Leon and the Spitting Image (8 page)

“What about them?” said Leon, clambering up to a crossbar one level below her.

P.W. said, “It’s like some secret code. She chooses eyes to indicate future projects. Think about it. She came in with snake eyes yesterday, and look at what she made us do today!”

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Leon said.
“Everything
the Hag does is sneaky.”

“Yeah,” said Lily-Matisse. “Can you believe she’s keeping our animiles?”

“And she won’t even tell us why,” said P.W.

“Maybe not,” said Leon. “But I know a way we might find out.”

Y
ou have to wonder how Miss Hagmeyer got away with it. How could she force her fourth graders to make animiles that she kept for herself?

Didn’t the kids complain to their parents? Sure they did.

And didn’t the parents complain to the school? Nope—not much, anyway.

Miss Hagmeyer knew just how to handle parents. She understood a fundamental truth: When it comes to school, parents are more easily fooled than children. Especially when those parents send their children to a place that believes nimble fingers make for nimble minds. (After all, if that motto were true, wouldn’t it imply that every kid with a knack for video games was a certified genius?)

Miss Hagmeyer secured the support she needed during Parents’ Night, two weeks after her class completed its first batch of animiles.

“If everyone will just grab any old chair,” she said, suspending her ironclad rule about alphabetical seating.

The parents squeezed themselves behind desks intended for smaller bodies.

“Welcome all,” said Miss Hagmeyer. “It is
such
a pleasure to meet the mothers and fathers of my eighteen extraordinary charges, each one
so
special in his or her own unique way. On the very first day of school, I told your remarkable children that there is a place for everything and that everything has its place. What I did not tell them, but what I wish to tell all of you tonight, is that
their
place—for me, as a teacher—is right
here.”
Miss Hagmeyer tapped her heart.

“As you know,” she trilled on, “I place a certain emphasis on sewing.” She made a stitching motion in the air. “I do so because I believe strongly that learning about the life of fabric teaches us about the fabric of life.”

Miss Hagmeyer reached behind her desk and grabbed a large metal bucket. “Behold the very first animiles of the year,” she said, brushing her free hand over the snakes, which resembled a colorful bouquet of flowers.

“How extraordinarily divine!” said Mrs. Brede, Antoinette’s mother.

“I couldn’t agree more,” Miss Hagmeyer replied, handing the matronly woman her daughter’s Belgian lace snake.

“It practically
screams
to be worn as a boa!” Mrs. Brede
gushed as she wrapped the creation around her neck.

“That’s because it
is
a boa … constrictor,” said Miss Hagmeyer.

Antoinette’s mother laughed hysterically.

“Hey, Teach!” a stocky man shouted rudely. “Hope you don’t expect
us
to make stuff tonight!”

“You must be Henry Lumpkin’s father,” said Miss Hagmeyer.

The man guffawed. “Guilty as charged! What gave me away?”

Miss Hagmeyer glanced at the man’s olive drab army jacket. “Let’s just say I see where your son gets his military flair.” She handed Mr. Lumpkin a snake. “I think you’ll be pleased by Henry’s pillowcase python. The racing stripes and fangs were entirely his idea. And to address your earlier concern, I
do
have a little exercise planned for you, but not to worry. I always go easy on grown-ups. No one will have to sew.”

Miss Hagmeyer continued her flimflam as she strode through the room, handing out snakes. At each stop she made sure to say something tender. Even Leon’s sightless terry cloth towel snake received a kindly assessment.

“Do you know, Ms. Zeisel, your son’s handiwork measures the same length as a Texas blind snake.
Leptotyphlops dulcis
also grows to ten inches exactly. Isn’t that marvelous?”

“I guess,” Emma Zeisel answered coolly.

“And don’t you love the way Leon’s snake says PROPER right along the side of its lumpy little body?”

“I know he worked awfully hard on it. Could I possibly keep it?”

“Oh, I see,” said Miss Hagmeyer, her voice hardening. “Leon must have told you about our conversation.”

“Yes, as a matter of fact,” said Emma Zeisel.

