Leon and the Spitting Image Read online

  Leon surveyed the room. Lily-Matisse rolled her eyes. P.W. made a face suggesting their teacher was demented.

  “What do you propose to do, Mr. Zeisel?”

  “I don’t know,” Leon mumbled.

  “Perhaps you might develop your skills by completing the assignment at home.”

  Leon nodded, only too happy to give needlework a rest.

  Miss Hagmeyer walked over to the supply cabinet. “A place for everything and everything in its place,” she said as she opened doors. After hooking the padlock onto one of the door handles, she returned the wooden spool and yarn snips, swiftly shutting the cabinet before Leon could get a peek inside.

  But as she was walking back to her desk, the weight of the lock on the handle caused one of the doors to swing open, providing Leon a view of the cabinet’s interior.

  And what a view it was!

  The top part of the cabinet was fitted with a piece of pegboard, from which hung dozens and dozens of tools, each labeled and outlined in black marker. Leon spotted the yarn snips Miss Hagmeyer had just used, along with twine nips, snappers, snapplers, zigzaggers, scallopers, pincers, pinking shears, and slishers. (And those were just the cutting tools!)

  Directly below the pegboard there were racks of thread displaying a rainbow of colors. But it was the drawers dominating the lowest portion of the cabinet that attracted Leon most. One said CLAWS, another said FINGERS, a third said FLIPPERS AND FINS. There was a drawer marked ELEPHANT EARS—INDIAN and another (which was slightly larger) marked ELEPHANT EARS—AFRICAN.

  Noses of various kinds (beaks, bills, trunks, snouts) filled one row of drawers. Eyeballs filled another two. There were drawers for smiles, grimaces, and smirks. Drawers for teeth and tongues, freckles and fangs. A section devoted to the body parts of mythical creatures included a compartment reserved for unicorn horns.

  All the drawers were marked—with one exception. An especially large compartment lacked a masking-tape label.

  Curiosity gnawed at Leon. He wanted to know what the unlabeled drawer contained, but resisted the impulse to sneak a peek. The unpleasant consequences of his last unauthorized investigation (of his mother’s desk) were still fresh in his mind.

  He distracted himself by glancing about the room. All his classmates were focused on Miss Hagmeyer, who was busily writing numbers on the blackboard and droning on about “bringing down the six.”

  Leon had no interest whatsoever in bringing down the six, so while Miss Hagmeyer generated remainders and dividends, he reached over and wrapped his fingers around the knob of the unidentified drawer. He gave the knob a gentle tug and peered inside.

  At first Leon couldn’t figure out what he was looking at. Once he had, he reared back slightly. The contents of the drawer confused him. And embarrassed him. And grossed him out. The dull gray tangle wasn’t as disgusting or fascinating as, say, teacher’s spit, but it came pretty close.

  “Mr. Zeisel,” Miss Hagmeyer said.

  Still puzzling over his discovery, Leon failed to hear his name.

  “Mr. Zeisel!” Miss Hagmeyer repeated more forcefully.

  “Huh?”

  “Get your nose out of my PANTY HOSE!”

  It took a moment for the command to register. When it did, Leon felt the blood rushing to his head.

  The whole class went berserk, laughing and hooting as he sank into his chair.

  “Silence!” Miss Hagmeyer shouted. She marched over to the cabinet. “Next time I’ll know better than to leave this open.” She padlocked the doors and turned to Leon. “Students who can’t thread needles shouldn’t poke through their teacher’s things, should they, Mr. Zeisel?”

  “No, Miss Hagmeyer,” Leon said abjectly.

  “They should listen to their teachers, should they not?” she further chided.

  “S-s-sorry,” said Leon. He felt dangerously close to tears.

  “Apology accepted—provisionally. However, in the future, I expect you to stay out of my drawers unless authorized. As it is, you have your hands full, what with the stitching practice and tonight’s assignment.”

  “What assignment?” Leon asked.

  Miss Hagmeyer released an irritated snort. “As I explained while you were rifling through my hose, I expect everyone to bring in a piece of cloth.”

  “What kind of cloth?”

