soon piping hot) leg.

  Once Mr. Rattles had stopped howling and jumping up and down, he grabbed a bowl of lime Jell-O, leaned over, and deposited its contents on Mr. Groot’s head.

  After that, nature took its course. A full-scale all-out take-no-prisoners food fight erupted in the Classical School lunchroom. And it was the teachers—the teachers!—who had started it. (Or so it appeared.)

  Leon, P.W., and Lily-Matisse sought refuge behind the steam tables.

  “So much for keeping things quiet,” said Leon as a hamburger bun bounced into his lap.

  P.W. surveyed the lunchroom through the mists rising from the steam table. “It’s just like castle defense in the Middle Ages.”

  “What are you talking about?” said Lily-Matisse.

  “Simple,” said P.W. “Take a look out there. There are the launchers and there are the pourers. Only instead of boulders getting tossed from castle walls, it’s curly fries and Tater Tots. And instead of molten lead, it’s milk and OJ that are poured.”

  A flying fajita forced P.W. to duck. “And I’ll tell you one thing, Lily-Matisse. Your mom is definitely a pourer. Check out the salad bar.”

  Lily-Matisse poked her nose over the top of the steam table and saw Signora Pecora, the Italian teacher, ladling French dressing on Madame Pispartout, the French teacher. Madame Pispartout retaliated with thick gobs of Italian dressing. Suddenly Regina Jasprow came into view and confirmed P.W.’s observation by squirting the contents of a plastic ketchup bottle onto the head of Mr. Joost, the third-grade teacher.

  A piece of chocolate cake caught P.W. in the shoulder. “Position compromised!” he cried. “Fall back! Fall back!”

  “Where to?” yelled Leon.

  “Over there,” said P.W. He pointed to a row of recycling bins.

  The three of them zigzagged, under a volley of chicken fingers and string beans, to the colorful bins, which were located near the kitchen. P.W. took Mixed. Lily-Matisse took Cans. Leon hunkered down behind Plastics. (Thomas Warchowski had already claimed Paper.)

  P.W. peered over his lid. “Incoming!” he screamed. Seconds later, a barrage of carrots pounded the containers.

  “It’s the coach!” P.W. cried. “And man oh man, is he throwing heat!”

  “Let’s get out of here!” said Lily-Matisse. Using a bin lid as a shield, she led the retreat into the hallway.

  “Things got totally out of hand in there,” she said.

  “Out of hand is right!” said P.W. He imitated the flicking gesture Leon had used to loft the first fateful spoonful of cottage cheese.

  Leon sighed. “I blew it. I wanted the Hag to nail Lumpkin, but I couldn’t aim straight.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t your fault,” P.W. said.

  “Then whose fault was it?” said Leon gloomily. “I had two chances, and I messed up both of them. Lumpkin was only a few feet away from the Hag, and I still couldn’t hit him.”

  “Maybe something is disrupting signal reception,” said P.W. He fell silent as soon as he made the suggestion. Leon and Lily-Matisse could practically hear the cogs turning inside his head.

  “Tests!” P.W. suddenly blurted out. “We have to conduct tests. Meet me at the tree at recess. I’ll bring everything we need.”

  NINETEEN

  Interference

  No sooner had the last of the carrots landed than the first of the rumors took off. Everyone was talking about the food fight. Mr. Hankey, the janitor, turned out to be the angriest commentator on the subject. He roamed the halls, mop in hand, grumbling and telling anyone who’d listen, “Next time my lunchroom gets turned into a launch room, I’m quitting, you can count on that!”

  Principal Birdwhistle expressed her disappointment and outrage differently. She posted a memo.

  Everyone ignored it. People were too busy trying to find out who had started the fight. No one seemed to know for sure.

  Some thought it was Mr. Groot. Others placed the blame squarely on the wig-topped head of Miss Hagmeyer, since she’d been acting weird all week. A third contingent of rumormongers attributed the food fight to the coach, the ex-pitcher known for his fastball.

  No one suspected the three
fourth graders who met behind the maple tree that same afternoon.

  “What’s the raincoat for?” Lily-Matisse asked P.W. The sky was slightly overcast, but the chances of rain seemed slim.

  P.W. slipped a hand inside his slicker. He withdrew a folded sheet of graph paper and a pencil.

  “Another invention?” said Lily-Matisse.

  “No,” said P.W., mildly irritated. He handed the sheet to Leon, who eagerly opened it.

  “A map?” P.W. nodded.

  “What’s a Prooving Ground?” Lily-Matisse asked, pointing to the title that ran across the top of the sketch.

  “That’s the phrase NASA uses for a testing facility,” said P.W.

  “Actually, I think it’s sp—”

  “The map is of the playground, right?” Leon said quickly, cutting in before Lily-Matisse could correct P.W.’s spelling.

  “Affirmative,” said P.W. “See, this is where we’re standing at right now. And that, right there—that’s the teachers’ bench. And there’s the jungle gym. And the jump-rope area.” P.W.’s finger darted about. “I drew the map on graph paper so that we can plot test results on a grid. It’ll make it easier to mark the exact range of the doll’s power.”

  “How do you want to start?” Leon asked. “First we have to pace out distances,” said P.W. “You check how far it is from here to the jungle gym. I’ll do the same to the jump ropers.” He took a couple of long steps to show Leon the standard unit of measure.

  “What about me?” said Lily-Matisse.

  “Think you can pace off the distance from the teachers’ bench?”

  “Of course,” said Lily-Matisse. It was her turn to feel annoyed.

  The three surveyors parted company and reassembled a few minutes later to share results.

  “Forty-seven paces from the jungle gym to here,” said Leon.

  “Twenty-four from the bench,” noted Lily-Matisse. “By the way, the Hag’s grading our spelling quizzes.”

  “How do you know?” Leon asked.

  “I saw when I was measuring.”

  “Guys, can we stay focused?” said P.W. “It’s thirty-eight paces from the jump ropers. So figuring three feet per pace …” He scribbled a few numbers on the map and drew some dotted lines.