Many Points of Me

by Caroline Gertler

  “But I just find it frustrating, and upsetting, when something like that goes missing. I didn’t have a chance to examine and catalogue it, so now it’s almost like it never existed. I wonder if I misplaced it, somehow, or if someone . . . I don’t even want to consider that. It just has to turn up somewhere.”

  She sees the expression on my face and asks, “You okay? You haven’t seen it, have you?”

  I shake my head no, though every cell in my body wants to tell her. That I found it. That I was looking at it in my room and didn’t know she needed it and I’ll give it right back. But the words won’t come. I don’t want to disappoint her. She expects more of me—she expects me to handle Dad’s art with as much respect as she does. If I tell her what I’ve done, she’ll think I’m just another problem to deal with and that she can’t trust me anymore.

  For dessert we have brownies with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, but my stomach is so full of worry, I can’t bring myself to eat more than a couple bites. I tell her I snuck in a few earlier, so she doesn’t question.

  After, she goes over to one of the piles of Dad’s work and starts sifting through as if she might be able to find the missing drawing, but of course, she won’t. “Maybe it fell out of the portfolio, and got mixed up in one of these piles. So many papers . . . Want to help me look now?”

  “No, thanks.” As I hurry through clearing and washing up the dinner plates, my mind races. I have to get back to my room, to the drawing. I’ll take one more look at it, maybe copy it one more time in my own sketchbook, and then put it back on the table. I can slip it into any of these piles, for Mom to “find.” So I don’t ever have to tell her that I took it.

  In my room, I go straight to my desk and pull open the drawer.

  But all I see are doodles and mixed-up animal drawings. No G, age 10.

  It was on top of the pile of papers. I swear it was.

  I shuffle through everything, once, then twice, and a third time. Then I empty my drawer—pens, pencils, markers, paper clips, loose staples, pencil shavings, dried-up glue sticks—and go through it all again.

  The drawing isn’t there.

  I think back to the last time I saw it.

  Sunday.

  With Theo.

  Chapter

  Twenty

  In a flash I’m out the door, Mom calling after me, “Where are you going?” as I run down the stairs and ring the doorbell of Theo’s apartment.

  “Coming!” Harriet’s voice, and her footsteps approach the door. The pause as she looks through the peephole to make sure it’s me. Anyone from outside the building would’ve had to get buzzed in.

  “What a nice surprise, Georgia. Happy Valentine’s Day!” Harriet pulls me into a warm hug. It’s so good to be in her arms, not to have her question what I’m doing here.

  “You, too,” I say.

  “I could smell some good cooking upstairs. You’re treating your mom right today. Lucky Sally.”

  I nod. I can smell the garlic and chili spices of Thai takeout in their apartment.

  “You’re here for the boy, aren’t you?”

  “Yup.”

  “Go on back.”

  The door to Theo’s room is shut. I barge in to find him at his desk, drawing, as usual. Krypto perches on the desk by Theo’s sketchbook, basking in the lamplight.

  “Where is it?” I demand, closing his door behind me.

  A blast of cold air chills me from his cracked-open window. Theo doesn’t seem to notice the layer of snow building up on the windowsill. If I wasn’t furious, I’d close the window for him. But no. Let him freeze for all I care.

  “What?” Theo looks up, his eyes bleary with concentration.

  “The drawing. You took it.”

  “Me? Um . . .”

  It had to be him. No one else has been in my room except maybe Mom. And clearly she doesn’t have the drawing, or she wouldn’t have asked if I’d seen it.

  “Theo, where is it?”

  “Okay, G, take a deep breath. You’re going to kill me—or maybe you won’t—but let me explain. Take a seat.”

  I look down at my usual place on the floor, and for a second, crave that exact right spot, the perfect feeling of comfort—but not today. I stand against the wall, arms crossed. “I’m all ears.”

  “The other day when I came upstairs, I noticed that drawing you were working on. The one on your desk. And from what I could see, it was something special. I’ve never seen you draw like that, G. And I just didn’t want to let you lose your chance of entering NYC ART. Maybe you haven’t been in the mood, but you shouldn’t not enter just because . . .”

