Leon and the Spitting Image

by Allen Kurzweil

  Once … twice …

  By the time Leon caught the master piece, Miss Hagmeyer didn’t just break Hideyuki Tateda’s record. She obliterated it, executing seven full airborne revolutions, an unprecedented move called (mathematicians will confirm) a 2520.

  TWENTY-TWO

  SOV

  Miss Hagmeyer wasn’t the only one upended by Leon’s dollwork. His playground stunts made the whole school flip. Nothing that nimble, nothing that wild had ever taken place at the Classical School—ever!

  After Miss Hagmeyer landed back on earth, she teetered through the entryway and disappeared. The fourth graders all rushed back from recess to find their classroom empty. The only trace of Miss Hagmeyer was a note scrawled across the blackboard. It said:

  Work on your master pieces untill dismissal.

  “Did the Hag write that?” Lily-Matisse asked Leon.

  “Had to be her. Who else splits the word ‘masterpiece’ in two?”

  “Well, her penmanship’s looking awfully sloppy,” said Lily-Matisse.

  “Gee, I wonder why?” said P.W. “Maybe she’s feeling a little dizzy. She probably went to see the nurse.”

  “Nah,” said Lumpkin, who had overheard P.W.’s remark. “The Hag’s with Birdwhistle. I saw her when I left there.” He snickered. “Now it’s her turn to get caged.”

  Mr. Hankey, the janitor, stuck his head into the classroom and said, “Principal Birdwhistle told me to keep an eye on you wisecrackers. If I have to pick up one single solitary spitball after school, it’ll be detention for the whole lot of you from now until Carnival.”

  “We would never waste spit on spitballs,” said P.W.

  “That’s enough out of you, Mr. Wisenheimer,” the janitor said. “Settle down and work on your projects.”

  Once Mr. Hankey had left the room, Leon, Lily-Matisse, and P.W. regrouped under the countinghouse tally.

  “I still can’t believe that final trick you did,” P.W. marveled.

  Lily-Matisse shook her head in awe. “Six complete turns!”

  “Seven,” P.W. corrected. “And man, that Velcro holds! I thought for sure the Hag’s hair would whip off when she was spinning around!”

  “Fake hair,” said Lily-Matisse.

  “Which was the toughest move?” P.W. asked.

  Leon had to think a bit before he could answer. “Probably getting the Hag inside the ropes—that and the mumbles.”

  “The mumbles were amazing,” said Lily-Matisse.

  “Kid stuff compared to the pop-ups and the twists,” said P.W. He grabbed Leon’s hands. “These should be registered with the police as dangerous weapons.”

  Leon couldn’t stop himself from smiling. “Well, you guys helped—a lot.”

  “Come off it,” said P.W. “You were the one at the controls. Plus, when the doll lost power, who came up with the solution to the solution? That was a very sweet save.”

  “Maybe,” said Leon. “But it was your idea to up the dosage, P.W. You were the one who realized that the spit worked like yeast. And you were key, too, Lily-Matisse,” Leon added, sensing she was feeling left out. “I couldn’t have handled those rope tricks without you. You were amazing!”

  Lily-Matisse blushed. “Could you believe Antoinette’s face when Miss Hagmeyer started doing kick-bys?”

  P.W. began singing quietly. “Miss Hagmeyer had a hairpiece….”

  Lily-Matisse joined in. “The hairpiece had a smell…. ”

  Leon turned the duet into a trio. “The hairpiece went to heaven, Miss Hagmeyer went to—”

  Leon suddenly stopped. “Where does the Hag go?”

  “I can think of a few places I’d like her to go,” said P.W.

  “I’m serious,” said Leon, turning pensive. “Where is she taking our animiles?”

  “SOV,” said P.W. “Wherever that is.”

  “Exactly,” said Leon.

  “What are you saying?” Lily-Matisse asked.

  Leon took a deep breath. “I’m saying the fun and games are over. I’m saying we’ve got to find out where the Hag sells our animiles. And I’m saying we’ve got to get them back.”

  “Get them back?” said Lily-Matisse skeptically. “How? When it comes to animiles, she’s totally unbendable.”

  “Oh, really?” said Leon. He patted his pouch. “She didn’t seem unbendable during recess.”

