Leon and the Spitting Image (7 page)

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.

I
nspection 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.”

“Chain,” Thomas managed.

“Correct…. Miss Brede, number one?”

“The first stitch of virtue is the running stitch, Miss Hagmeyer.”

“Correct…. Mr. Zeisel, number six?”

“Umm, satin?”

“Incorrect!” snarled Miss Hagmeyer. “The answer is directly above your head.” She pointed at a poster taped to the wall.

“Overcast?” Leon said sullenly after glancing at the picture of the severed hand stitching up a seam. He’d spent so much time struggling to master the stitch, he hadn’t memorized its numerical rank.

“Bravo, Mr. Zeisel,” Miss Hagmeyer said sarcastically. “For the future, I expect you to know all stitches of virtue both alphabetically and by number.” She put down her needle. “Right. Let’s move on to my worksheets.”

As the handouts made their way around the room, Miss Hagmeyer registered some snickering.

“Miss Jasprow, does something amuse you?”

“No, Miss Hagmeyer,” Lily-Matisse said, suppressing a giggle.

“Perhaps you would like to share your wit with the rest of the class.”

“It’s just that it says ‘animiles’ on the top of the page,” said Lily-Matisse.

“It’s
supposed
to,” Miss Hagmeyer replied curtly. She retrieved her chalk holder and wrote the following word on the blackboard:

animiles

“It’s a medieval variant of
animal
and shares a Latin root with ‘animate,’ as in living or making alive. All the creations sewn in my class will be called ‘ani
-mile
s
’—not
‘ani
-mals.’
Why? Because ani
-mals
tend to be smelly, uncontrollable beasts that bite and bray and refuse to show respect. On the other hand, ani-miles … ”

Miss Hagmeyer turned and tapped the blackboard.

“… ani-miles do
not
bite. They do
not
bray, and … ”

She paused to glance at Lily-Matisse.

“… they do
not
giggle disruptively. It is my expectation that by making ani-miles you will cease to act like ani-mals. Does everyone understand?”

A chorus of “Yes, Miss Hagmeyers” filled the room.

“Good,” she said crisply. “Now begin.”

Leon felt tense as he leafed through the handout, a nine-step project that was supposed to transform a scrap of material into a decorative stuffed snake.

Step one required Leon to measure a six-inch-by-ten-inch rectangle on the towel he’d brought from home. That was a snap. Step two—cutting along the marks—wasn’t too tough either. The trouble only started with step three. That’s when the actual sewing started.

Leon managed to make an okay-looking chain stitch down the middle of the towel, and he succeeded in backstitching the bottom and sides of his material. But then his fingers began to cramp.

He paused for a moment to look over his handiwork. It resembled a tattered tube sock more than a stuffed snake. The word PROPERTY ran up the side, with the last two letters hidden inside a seam.

Leon sighed. This snake is
not
proper, he said to himself. He wished Maria could help with the remaining stitches.

From the front of the room, Antoinette called out, “I’m up to step seven, Miss Hagmeyer. The handout says I’m supposed to see you about special supplies?”

“Excellent,” said Miss Hagmeyer. “Come with me.”

Leon and the rest of the class watched as teacher and teacher’s pet went to the supply cabinet. Miss Hagmeyer unlocked the doors and pulled out the unmarked drawer that was cram-packed with panty hose.

“Dig in!” she said.

Antoinette balked.

“Don’t be bashful. Go on, dig in!”

“Into … into your panty hose?” Antoinette stammered.

Leon looked down at his desktop. He knew that if he made eye contact with Lily-Matisse or P.W., he’d lose it.

“Well of course,” said Miss Hagmeyer. “There isn’t a better stuffing in the world than cut-up old panty hose.”

One by one, students approached the cabinet to extract panty hose. Leon soon realized that he was
way
behind. His classmates had practically finished their animiles by the time he’d reached the stuffing stage. He caused himself further delay by refusing to handle his teacher’s stockings directly. To minimize contact, he employed a pair of tongs as a panty hose injection device, a precaution that only made matters worse.

“That snake is looking
bloated,”
Miss Hagmeyer told Leon on her next sweep of the room.

“It is?”

“Most definitely. It more closely resembles a football than a serpent. Thin it out at once.”