  I’m putting two and two together faster than I’d like as Theo talks. “So you took the drawing and what?”

  “I submitted it. To Mr. B. For NYC ART.” Theo’s voice is a tiny whisper, and his face is like a ghost’s. He knows what he did is wrong.

  Krypto creeps closer to the edge of the desk. He’s about to crawl down. He could run away and get lost in the apartment, or worse—slip through the cracked-open window and out onto the street. But I don’t say anything.

  “Did you tell Mr. B that you stole it from me? That I didn’t want to submit anything?”

  “Um, no. I kind of pretended that you changed your mind last minute and I was handing it in for you.”

  “So you stole the drawing and forged an entry sheet from me?”

  “Yeah, kind of.”

  “Oh, Theo, this is bad. Very, very bad.”

  “I didn’t mean for it to be bad! I was trying to help! It’d be so awesome for us both to get in, to have our first exhibit together. And how could you walk away from the prize money?”

  “Easy,” I say just as Krypto disappears over the edge of the desk. “I meant it when I said I didn’t want to enter. And that was not the drawing I would’ve submitted. In fact, that drawing you stole was actually ineligible.”

  “What? Why?”

  “You don’t deserve to know.” Krypto’s halfway across Theo’s bedroom floor now, crawling toward the open window. He can crawl right out of Theo’s room and into Central Park. Good luck to him.

  The last thing I’m going to do now is tell Theo that the drawing is Dad’s. Dad’s drawing of me, with the last asterism sketch. I can’t trust him with it. Not anymore. I have to get the drawing back.

  I’m about to leave when I take one last look to see Theo at his desk, staring blankly at his sketchbook. He doesn’t get it. He doesn’t understand why what he did was so bad. I eye the portfolio on Theo’s desk where I know he keeps the self-portrait Dad gave him. I want to ask him if I can look at the back for the asterism points I suspect are there. But I don’t want to give him the satisfaction that he might have something I want.

  Krypto’s on the windowsill now, reaching one tentative foot out to the cold air.

  “Krypto!” I shout. I can’t help it. A vision of him freezing in the snow or being snatched up in the talons of a hawk flashes through my mind. I’d never be able to live with myself.

  Theo leaps to his feet and scoops up Krypto in one fell swoop.

  I leave before he can even thank me for saving his lizard’s life.

  The next morning, Friday, I skip-run to school, skirting piles of snow and slush and ice, straight to the art department so I can catch Mr. B before my first class.

  “My drawing for NYC ART—I need it.” I’m breathless and my head is spinning and all I can focus on is the drawing. Getting it back.

  “What?” He shakes his head, puzzled. “Georgia, it’s too late. I delivered the entries on Monday.”

  My breath catches. “Where is it?”

  “At the Met, with the judges. It’s quite an experience. I get to hand deliver them to the modern art offices. Have you ever been up there?”

  As Mr. B goes on about some of the cool things he saw in the offices, I think how the Met is exactly where Dad’s drawing is supposed to be—for Mom’s exhibition. But it’s in the wrong place.

  “I just,
I really need my drawing back,” I say.

  “The only way you could get it back at this point is by withdrawing from the competition. And I was so happy when Theo told me you’d changed your mind last minute and decided to enter. Your entry is fabulous! I bet you have a winner.”

  If only he knew—that I did not decide to enter, that Theo betrayed me. I wish I could tell Mr. B everything. But the last thing I want is for Mom to find out what I did. And as angry as I am at Theo, I can’t tell on him, knowing how devastated he’d be if he got disqualified from NYC ART.

  “Then I want to withdraw.”

  “Withdraw? Seriously? Georgia, I won’t let you sabotage yourself.”

  “But I don’t want to win.”

  Mr. B’s face softens. He gives me a long look, like he’s trying to see into my mind to figure out why I’m doing this. He probably thinks it’s something to do with Dad, my sadness. “Do you really feel that way, Georgia?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re underestimating yourself. That was the best drawing I’ve ever seen you do.”