  P.W. started giggling. “Awesome! Leon frees the animiles!” he said. “It’d be kind of like that palace revolt we just read about.”

  P.W. ran to his desk and returned with his Medieval Reader. “Hold on a sec.” He flipped through the pages. “Here we go.” He located the passage in question: “‘And so did the knights errant liberate the prisoners and restore to them their livestock that were seized’— that’s animals, by the way.” He skimmed a bit more. “Blah, blah, blah. ‘And then did the valiant knights hang the evil malefactor and spit upon the wicked tyrant’s dismembered body.’”

  “Let me see!” said Lily-Matisse. She grabbed the reader and scanned the section P.W. quoted. “It doesn’t say anything about spit. You just stuck that in.”

  P.W. shrugged.

  “I’m not sure about the hanging and dismemberment,” said Leon. “All I want to do is find out where the Hag is selling the animiles.”

  “Then we should probably get our hands on her SOV binder,” said P.W. “It’ll tell us where she’s doing business. It might even give the name of the slimeball who is buying our stuff.”

  “But we don’t know where she keeps the binder,” said Lily-Matisse.

  “Of course we do,” said P.W. He glanced over at the metal cabinet with the heavy brass lock.

  “You want us to break into the Hag’s cabinet?” asked Lily-Matisse, aghast.

  “No,” P.W. said calmly. “I want the Hag to break into the cabinet for us.” He turned to Leon. “Think your master piece can handle it? All you have to do is get the Hag to use her key. It would be a lot tougher if we were dealing with a combination lock.”

  Leon considered—and quickly rejected—P.W.’s proposal. “It’s way too risky. Everyone would be watching her—and me.”

  Lily-Matisse nodded. “Your desk is right next to the cabinet. You’d get nailed for sure. And you don’t want that to happen—especially not so close to final inspection.” She flicked the Sir Leon spool on the nearby chart. “One animile to go. And then that’s it.”

  “If I pass final inspection,” said Leon.

  “You’ll pass,” said Lily-Matisse. “You’ve doubled your s.p.i.s.”

  “Yeah, but they’re still borderline,” said Leon. “None of this gets us any closer to finding the animiles,” said P.W.

  Leon glanced around the room. He noticed that the finished bin was empty and that a bulging black plastic bag was now resting under the blackboard. “Looks like the Hag is about to make another delivery,” he said with a meaningful smile.

  When Napoleon arrived at pickup that day, Leon rushed over. “Bonjour, Monsieur Napoleon.”

  “Bonjour, Monsieur Leon. And how was your day?”

  “A nine and three quarters,” Leon said.

  Napoleon smiled. “Is that so?”

  “Yes,” said Leon. “Want to turn it into a nine and four quarters day?”

  “But of course,” said Napoleon. “I would be very pleased to make your day perfect.”

  Leon waved Lily-Matisse and P.W. over to the cab. After a quick round of hellos, he said, “Guess what the Hag is about to do, Napoleon.”

  “What, Monsieur Leon?”

  “She’s about to sell some of our animiles. We want to tail her.”

  “Tailor?”

  “He means, follow her,” explained Lily-Matisse.

  “Oh,” said Napoleon. “Well, for that I am at your service.” He opened the back door of his cab and tipped his imaginary hat.

  The three detectives and their private driver had idled by the curb for about ten minutes when P.W. suddenly blurted into his wristwatch: “Grinch alert. Grin
ch alert.”

  Leon leaned toward the window and, spotting Miss Hagmeyer, said, “Suspect observed.”

  “Which one is she?” Napoleon asked.

  “She’s kind of tough to miss,” said P.W. “Black cape, black boots, black hair.”

  “Plus she’s got a black garbage bag slung over her shoulder,” Leon added.

  Napoleon spotted Miss Hagmeyer and he stepped on the gas.

  “Don’t get too close,” Lily-Matisse warned. “The Hag’s got super-sensitive hearing.”

  Napoleon lifted his foot off the pedal and trailed from a safe distance. Twice he almost lost her. Once when a large van cut him off. The second time because some tourists—all sporting leather shorts, green felt hats, and open-toed sandals with thick white socks—blocked the taxi at an intersection. Fortunately, Miss Hagmeyer’s hunched silhouette was easy to relocate.

