Paint by Magic (12 page)

"Your Mr. Riley would like some extra work," he told Joanna.

"He's not
her
Mr. Riley!" muttered Betty under her breath.

Joanna stood and started clearing dishes. Mrs. Cotton rose from her chair and went to the kitchen, coming back a few moments later with a big chocolate cake. Everyone clamored for dessert, and after dinner was over, the kids' grandpa did some card tricks. They were great—"amazing feats," he called them. I begged him to show me how he did some of them, but he said it was magic. Homer hooted that there was no such thing, and Elsie screeched that there was so. Mr. Cotton just laughed and said a good magician never tells.

Joanna and Mrs. Cotton made me up a nice cozy bed in Homer and Chester's room. They found me a pair of Mr. Cotton's pajamas and rolled up the cuffs. Then Joanna tucked me in just like she did her own boys, and even dropped a kiss lightly onto my forehead.
Copycat, Mom!
I thought for the second time that evening. But I sort of liked what Mom was copying from the Cottons.

I liked Joanna's kiss. It made me feel safe for a moment, at a time when I was full of worries. I wondered whether this was how Mom had felt at the Cottons' house—safe and cozy and peaceful. If so, I could see how it would be easy for Mom to enjoy staying here.
But for a whole year, Mom ? Weren't we worth coming back to?

When their mom had gone downstairs, Homer and Chester started bombarding me with questions about what it was like being an orphan, my life on the mean streets, and everything. I just lay there because I didn't have the heart to invent a good story. I wanted to go to sleep so I could wake up and try to find my way home from this place. But they kept pestering. Finally I propped myself up on one elbow and looked across the room at them.

"You guys want a bedtime story?" I asked, keeping my voice soft. "Better than a sad tale of an orphan?"

They did.

"Okay, then, here's my favorite story. It's one of your basic fairy tales—only better. The eternal fight between good and evil." I knew just where to begin. "Long, long ago," I whispered dramatically, "in a galaxy far, far away..."

The story of Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader carried them both off to sleep, but I lay awake for a while longer, thinking about what had happened to me and how far away from home I was. Over and over in my head I saw Mom's last, frozen grimace before I grabbed the sketch. I remembered how I touched the drawing of Mom and went spinning through that cold wind—through time.

I lay there planning how I would search the art studio in the morning to find the sketch. Then I drifted into sleep, and I dreamed that my narrow little camp bed was a starship.

***

I woke up to an earthquake. At least that's what I was thinking as my eyes flew open and I sat bolt upright. But it wasn't an earthquake. Just Homer and Chester, leaping from bed to bed to bed. I wasn't sure my little camp bed could stand the strain, so I got up. Homer led the way down the stairs. Just like at dinner everybody but Fitz ate breakfast all together. There was hot oatmeal to start the meal, then fluffy scrambled eggs, thick slices of bacon, piles of toast, and butter and jam. Everything was totally delicious, and much tastier than the Blueberry Twirls that Ashleigh gives us.

The whole time I ate, I kept trying to forget that I had an appointment with Fitzgerald Cotton at 9:00. It was one thing to plan how I'd search for the sketch up in the studio, and another to know there was a wild artist up there who had jumped me yesterday. I listened to the family's conversation. It was amazing how much they had to say—as if anything interesting could have happened to them overnight. But this time they weren't telling their high points; they were talking about magic. Homer started it all by asking his grandpa for some more magic tricks, and Mr. Cotton laughingly reminded him he'd said only last night there was no such thing as magic.

"Do
you
believe in magic, Connor?" Mr. Cotton asked, turning to me.

I swallowed my egg and wiped my mouth politely with the cloth napkin before answering. "Absolutely," I replied, looking around me at all their faces. "I absolutely do believe in magic." And that was totally true, even though if you'd asked me only two days ago, I would hate laughed you right out of town.

Betty kicked me under the table, but I didn't look at her.