  If only I had made that drawing! My chest is tight with a fluttery feeling. I wish I’d faint, get sent to rest in the nurse’s office or go home for the day.

  The only thing I can do now is to figure out how to get the drawing back—without telling Mom that I took it or Mr. B that Theo submitted it without my permission.

  And the one person who could help me figure out how to do this is the one I’m angriest at right now: Theo. I need him, even if I want to kill him. Because Theo spends his life plotting adventures for Theo-Dare, and for this situation, I could use a bit of help from a superhero.

  Chapter

  Twenty-One

  Theo’s and my PE elective is yoga, which means trying to relax our breath on rubber mats stale with sweat. Not the best place to plot out how to solve this muddle we’re in.

  I place my mat down next to his on the glossy wood gym floor and glare at him. “We need to talk. Meet me at our usual spot after school.”

  He shrinks back into himself and nods. Good. He should feel awful.

  Lying on my back, I close my eyes and try to focus on the teacher’s words guiding us to relax our bodies into the floor, to be aware of our breaths, to trace the energy from our heads all the way down into our toes. “Detach your mind,” she says. “Start by detaching from your body, then from your thoughts, until you’re nothing but breath. Don’t think about the next moment and what’s to come. You can’t control what will happen next, so release yourself from worry.”

  If only I had no control over what happens next. If only I could stop worrying. But I can’t. It’s just the opposite: I need to take control, to worry this through, to take action.

  Harper walks out of school by herself while I’m waiting for Theo at the gates. All fashionable for the snow, wearing earmuffs and chunky snow boots, she’s focused on her phone, her mouth in a flat line. I almost let her walk by me without saying anything. I can’t look her in the eye until I know she’s returned the money. But then, I’m not much different. What I’ve done, taking Dad’s drawing, is actually far worse. And I remember all the stuff she said, about wanting to be invisible.

  I tap her shoulder as she passes.

  “Oh, hey.” She looks up, her usual cheerful expression plastered back on her face. “What’re you up to today? Chloe and Violet have soccer.”

  “Just going home.”

  “You still mad at me? About yesterday? I paid the money back, just so you know.” She waits for my answer, like she really does care what I think.

  “That’s okay. I’m not mad.” I’m relieved that she paid the money back. And that she thought about it and remembered to tell me. Clearly it weighed on her as much as it did on me. But I also get a twinge of envy for how easily she can fix the thing she did wrong. How easy everything in life seems to be for her.

  I imagine living in that enormous house, with parents who own art that costs millions of dollars. Some of their paintings, like the Rothko, are worth enough for thousands of families to live on for their entire lives. And they have it in paint on canvas on the walls of their house. But I also know that even if her life looks perfect from the outside, it doesn’t always feel that way for Harper on the inside.

  She smiles now, all sunny marigold. “Good. And guess what? We’re set for your birthday. My mom got us passes for Wollman Rink. It’s going to be so fun!”

  As she’s describing how she’s planned out my whole birthday for Monday, when we have the day off school, with ice-skating, followed by dinner and cake at her house, Theo shows up, shifting the light. His dark copper color casts a shadow on Harper’s bright marigold.

  Harper gets flustered when she sees him. “Oh, hi! You two hanging out today?”

  Depends on what you consider hanging out.

  “Can I invite him?” she half whispers to me. I nod.

  Theo looks as flustered as Harper does now.

  “Me? Ice-skating with you?” Theo squints behind his glasses as if he thinks we’re teasing.

  The whole thing makes me burn with embarrassment, but Harper’s also acting awkward in a way I haven’t seen before.

  “Yes, you,” she says. “And Chloe and Violet.”

  “C’mon, Theo, it’ll be fun,” I say, trying to sound normal.

  He puts on his deeper Theo-Dare voice. “Count me in!”

  Harper’s SUV pulls up just then, putting an end to our awkwardness. “See ya Monday,” she calls out the window as the car pulls away.

  “That was odd,” Theo says on our walk home. “Who’d ever think we’d be celebrating your birthday with those girls?”

  “Odder things have happened. Like you stealing my drawing and submitting it to NYC ART.” He is so not off the hook here.