  Miss Hagmeyer shook her head in despair. “I answered that question, too, Mr. Zeisel. It doesn’t make the slightest difference what kind. Bring in a dish towel. Bring in some upholstery fabric. Bring in a piece of old bedsheet, for all I care. Just so long as it’s roughly the size of your desktop. And I’ll answer your next question before you ask it,” she added. “You will need the cloth for your first sewing project of the year.”

  SIX

  The Return of Napoleon

  Panty hose!” P.W. exclaimed as soon as class let out.

  Leon nodded gravely and turned to Lily-Matisse. “Did your mom tell you why the Hag keeps her underwear in school?”

  “Nope,” said Lily-Matisse. “But she did see her changing glass eyes in the teachers’ lounge.”

  “She stores the spares in the cabinet,” said Leon. “There must be twenty different kinds.”

  “I’m pretty sure today’s were snake eyes,” said P.W.

  “How do you know?” said Lily-Matisse skeptically.

  “The slitty pupils,” said P.W. matter-of-factly.

  “I’ll tell you one thing,” Leon said. “I’d take a snakebite over sewing class any day.”

  “Ditto,” said P.W.

  “Double ditto,” said Lily-Matisse.

  The sound of a car horn interrupted them. Leon quickly spotted Napoleon de l’Ange, the cheery taxi driver from the day before.

  “Need a lift, Monsieur Leon? No charge for friends.”

  Leon hesitated. He liked Napoleon. He was funny and nice. But there was a problem. Napoleon came from Haiti, and Haiti was already pinned on his map. Leon worried his taxi collection would never grow if he kept using the same driver.

  “Go for it,” P.W. urged. “That way you can spend your cab fare on candy.”

  “And potato chips,” Lily-Matisse added.

  Leon considered his options. “Sure,” he said, accepting Napoleon’s offer.

  A few minutes into the ride, he tapped the hack license and said, “I’ve been wondering, Napoleon. Why are you named after a pastry? Were your parents bakers?”

  Napoleon let out a deep-bellied laugh. “No, no, Monsieur Leon. I was named for a famous French general and so was the pastry. But the famous Napoleon was short, and I am tall. He was white, and I am black. He was powerful, and I am … well, I drive a taxi. And on top of all that … I hate napoleons.”

  “Me too,” Leon admitted. “Too custardy.” He was wondering about how he’d feel eating a leon (if such a pastry existed) when Napoleon said, “We do that in Haiti.”

  “Do what?”

  “Name our children after important people. I have three brothers: Moses, Charlemagne, and Zeus—plus a sister, Cleopatra. You Americans are not interesting with your names.”

  “I guess not,” Leon admitted.

  “But tell me,” said Napoleon, “did my prediction come true? Did you have a nine-and-three-quarters day?”

  Leon sighed. “Hardly. More like a negative nine and three quarters.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “It’s my teacher,” Leon complained. “All she cares about is sewing.”

  “But art class is a good thing, Monsieur Leon. Sewing can be very useful.”

  “I’m not talking about my art teacher. I’m talking about my teacher teacher.”

  “And she makes you sew?”

  “Yup,” said Leon glumly.

  Napoleon shook his head in disbelief.

  “Plus she has these disgusting-looking ears—they’re like radar dishes—that she keeps hidden under her possibly fake hair.”

  “Mon Dieu!” Napoleon exclaimed. “You had better tell your moth
er about all this.”

  The cab pulled up to the hotel a few moments later. Napoleon parked and, as he had the day before, jumped out to open the passenger door. “Au revoir, Monsieur Leon,” he said with a tip of his imaginary hat. “And let us hope tomorrow will at least be a seven.”

  “I’ll settle for a five and a half,” said Leon before he pushed through the revolving door. He negotiated his way past a drably dressed woman walking a peacock and headed over to the reception desk, where his mother clearly had problems of her own.

  One of the guests, a rail-thin mime covered in white face paint, was shouting at her. “Look, lady! We didn’t book this dump expecting a conference room with a broken microphone.”

  “I apologize, sir,” said Emma Zeisel.

  “Apologies won’t get us our friggin’ mike, will they?” the mime snarled.

  “Again, I am sorry.”

  “Well, sorry doesn’t cut it!” he yelled.

  “Please lower your voice,” Emma Zeisel said. “You are a mime, after all.”

  The observation rendered the man speechless. He stormed off in a (silent) huff.