  Eight blocks from the school, she pushed through the side entrance of a dilapidated warehouse.

  Leon grabbed for the taxi’s door handle.

  “Wait!” said Napoleon.

  “But we’ll lose her!” said Leon.

  “We promise to stick together, Monsieur Napoleon,” Lily-Matisse said, in her most responsible-sounding voice.

  “And we’ll return straightaway,” said P.W.

  “How soon is straightaway?” Napoleon demanded.

  “Ten minutes,” said Leon. “Fifteen, tops.”

  P.W. made a show of pushing some buttons on his fancy wristwatch. “See. I’ve set my alarm.”

  “If you are not back in—”

  But the backseat of the taxi was empty before Napoleon could finish his threat.

  Leon was first through the warehouse door. P.W. followed. Lily-Matisse brought up the rear. They tracked Miss Hagmeyer to an elevator. A sign that said OUT OF ORDER forced her to take the stairs, so they did the same.

  And so began the game of cat and mouse—a very quiet game of cat and mouse since the mouse (Miss Hagmeyer) had hearing that more closely resembled a bat’s.

  On the third floor, she stopped to catch her breath.

  One flight below, Leon bent over the banister and peered up through the open stairwell. As he did, his sneaker made a faint squeak.

  “Who’s down there?” Miss Hagmeyer barked.

  Leon flattened himself against the stairwell wall and waited until the clack of boot heels confirmed that Miss Hagmeyer had continued her climb.

  She paused again, on the fourth floor. This time Leon was more cautious when he leaned out. He observed her boots, the hem of her cape, and the bottom of the garbage bag.

  “Do you have a shot?” P.W. whispered.

  “I think so,” Leon whispered back. “But I want to wait until she’s with the toy thief.”

  “I’d test the doll now—while she’s resting,” P.W. said in a low voice. “You don’t want any nasty surprises when you’re face-to- face with her and that slimeball.”

  “It makes sense,” Lily-Matisse whispered.

  Leon leaned over the banister and lined up a shot. He gave a couple of yanks on the doll. Nothing happened.

  “Can’t get the right angle,” he said.

  P.W. grabbed on to Leon’s jacket so that he could lean out further. “Try now.”

  Leon stretched over the banister and extended his view: boots, body, bag … hand.

  Bingo! With her bony fingers now visible, Leon hoped he could make Miss Hagmeyer release the bag of animiles.

  But it wasn’t Miss Hagmeyer who lost her grip. It was P.W.

  Leon stumbled forward—over the open stairwell. To catch his balance, he had to grab the banister, and to grab the banister he had to let go of the doll.

  It plummeted down the stairwell.

  For a terrifying moment Leon waited to see if Miss Hagmeyer would hurtle herself down to the bottom of the stairs, forced to a grisly death by the accidental release of the magic master piece.

  “I’m warning you,” Miss Hagmeyer yelled moments later—from above—“Whoever’s following me, I’m armed.” It was clear from the the eerie shadow on the wall that she was gripping her instructional needle like a dagger.

  “You stay here,” Leon whispered to Lily-Matisse and P.W. “I’ll go get the master piece.” In the time it took for him to rush to the bottom the stairwell, retrieve the doll, and return, Miss Hagmeyer had continued on to the fifth floor, where she pushed through a fire door.

  Though winded, Leon followed close behind. When he poked his head onto the landing, he found himself in the middle of an ill-lit hallway with countless doors running off in both directions.

  Miss Hagmeyer was nowhere to be seen.

  “Think … we should … split up?” he asked, still breathing heavily.

  “Negative,” P.W. said.

  “Not happening,” said Lily-Matisse.

  “So … then … which way … do we go?”

  “Left,” said Lily-Matisse.

  “Right,” said P.W.

  “Shoot … for it,” Leon told them.

  They did rock paper scissors. P.W. won, so they turned right, inspecting every door they passed. None of the nameplates suggested a company that dealt in stolen stuffed toys.

  At the end of the long, grim corridor, Leon peeked around the corner and discovered another corridor, just as long and just as grim as the first. The hunt continued, door by door, corridor by corridor. There was no trace of Miss Hagmeyer.

  Then, some twenty feet from the spot where the floor search had first started, they hit pay dirt.

