Leon and the Spitting Image (15 page)

And that’s when it hit him.

While parroting his teacher’s silly words, Leon suddenly figured out what he wanted to make. What he
had
to make!

“Got it!” he cried as he dashed back to his desk, dizzied by possibility.

His idea for a master piece emerged, fully formed, like one of those spongy toy sea creatures that burst out of tiny plastic capsules when dissolved in hot water. Except Leon’s animile was a whole lot rarer than the octopuses and angelfish hatched inside a bathtub. It was also a lot more complex.

Although the
idea
for the master piece announced itself faster than a butterfly sheds its cocoon, actual construction took a good deal longer. Leon spent three full days working on preliminary sketches and another two tracing and cutting the patterns for the arms, legs, torso, and head. Once that was done, he drew up a list of materials.

Most of the items he needed—panty hose, cloth, yarn, eyes—came from Miss Hagmeyer’s supply cabinet. But there were a few things Leon couldn’t track down at school, and that’s where Maria came in. She located all the hard-to-find stuff, like the special flexible wire coat
hangers he used to make the animile’s bones.

For six days Leon sewed like a demon. He had never worked so hard or cared so much. His effort was fueled by excitement, worry, determination, and Poore Brothers Salt & Cracked Pepper Kettle-Cooked Potato Chips (part of the April shipment from the Worldwide Chip of the Month Club).

And with that effort came a new sense of confidence. Leon discovered that his fingers behaved themselves in ways they hadn’t when he was blindly following worksheet directions. Independence and conviction made the seven stitches of virtue easier to execute. In fact, Leon mastered every one, including the pesky overcast stitch needed when finishing off seams after the animile had been stuffed.

L
eon cut the loose threads from the last seam of his master piece and emerged from the back room behind the reception desk. He was bleary eyed but proud. Perching his completed animile below the ALL PETS WELCOME sign, he said, “Hey, Mom. What do you think?”

Emma Zeisel’s jaw dropped. “If
that
isn’t a master piece worthy of a master, I don’t know
what
is!”

“Really?”

“Really! Let ’em try and say you lack fine motor skills now! Heck, you’ve got Rolls Royce motor skills!”

“Well, we’ll find out in two weeks—at Carnival. That’s when the Hag tells me if I pass.”

“I wouldn’t wait, sweetie,” said Emma Zeisel. “Showing Miss Hagmeyer the master piece early might put her threats to rest.”

Leon took his mom’s advice. The following morning he left for school with his master piece snugly secured inside one of Frau Haffenreffer’s pastry boxes. The choice of carrying case wasn’t all that smart.

“No, it’s
not
dessert,” Leon had to tell Napoleon and P.W. and Lily-Matisse and everyone else who saw him clutching the tantalizing box. But despite the
constant pestering, he refused to lift the lid. He wanted to show Miss Hagmeyer first.

Leon tried to catch her at check-in, but that plan was stymied because of a fire drill. He decided to take another stab after dismissal, when he could display the master piece more privately.

For the rest of the day the pastry box didn’t leave Leon’s sight.

He grasped it between his knees while practicing a Gregorian chant in music. He cradled it in his lap throughout art class, as he worked on his knight’s costume. He even clung to the box during a pit stop at the boys’ room, where he awkwardly squeezed it under his arm while taking care of business.

Lily-Matisse and P.W. cornered Leon during recess.

“C’mon,” said P.W. “Best friends don’t keep things from best friends. Show us what’s in the box.”

“I don’t want to jinx things,” said Leon.

“Just a quick look,” Lily-Matisse pleaded. “We won’t touch. Crossmyheart.”

“After school. I
swear
you guys will be the first to see the thing once I get the Hag’s okay.”

“Thanks a bunch,” said Lily-Matisse.

“Yeah,” said P.W.

Leon felt guilty. “Okay,” he said at last. “A peek—but just a quick one.” He lifted the lid.

Lily-Matisse’s eyes widened, and P.W. cried, “Whoa! Gruesome!”

The last class before dismissal was PE.

One hour to go, Leon told himself as he entered the gym. The wait was giving him butterflies.

“Coach,” he said. “Can I sit out? I’ve got a stomachache.”

“Sure thing,” Coach Kasperitis told him. He knew Leon was no faker.

So while the rest of the class did laps and vaulted the pommel horse, Leon watched from the bleachers, the pastry box wedged safely between his knees. After ten minutes of warm-ups, the coach blew his whistle and shouted the single most potent word in the English language.

“DODGEBALL!”

“What type, coach?” P.W. yelled.

“Team Multiple!” the coach cried back. “You and Lumpkin to choose sides.”

P.W. immediately turned to the sidelines. “Hey, box boy! Get over here!”

Leon hesitated.

“C’mon! I
need
you.”

Leon waffled a bit before abandoning his precious cargo to join P.W.’s team.

Once the class was divided up, the coach walked onto the court carrying three spanking-new Rhinos. “Can anyone here tell me the object of dodgeball?” he asked.

“Elimination,” a few kids called out.

The coach bent down and positioned the balls along the centerline, then stood up and cupped a hand around one ear. “Excuse me?”