“Yes, Miss Hagmeyer.”

While Leon removed wadded-up panty hose from his snake, the rest of the class began submitting their snakes for final inspection. The procedure was the same for everyone. Miss Hagmeyer would survey the animile for loose threads, measure seams, and take extensive notes on her clipboard. If she liked what she saw, she would authorize a trip to the finished bin, a large bag-lined trash can located next to her desk. After that, students were free to practice their stitching or read the Fun Fact sections of their
Medieval Reader
s.

Not long before the period was to end, Miss Hagmeyer reappeared at Leon’s desk. “Well, I suppose the snake’s shape is a tad better,” she acknowledged. Her tone was one of mild disappointment. “But do hurry up. Skip the eyes. Just finish up the tongue and mouth.”

“Yes, Miss Hagmeyer,” Leon said.

Although his hands were cramping and his head ached from lack of sleep, Leon pushed on. A few minutes later, Miss Hagmeyer called him up to her desk. “The bell’s about to ring, so show me what you have.”

Leon plopped down his snake.

Miss Hagmeyer inspected it closely. “The stitches on the belly are all crooked.”

“I know,” Leon said miserably.

Miss Hagmeyer removed a tape measure she had draped over her neck and pressed it against the snake’s mouth. “This overcast stitching is significantly below standard. It only registers
two
s.p.i.!”

“Two s.p.i.?” said Leon. He had no idea what Miss Hagmeyer was talking about.

“Stitches … per … inch, Mr. Zeisel—s.p.i. for short. An animile’s seams should always register at least
four
s.p.i. Do you think you can tighten up the stitching?”

“I’ll try,” Leon said through clenched teeth.

“I certainly hope so,” said Miss Hagmeyer. “And when you do, make sure the fabric doesn’t bunch up. I don’t want the mouth to pucker.”

You mean like yours? Leon said to himself, looking at his teacher’s pursed lips. “If I can’t fix the problem, Miss Hagmeyer, I could call the snake Pinch.”

“You will do no such thing, Mr. Zeisel. Animiles never get named.”

“Why not?” asked Leon.

“If you named them, you’d get attached to them. And we certainly cannot have that.”

“Why not?” Leon repeated.

“Simply put, I keep all animiles made in my class.”

“Every single one, Miss Hagmeyer?”

“Yes,” she said stiffly. “Every single one.”

“But—”

“No ifs, ands, or buts, Mr. Zeisel. Go back to your desk and fix what needs fixing.”

The recess bell rang. Leon gave Miss Hagmeyer a hopeful look.

She shook her head. “Repair your animile
now.”

As Leon worked on his overcasting, he could hear jump-rope songs and shouts of “You’re it” coming from the playground. Tennis balls and basketballs flew past the window as he struggled to produce a thin, unlumpy, unpuckered snake.

“Let’s see what we’ve got,” Miss Hagmeyer said when Leon resubmitted his animile fifteen minutes later.

“Hope it’s okay,” he said.

“As do I,” said Miss Hagmeyer. She picked up the snake and took a measurement. “I’m still not happy about your stitch count. Two s.p.i. is
entirely
unacceptable. The minimum, as I just told you, is four. Still, your mouth stitching does show some improvement.”

I wouldn’t mind stitching
her
mouth shut, Leon said to himself.

Miss Hagmeyer looked at her watch. “I’m feeling charitable. Deposit the animile in the finished bin as is and go catch the rest of recess.”

Leon didn’t have to be told twice. He binned the snake and hightailed it outside.

The Classical School playground was divided into
four areas. There was the wall ball section, the jungle-gym section, the place near the fence where the jump ropers jumped rope, and the basketball courts. Smack in the middle of these four distinct quadrants, bursting through the asphalt like a leafy geyser, was a hardy maple circled by a cedar bench.

Leon dashed over to the tree, relieved to be free of Miss Hagmeyer and her stitch counts. He jumped onto the bench that rimmed the maple’s trunk and ran the circuit in search of his two best friends.

He spotted them on the jungle gym and rushed over.

“P.W. figured out about the eyeballs on the cape,” said Lily-Matisse. She was hanging upside down by her knees when she made this announcement.