  Emma Zeisel turned to her son. “As group bookings go, Leon, the West Coast Mimes are, without a doubt, the worst.”

  “What about those rattlesnake ranchers we had last year? Remember them?”

  “At least they left me some antidote. Came in handy, too. Anyway, let’s forget about difficult guests, sweetie. Tell me about your day.”

  Leon needed little encouragement. He provided a blow-by-blow account of the goings-on in his classroom, up to and including the business of the panty hose.

  “Panty hose!” said Emma Zeisel. “Why on earth would a teacher store her old stockings in school?”

  “I have no clue, Mom. All I can tell you is I need help with my threading and stitching. Plus I need a piece of cloth for tomorrow.”

  Emma Zeisel sighed. “You know my hours, sweetie. These double shifts are a killer. But I bet Maria can get you squared away. She’s a demon with a needle.”

  After Leon updated the signboard (VVelcome Peacock Breeders of VValla VValla, VVashington!!!!) he sought out Maria. He found her in Housekeeping, funneling bright green shampoo from a large jug into dozens of tiny bottles.

  “Hola, Leonito!” she said. “How you doing?”

  “Not good, Maria.”

  For a third time since leaving school, Leon described his new teacher’s behavior and the panty hose she kept in class.

  “Is she crazy or something?”

  “Very crazy, Maria. She expects us to thread a needle and to learn her seven dumb stitches. Take a look.” Leon pulled the handout from his backpack.

  “You need Maria to help?” Maria asked.

  “Could you?”

  “No problem,” she said reassuringly.

  After completing the shampoo transfer, Maria cleared a table and brought out her sewing basket. She reached for a spool of cotton and bit off a length of thread.

  “Miss Hagmeyer doesn’t want us using our teeth,” said Leon.

  Maria shook her head. “What harm can a little spit do?”

  “Beats me,” said Leon.

  “Well, you show me what she taught you, this Miss Panty Hose,” Maria said suspiciously.

  Leon reached for the scissors and cut a length of thread. He tried poking the thread through the eye of the needle again and again but failed every time.

  “See?” he moaned. “I’ll never do it.”

  “Yes you will, Leonito,” Maria countered. She expertly repositioned Leon’s fingers on the scissors, like a baseball coach adjusting a batter’s grip. “Now cut the thread,” she said.

  Leon held the scissors at a steep angle and sliced another length of thread off the spool. When it came time to thread the needle, he succeeded after just two pokes.

  “Awesome!” he exclaimed.

  “Sharp angle, sharp cut,” Maria said with a smile.

  “Gracias,” said Leon. For the first time since school started, he felt a small measure of satisfaction.

  Threading became a breeze. Mastering the seven stitches of virtue, however, proved more challenging. Fortunately for Leon, Maria remained close at hand.

  “No, Leonito,” she corrected gently. “Watch me. For the hemming stitch you slant the needle.”

  Leon modified his grip and tried again. Eventually he hemmed three full inches of his practice cloth. “You’re a much better teacher than Miss Mushroom Ears,” he said.

  “I’ve got a good student,” Maria replied.

  Good but not perfect. Leon only succeeded in replicating six of the seven stitches of virtue. One stitch eluded him—the overcast. According to his handout, the overcast was the stitch used when finishing off a seam. No matter how much Leon practiced, he couldn’t get the needle to obey his less-than-nimble fingers.

  He put his sewing away and was about to leave Housekeeping when he remembered the other assignment. “Oh, I almost forgot, Maria. I’ve got to bring a towel to school tomorrow.”

  “A towel? Why? Your teacher planning to give you a bath?”

  Leon laughed. “I sure hope not.”

  Maria handed him a tattered Trimore hand towel just as Emma Zeisel stuck her head in.

  “Sweetie, I’m on break. Frau Haffenreffer has some sandwiches waiting for us.”

  And so with his homework more or less done, Leon ended the day sitting across from his mom in the Trimore Towers coffee shop. He didn’t want to gripe about school, but he couldn’t stop himself. Over PB&J (extra J) and a bag of Zapp’s Kettle-Cooked Mesquite Bar-B-Que Potato Chips (his current favorite), Leon complained about his needle-wielding teacher.

  “Nine months, Mom. I’ll have to deal with the Hag for nine months! That’s two hundred and seventy days!”