“Elimination!” a few more kids called out.

“Say again?”

“ELIMINATION!” the whole class screamed.

“Right,” said the coach. He settled his substantial rump on the top row of the bleachers, not far from Leon’s pastry box, and gave a mighty blast on his whistle.

The fourth graders charged the Rhinos.

Plommm!
“Missed!”
Blamm!
“You’re out.”
Boing!
“Gotcha!”
Zuftt!
“Missed me by a mile!”
Zzam! Wooomp!
“Busted, dorko!”

“Hey, Lumpkin!” the coach yelled from his perch. “Clean up your language! No trash-talking in my gym!”

The field of battle thinned pretty quickly. An unlucky ricochet—
pang!
—caught P.W. in the leg. A sneak attack from the flanks—
paff!
—winged Lily-Matisse.

When the clock ran out, only Lumpkin and Leon remained alive. A chant rose up from the sidelines: “Suh-din death! … Suh-din death!”

The chant grew louder: “SUH-DIN DEATH! … SUH-DIN DEATH!”

The coach blew on his whistle. “Go for it!” he cried.

“Yoo-hoo, Sir Panty Hose,” Lumpkin said menacingly
moments after the coach extended the game. “Get ready to be crowned!”

“Dream on,” Leon replied.

The coach again shouted down. “Guys! You know the rules. No teasing. No taunting.”

Lumpkin turned to the coach, as if to apologize, then whipped around and launched a ball, hoping to catch Leon off guard. His cheap shot failed. Leon darted out of the way.

A defensive pattern quickly emerged. Leon held on to one ball, and Lumpkin held on to another. Only the third and final ball moved between them.

Neither Leon nor Lumpkin was willing to find himself empty-handed.

But then, two minutes before the end of the overtime round, Lumpkin aimed a shot at Leon’s backup ball and hit it with such force that both Rhinos bounced off the back wall and returned to Lumpkin’s side.

A collective groan rose up from the sidelines, followed by the kind of somber, respectful silence that accompanies an execution.

Lumpkin, now in possession of all three balls, made Leon zigzag, lurch, duck, and jump with a series of fake throws. Throughout it all, Leon stayed alert. He wasn’t about to fall for the slow ball/fast ball combo that had nailed him in the past.

From the bleachers P.W. suddenly screamed,
“Sidewinder!”

But the warning came too late. Lumpkin had already recoiled and released his patented low-flying missile.

A split second later, the missile smacked Leon in the stomach with a brutal
POCK!
He ignored the searing pain. Only one thing mattered—catching the ball before it touched the ground.

The Rhino rebounded against his knee and sailed upward.

Leon stretched his arms forward and dove like a champion swimmer. At the very moment he felt the sandpapery texture of the Rhino against the tips of his fingers, the hard, smooth surface of the gym floor began burning the skin off his elbows and knees. But when at last the Rhino stopped defying gravity, it did so in Leon’s battered hands.

He had caught the ball, which meant he had won the game and Henry Lumpkin had lost it!

The bleachers erupted in cheers. P.W. was the first to reach Leon and offer congratulations. “You pulpified him!” he cried.

“No such word,” said Lily-Matisse, arriving a few seconds later. “Puréed him, maybe. Or made Lumpkin Pumpkin Soup out of him, but—”

Leon, still panting, cut them off. “Keep … your … voices down…. He … might … hear.”

Lumpkin was standing all alone twenty feet away, scowling at his spare Rhino as the magnitude of the upset slowly penetrated his stegosauruslike brainpan.

Bruised and scraped though he was, Leon nevertheless approached his defeated archenemy. “Good game,” he said, extending his hand. “That last toss really did a number on me!”

Lumpkin rejected the handshake and reached for the Rhino, angrily whipping the ball at the leather pommel horse on the far side of the gym. It hit the grip of the vaulting apparatus and ricocheted toward the bleachers, knocking Leon’s pastry box into the air.

The box went in one direction, the contents in another.

Leon broke free of his friends and sprinted for the bleachers. By the time he got there, it was too late. Coach Kasperitis had already reached through the bench slats and retrieved the exposed master piece.

“Geez, Zeisel!” the coach gasped. “Did you
make
this?”

“Yeah,” Leon said, out of breath.

“Amazing!” said the coach. “This is major-league work, kiddo. I mean it.”

“Let’s hope Miss Hagmeyer thinks so,” Leon said.

“Are you kidding me?” said the coach. “She’ll
have
to. I mean, what choice does she have? This doll, it’s … well, it’s her spitting image!”

T
he coach was right. Leon’s master piece
was
the spitting image of Miss Hagmeyer. Everything on the doll matched its model perfectly. The long black cape. The black dress. The slightly droopy stockings the color of cooked liver. The pair of black lace-up boots that Leon tied just right—with double rabbit ears, plus the safety knot Miss Hagmeyer always added for good measure.

But far more extraordinary than the clothing was the expression on the doll. Leon had captured Miss Hagmeyer with eerie precision. The narrow skull. The pursed lips. And, of course, the eyes. All four of them—the dull ones set deep into the head of the doll, plus the glass pair clasped onto the cape.