“Well, as I explained, I need to reclaim all animiles.”

“You didn’t tell him why.”

Miss Hagmeyer tensed. “Didn’t I?”

Emma Zeisel shook her head.

“I suppose not,” said Miss Hagmeyer, grabbing Leon’s towel snake and shoving it back into the bucket.

Before Emma Zeisel could press her further, Miss Hagmeyer turned away and headed for the supply cabinet. “So much for the handiwork of your children,” she said. “Now it’s time to see what their parents can do.”

She undid the padlock and retrieved a pair of shears, which she presented to a thin woman with long black hair. “Ms. Dhabanandana, I hope you will assist me.”

P.W.’s mother gave a tentative nod.

“Excellent,” said Miss Hagmeyer. “The rest of you can follow along. This exercise is all spelled out on the blackboard.”

There was some rustling in the room as parents glanced at the step-by-step instructions.

“Do we have to take notes?” someone whined jokingly.

“Will this be on the final?” moaned another.

Miss Hagmeyer forced herself to smile and waited for the parents to quiet down. “Okay, Ms. Dhabanandana. I want you to take your cloth and fold it like so. And so. And so. Then like this. Then like this. And then like this.”

P.W.’s mother watched closely and repeated the multistep procedure flawlessly.

“Superb!” said Miss Hagmeyer, impressed by Ms. Dhabanandana’s effortless dexterity.

“I fold all the napkins at our restaurant,” P.W.’s mom explained.

“Well, your restaurant is lucky to have you,” Miss Hagmeyer chirped. She reached into the pocket of her dress and pulled out her chalk holder. She gave it a couple of clicks and drew a dotted line across the material. “Now, I want you to take the shears and cut along the dots, Ms. Dhabanandana.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I’m sure.”

Snip
. “Is that okay?”

“Perfect,” said Miss Hagmeyer. “Now unfold the material and hold it up for everyone to see.”

P.W.’s mother displayed the material. With a single slice, she had produced a stunning five-pointed star.

“What
exactly
do our children gain by making
stars?” Emma Zeisel blurted out, over the oohs and aahs that spread through the room.

“Craft assignments are always tied to other subjects,” said Miss Hagmeyer. “I can use stars to introduce concepts of geometry and astronomy.”

“But—”

“Ms. Zeisel,” Miss Hagmeyer said, cutting her off. “We really don’t have time to discuss curriculum right now.”

“Can you at least tell us why our kids spend so much time sewing stuffed animals?”

“Ani
-miles,”
Miss Hagmeyer corrected. There was now a very obvious edge in her voice.

Emma Zeisel persisted. “Are pins and needles—and panty hose, for that matter—really as important as pencils and pens?”

“I believe they are,” Miss Hagmeyer said strongly. “But if you wish to discuss this in more detail, I suggest a
private
appointment.”

“Amen to that!” Mr. Lumpkin exclaimed. “How about us hitting those cookies I see over there?” He pointed to the front of the room, where the usual Hagmeyer desk set—small-curd cottage cheese, clipboard, instructional needle—had been replaced by a platter of homemade goodies and a pot of fresh-brewed coffee.

“A superlative suggestion, Mr. Lumpkin. As soon as everyone is done, that’s exactly what we will do.”

The parents tended to their projects—folding, chalking, cutting—for nearly half an hour. Despite some miscalculations (and at least one bloody thumb), they all completed the assignment, which Miss Hagmeyer called “Make Yourself a Star!”

Only two parents left the classroom unimpressed: Emma Zeisel and Regina Jasprow. They discussed Miss Hagmeyer as they exited the school.

“Boy, is that woman wound up tight,” said Emma Zeisel. “Is she always like that?”

Regina Jasprow nodded. “You should see her in the teachers’ lounge. If she’s not adjusting her hair, or changing her eyeballs, she’s off in a corner doing needlepoint. The woman is loony about sewing.”

“It’s hard to tell whether she’s running a classroom or a sweatshop,” said Emma Zeisel.

Regina Jasprow laughed. “I thought I’d lose it when she tapped her heart and said she keeps a place ‘right here’ for each child.”