  “You’ll be fine,” said Emma Zeisel, sounding more wishful than confident. “And besides, there’s no need to include weekends.”

  “Whatever,” said Leon morosely.

  Depressing thoughts about sewing gnawed at Leon long after he’d finished dinner. They were still with him when he climbed into bed. What had he done to deserve the Hag? Why’d she have to scream at him? Would his entire year be filled with pink scraps of material, terry cloth hand towels, and liver-colored panty hose? Would he be able to handle the work?

  Click-click-click-buzzzz …

  From the far side of the bedroom wall, the Ice Queen started casting her evil spell. All hope of sleep disappeared.

  Grind-groan-rumble-CRASH!

  Leon rose from his bed and nervously paced around his room. The circuit took all of ten seconds to complete. He looked at his stuff. There was the fuzzy picture of his dad, taken a few months before the explosion at the factory. An empty fish tank that had, briefly, contained a piranha left by one of the guests. And of course the map of the world, with the pins marking the taxi drivers Leon had collected.

  After six or seven laps, Leon returned to bed. He tried to muffle the grinding noises of the ice maker by burrowing deep under his covers, but that did next to nothing. The Ice Queen’s mechanical hex lasted most of the night, spurred on by mimes whose loudmouth antics and desire for ice kept Leon awake.

  SEVEN

  Animiles

  Inspection time!” Miss Hagmeyer announced the next morning. “Fabrics out on the desks where I can see them!”

  She swept through the room like a castle guard, her instructional needle taking the place of a pikestaff. Occasionally she would lower the business end of her pointer onto a piece of cloth that she deemed especially attractive. When she did, her manner would soften.

  “This lacework is delicious, Antoinette. Belgian, is it?”

  “No idea, Miss Hagmeyer,” Antoinette answered. “Nanny told me to grab something from one of the guest bathrooms. She could care less what I took.”

  “You mean ‘couldn’t.’ The proper expression is couldn’t care less—Mr. Lumpkin!” Miss Hagmeyer’s mood changed abruptly. “Remove that pillowcase from your head
this instant!”

  “Seems like an improvement to me,” Leon said aloud, before he could stop himself.

  “That’s enough out of you, Mr. Zeisel,” Miss Hagmeyer scolded.

  Lumpkin removed his pillowcase, turned, and gave Leon a look that made him instantly regret his quip.

  Miss Hagmeyer continued her rounds. “Gorgeous piece of silk, Phya Winit,” she cooed, rubbing his cloth between thumb and index finger.

  “My dad told me silk comes from boiled worms!” P.W. said enthusiastically.

  “Your father is correct—though technically it’s a caterpillar, not a worm, that gets boiled.”

  Miss Hagmeyer next stopped at Lily-Matisse’s desk. She reached for a piece of cotton tie-dyed in vibrant shades of purple, green, and yellow. “Did you make this, or did your mother?”

  “My mom did,” Lily-Matisse said, sounding a little embarrassed. “She tends to go for flashy colors.”

  “So it would appear,” said Miss Hagmeyer neutrally. She moved on to Leon’s outpost, where she found not one, but two pieces of cloth.

  “I suppose it’s a start,” Miss Hagmeyer said of the pink scrap covered with after-school practice stitching. She then harpooned the hotel hand towel with her instructional needle and read out loud the faded blue words woven into terry cloth. “‘Property of Trimore Towers.’ How very utilitarian.”

  Leon kept his mouth shut. Exhausted from lack of sleep, he was nevertheless alert enough to know that asking the meaning of “utilitarian” would get the word tacked onto the weekly vocabulary test. His decision proved wise. Miss Hagmeyer ended her inspection and turned to the supply cabinet.

  Leon cast his eyes on the blackboard as she removed the padlock. He wasn’t about to get caught sticking his nose where it didn’t belong a second time, thank you very much.

  Miss Hagmeyer spent a minute or so retrieving a few sewing tools. She then secured the doors and returned to the front of the room. Once satisfied that the supplies were properly positioned on her desk, she picked up her instructional needle and said two words no student likes to hear: “Pop quiz.”

  Over the resulting groans, she aimed the needle at Thomas and said, “Mr. Warchowski. Stitch number three. Name it.”