Leon and the Spitting Image (22 page)

As predicted, the two girls holding the ropes started to pick up the pace.

“Bring it on!” Leon said gleefully as he moved the doll faster and faster. Soon he was shaking his master piece like it was a can of spray paint. As a result, Miss Hagmeyer bounced her feet on and off the asphalt with the speed of a sewing-machine needle.

“Sizzlers!” someone cried.

“What’s a sizzler?” said Leon, his worry returning.

“Beats me,” Lily-Matisse told him.

Leon was trying to figure out how to respond when
Miss Hagmeyer began crossing and uncrossing her legs.

“I-I-I’m not d-d-doing that,” he sputtered.

“What do you mean?” asked Lily-Matisse.

“The Hag—she’s making those moves by herself!” Leon held the doll stock-still to prove his point.
“See?”

“Freaky,” cried P.W. “The Hag’s flying solo!”

Leon now felt as baffled as the rest of the crowd. Can the Hag actually be doing sizzlers
on her own?
he wondered. Did I shake loose some ancient double Dutch skills?

Leon sensed something different about his teacher. But what? He looked at Miss Hagmeyer closely.

Was it her ears? Nope, it wasn’t her ears. This Leon easily confirmed, since all her antic jumping exposed them on each descent.

Was it her mouth? No, it wasn’t her mouth either. It remained as pinched as it had been the very first day of school.

What about her panty hose? Her boots? Her dress? Her cape?

No, no, no … and no.

How about the eyes on her cape?

Again, no.

What about her own eyes?

Yes!

Normally so dull, Miss Hagmeyer’s eyes now appeared to be
sparkling
.

“Show us some pop-ups!” Antoinette shouted.

Her request broke the spell. The inexplicable performance ended as abruptly as it had begun.

P.W. sounded the alarm when a jump rope grazed Miss Hagmeyer’s wig. “She’s losing control!”

“I’m on it,” said Leon. He quickly trained his master piece toward the tottering teacher and smoothed out the faltering footwork.

“That was weird,” said P.W.

“Nice save,” said Lily-Matisse.

Leon shrugged off the compliment. “Tell me what pop-ups are,” he said with renewed determination.

“Basically, you’ve got to make the Hag go as high as possible,” Lily-Matisse explained.

Without missing a beat, Leon sprang Miss Hagmeyer three feet off the ground.

“You call that a pop-up?” teased P.W. “C’mon, let’s see the Hag catch some
serious
air!”

Leon took the bait. He intensified his doll-enhanced gravity-defying exertions until it looked as if someone had slipped an invisible trampoline under Miss Hagmeyer’s feet.

A new chant started up from the sidelines.

“Higher! Higher! Higher!”

Leon eventually brought Miss Hagmeyer nearly face to face with Henry Lumpkin and Principal Birdwhistle, both of whom were gawking out the second-floor window of the Birdcage.

“Uh, Leon,” said Lily-Matisse nervously. “You’d
better bring her down. I think Birdwhistle and Lumpkin can spot us from up there.”

“In a sec,” said Leon. “I want to try one last thing.”

Lily-Matisse persisted. “I’m telling you, Leon. We’ll get caught.”

“No way,” said P.W. “They’re totally fixated on the Hag. What’s the move, Leon?”

“Remember the first time I showed you what the doll could do? On the jungle gym? You guys wanted me to have the Hag finish up with a special twist.”

“A full-twisting double layout dismount,” said Lily-Matisse. “You’re not going to try
that
, are you?”

“No,” said Leon. He smiled. “That’s too simple.”

To appreciate fully what Leon did next, it might be helpful to know something about freestyle double Dutch jump roping. As tricks go, a single complete gyration—commonly known as a 360—is considered a beginner’s move. A
double
twist—a 720—is obviously somewhat harder. But it’s only when a jump roper can
master a
treble
twist—a 1080—that the professionals start to watch.

A
quadruple
twist will generate endorsement offers from sneaker manufacturers and soft-drink companies. (Simply
calculating
its numerical name—1440—is impressive.)

This brings us, inevitably, to the Holy Grail of double Dutch moves: the
quintuple
. If you can perform a quintuple twist then chances are your name is Hideyuki Tateda, since Hideyuki Tateda is the only person that the
Guinness Book of World Records
has ever recorded completing a five-twist turn.

It’s too bad Leon didn’t think to call the Guinness folks. If he had, a judge could have been on hand to document what happened next.

Watching the motion of the ropes with laserlike concentration, Leon pressed the master piece gently between his palms. At just the right moment, he snapped one hand forward and the other hand back and spun the doll like an old-fashioned top.

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.

M
iss 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. Grinch 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.