“Yeah, what a crock!” said Emma Zeisel. “She’s always going on about a place for everything and everything in its place. I sure wish someone would put her in
her
place!”

Leon’s mom needn’t have worried. Someone eventually did put Miss Hagmeyer in her place.

Repeatedly.

W
hen the first bell rang the next day, Miss Hagmeyer marched into class and hung up her cape, which Leon, P.W., and Lily-Matisse all instantly noticed was missing its glass eyeballs. They gave one another puzzled looks but kept quiet. They knew not to ask questions while Miss Hagmeyer was arranging her desk.

She positioned her container of cottage cheese, clipboard, and instructional needle where the homemade cookies and coffee had rested the night before, then removed a stack of worksheets from her satchel.

Miss Hagmeyer shuttled between rows of the desks, handing out assignments. “The photocopier was broken, so the animile project we were supposed to start today will have to be postponed. Luckily, I unearthed these handouts from a previous year.”

Leon, as usual, had to wait to receive his assignment. Even so, he had a pretty good sense of what to expect because of the classroom clamor.

“I got a T. rex!”

“Mine’s a pterodactyl!”

“Miss Hagmeyer? This iguanodon
looks
funny. Can I make his spikes spikier?”

“Miss Hagmeyer? I thought hadrosaurs had
webbed
feet. That’s what they said on the Dinosaur Channel.”

“Quiet down, all of you!”

A worksheet eventually fluttered onto Leon’s desk. It said DIPLOCAULUS and showed a picture of a fishlike creature with a head shaped like the point of an arrow. The list of materials indicated that the project required only three pieces of cloth, two of which were exactly the same shape.

The simplicity of the assignment surprised Leon. It almost seemed easier than the first. He decided to find out if his classmates’ dinosaurs were as beginnery as his.

Pretending he needed to sharpen his pencil, Leon walked to the front of the room. As he did, he peeked about.

Lily-Matisse had snagged a triceratops that had
fourteen
pieces, including a nose horn, two side horns, and a jazzy neck frill.

Antoinette had received a complex ten-piece T. rex.

P.W. scored a duck-billed corythosaurus, a fantastic eight-piecer with terrifying body armor.

Lumpkin got a stegosaurus.

At least that makes sense, Leon told himself.
Stegosauruses, he knew, were the pea brains of the dinosaur kingdom. But his comfort disappeared when he spied that Lumpkin’s dinosaur required
six
pieces of material
—twice
the number his animile demanded.

By the time Leon returned to his seat, he was feeling thoroughly down. Why couldn’t
he
get spikes or horns or neck frills?

He read through the worksheet. It turned out his animile wasn’t even an actual dinosaur. It was, according to the text, a “weak-limbed, bottom-feeding amphibian.”

Leon knew what Miss Hagmeyer was up to. She had given the cool-looking, complicated dinosaurs to the coordinated students and had stuck him with the beginner’s kit, a three-piece fake.

Miss Hagmeyer tapped the cabinet doors with her needle. “Since we do not know what dinosaur skin actually looks like, I’m allowing everyone to choose his own fabric.”

In the general rush for the cabinet, P.W. tested his earlier theory. “Miss Hagmeyer?” he said. “What about the dinosaur eyes?”

“They’re a mystery, too. That’s why I didn’t put them on the worksheets.”

P.W. beamed. “And why she didn’t put any eyeballs on her cape,” he whispered to Lily-Matisse, who passed the info along to Leon.

This revelation did little to improve Leon’s mood.
He hated that his dinosaur was so lame. In fact, Leon was so disappointed that when it was his turn at the cabinet, he settled for the first three scraps he touched: a blue-and-white striped cotton for the top of his diplocaulus, solid green corduroy for the bottom, and a piece of black-and-red polka-dotted material for the mouth.

Two weeks after the start of the second animile project, the finished bin started to fill. Lily-Matisse’s triceratops was the trash can’s first occupant. Antoinette’s T. rex soon followed. P.W. deposited his corythosaurus a couple of days later. Even Lumpkin binned his pea-brained stegosaurus.