  “Ohmigosh!” Lily-Matisse blurted out. “I knew we should have taken a left!” The door that prompted her I-told-you-so had the names of four businesses stenciled on the frosted glass.

  surelock homes

  fawn’s flora

  dunroamin’ realty

  royal flush plumbing supplies

  Taped below the last of those names was a hand-lettered sign written in an all-too-familiar script.

  P.W. pressed himself against the door frame and grabbed hold of the knob. “Cover me,” he whispered.

  Leon positioned himself ten feet away, with Lily-Matisse directly behind his back. He gave the thumbs-up to P.W. and aimed.

  P.W. tried to turn the knob. “Locked,” he mouthed silently.

  Leon motioned to check again. P.W. gave the knob a more vigorous twist, then rapped his knuckles against the glass.

  No one answered.

  “We blew it!” Lily-Matisse cried, once it was clear whispering was no longer necessary. “The Hag must have made her delivery while we were going in the wrong direction!”

  “At least we’ve found out what SOV stands for,” said Leon.

  “What do you mean?” said P.W.

  “Look at the door,” said Lily-Matisse. “Stitches. Of. Virtue. S-O-V.”

  “Oh,” P.W. said, annoyed he hadn’t made the connection on his own.

  Lily-Matisse kicked the door in frustration. “We’ll never get the animiles back.”

  “Sure we will,” said P.W.

  “How?” asked Leon.

  P.W.’s wristwatch started beeping. It was time to return to the taxi. “I’ll show you back at my place,” he said.

  “Show us how?” asked Leon.

  P.W. smiled. “You’ll see.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  Plan B

  PW. lived in a five-story walk-up that housed his family’s Thai restaurant on the ground floor and their apartment at the top. The restaurant was a cozy mom-and-pop operation called the Curried Elephant. It smelled of spices and orange peels and offered fourteen different kinds of curry, though none contained actual elephant.

  “What took you so long?” said Ms. Dhabanandana, glancing up from a napkin she was folding into the shape of a tulip.

  “We were doing something with Miss H,” P.W. told his mother. She gave him a suspicious look, but before she could ask another question, P.W. said, “We’re going upstairs.”

  Once inside the apartment, he guided Lily-Matisse and
Leon straight to his bedroom.

  “So what’s this thing you want to show us?” Leon asked.

  “Close my door,” said P.W.

  As Leon shut the door, P.W. cleared a path through the action figures, trading cards, and game cartridges scattered over the floor. He disappeared under his bed. Moments later, dirty clothes (T-shirts and socks mostly) started flying into the middle of the room.

  “I had to hide this,” P.W. called out between flings. “My sister is always messing with my stuff.” Eventually he reemerged, legs first, grasping an object draped in a towel. “Ladies and gentleman,” he announced. “Your attention, please.”

  “Can we get on with it?” Lily-Matisse said impatiently.

  “Fine,” said P.W. “Without further ado, I give you …” He whipped off the towel. “Plan B.”

  “The Hagapult!” Leon cried, his eyes widening at the sight of the actual Lego-and-rubber-band contraption proposed, in sketch form, the day of the food fight.

  “Care to do the honors?” P.W. asked.

  “That’s a roger!” Leon said eagerly. He clamped the ankles and wrists of the master piece into the adjustable cuffs of the machine’s launching arm. “Fits perfectly,” he said. “Let’s test her out.”

  “As soon as I recalibrate the counterweight,” said P.W.

  “Is all this really necessary?” said Lily-Matisse. “I still don’t understand why you need a gizmo to get the Hag to fling stuff.”

  “I told you before,” said P.W. “This is way cooler. Plus it gives Leon pinpoint accuracy.” He began filling a small crate at the front of the device with pennies.

  “Why the coins?” Leon asked.

  “It prevents tipping when we’re in launch mode,” P.W. explained.

  “You guys are totally nuts!” Lily-Matisse exclaimed, retreating to the bed. “What are you two planning to do when the Hag catapults Leon’s doll into the finished bin?”

  “What are you talking about?” said Leon.

  “I’m talking about final inspection,” Lily-Matisse said. “You do remember that it’s this Monday, right? How are you going to use that gizmo if the most important part—the doll—gets tossed into a garbage bag and taken to that warehouse where we should have turned left!”