  “Relax, G. It’ll be great. You’ll be relieved when it wins.”

  “That’s just the point, Theo. It can’t win.”

  “Can’t? Why not?”

  “It’s not mine.”

  “What? Then whose . . . ?”

  I pause for a second, wishing I didn’t have to tell him. But I have no choice. “Dad’s.”

  Theo slaps his hand to his forehead. “Oh, no. Oh. No.”

  “Oh, yes. Maybe that’s why you were so impressed by it.”

  “You know, it did kind of remind me of your dad’s style. Not like I’ve seen so many of his figurative drawings. But, then how . . .”

  I explain it all to him. How I found the portfolio in the piles on our drafting table, and I took that one drawing, to keep it for myself, for a little while.

  “Didn’t you look at the back?” I ask.

  “The back?” He looks chagrined, realizing he should’ve.

  “Yeah, the back of the paper. Where Dad wrote the title of the drawing? G, age 10. And also . . .” I hesitate to tell him. But now, for better or worse, Theo is a part of this. And I need to look at his drawing from Dad for proof. “There are pencil points on the back. Like the points of an asterism. Like maybe it was Dad’s sketch for the last asterism painting.”

  “Oh, wow.” He’s quiet, processing it all, which gives me a few beats to relish the impact of this news on him. Theo gets it—how important that drawing is—and what a big mistake he made. “But how do you know it’s really an asterism sketch? Maybe they’re just pencil points.”

  “It’s a feeling I have. I can’t explain. I saw it, and then it hit me, right away. Instinct, I guess.”

  “Wow, just, wow. If you’re right, G, it could be worth tons of money!”

  I roll my eyes. For me, it’s not about the money. It’s about what it would mean, that I would’ve been one of Dad’s asterisms. “I need to look at the back of the drawing you have. Dad’s self-portrait. I bet it has some points on it, too. A sketch for Man on the Moon.”

  Theo’s practically hopping with giddiness, which makes me regret telling him. This is exactly what I didn’t want—to share my discovery and have him think it’s his, too.

/>   “But you have to calm down first. Breathe.”

  “Okay.” Theo takes in a deep breath, trying to practice our yoga skills. “So let’s think this through. I might own a sketch for an asterism painting. And you might’ve found a sketch for the last asterism painting. But now it’s been submitted to NYC ART. So, what would happen—would it be so bad if the drawing gets into NYC ART? Couldn’t you just pretend it’s yours?”

  “That’d be cheating! The work isn’t my own. And it’s theft! And on top of all that, Mom knows about the drawing. She’s looking for it. She wants to put it in the Met exhibit.”

  “Oh, boy, this is bad. Okay. Think, think, let’s think here. Can you just tell Mr. Butterweit you don’t want to enter and you need the drawing back?”

  “Tried that this morning. The entries are already in. And you’re lucky I didn’t tell him what you did. I could get you disqualified.”

  “But you won’t, right? You promise?” He holds out his pinky, and I promise. “Why don’t you just tell your mom?”

  “Can you imagine what she’d do to me? No way. I have to get it back. Which is why I need you.”

  Theo begins walking faster, his wheels spinning. “What about the people at the Met? The ones who judge NYC ART?”

  My first thought is, Yeah, right, I’ll just barge into the Met and ask them for my entry back. But then I think about how friendly Evelyn Capstone was, and that maybe I could talk to her. Somehow the thought of asking Evelyn for help is less scary than asking Mom. If she could just give the drawing back to me, no one would have to know what I—or Theo—did.

  I tell Theo what I’m thinking, which gets him all pumped up for an adventure. “I know you’re majorly pissed at me, but you’ve gotta admit, this is the perfect story for Theo-Dare and Super G!”

  I roll my eyes again. I wish it were a superhero story, but it’s not. It’s all too real.

  Back home, I stop to tell Mrs. Velandry that I need to check something at Theo’s before I walk Olive. We go straight to his room. I’m like the secret service, standing guard, watching his every move as he opens his portfolio of extra-special drawings. The very front one is Dad’s. He takes it out, handling it like the paper might dissolve into thin air, and holds it up.