"I don't think there's magic," Homer announced, "and if you want to know, I'll tell you why! Because if there was magic, then Daddy could have magicked away the bullets that hit him. Then his lungs wouldn't have been weak, and he wouldn't have gotten pneumonia."

"If I had a magic potion, I'd bring Daddy back, to life," said Elsie.

I remembered how Crystal had pneumonia two winters ago. It started like a cold in her nose, then sort of sank into her chest, and then became a cough and wheezing. She had to stay home from school for a few days and take antibiotics, and then she was fine. "Antibiotics are sort of like magic potions," I told Elsie. "But they can't cure everybody every time, I guess."

"Anti-whats?" asked Homer with interest, but I shut my mouth quick in case there weren't any such things as antibiotics yet. "Maybe that's what Daddy needed, Mama. Anti-whatever pills."

"Anti-bullet pills, that's what he needed," said Elsie. "Anti-war pills."

Everybody was quiet for a moment. Betty picked up her grandpa's deck of playing cards and shuffled them in her thin fingers. "The rest of you can hardly remember Daddy," she said. "But I do—and I know that Daddy believed in magic. His tricks were just as good as yours, Grandpa! He should have been a magician—not a soldier."

"I taught him all the tricks I knew, on his twenty-first birthday," Mr. Cotton said with a little smile. He turned his coffee cup around and around in his hands. "A special initiation."

"He was a bright spot in all our lives," Mrs. Cotton said, and for a second I was afraid she was going to cry or something. But she didn't. She looked around the table at her family and said, "But he left us something magical behind."

"He left you children and your mama," said Mr. Cotton in a husky voice.

"Fitzy always had such obvious talents," continued Mrs. Cotton musingly. "He had his gift for painting, from a very young age. But Homer had heart." She shook her head slowly, remembering. "He had a real good heart."

Joanna reached over and squeezed Mrs. Cotton's hand. "I remember Homer always said that happy families make their own magic," she said. "And I think he was right."

"Can I have some more bacon?" asked Elsie, and that was the end of the conversation. Even though it had been sort of a sad conversation, it was still interesting. We didn't have enough time, somehow, for conversations in my family.

Mr. Cotton put on his hat after he'd finished his breakfast, and said good-bye. Then he left the house to walk to the streetcar that would take him to Main Street. And Mrs. Cotton said to all us kids, "So what are your plans for the day, kiddiwinks?"

It amazed me how they didn't have anything already set. They lived without schedules and were more responsible for filling their own days than any kids I knew. The thought of a whole day—a whole week of vacation with nothing in the Day Planner—made me sort of uneasy.

But the "
kiddiwinks
" were all full of ideas: Go to the candy store, play dolls, roller-skate to the candy store, read a book, take the dolls along in the wagon to the candy store...

It all sounded good to me. I sort of wished I'd never made my nine o'clock appointment. But if I didn't confront the beast in his lair, then I'd never get home again.

I pushed my chair back from the table so fast it nearly tipped over.

Joanna just smiled at me and said, "All right, the lot of you. Out to play! Gramma and I have a lot of work to do, and we don't want to see you around this kitchen until we ring the lunch bell." Her voice was brisk, but her smile was kind. "One, two, three
skidoo!
" Then she and Mrs. Cotton left the room.

Mom had probably worked in the mornings with Mrs. Cotton and Joanna, chatting the whole time they did spring-cleaning or cooking or whatever.
Somebody
had taught Mom to cook, after all. Or maybe she had modeled for Fitzgerald Cotton in the mornings and worked in the afternoons. Whatever.

I walked with the kids out onto the front porch. Nobody had warned them about staying near the house or keeping out of traffic or watching out for strangers, and none of the kids objected to being sent outside to play the way kids would in
my
neighborhood.

Betty grabbed Elsie's hand and said, "Rim and get your paper dolls, and I'll help you cut out more clothes for them. We can sit here on the porch."

You'd never catch Crystal playing with paper dolls where anybody could see her, even though she and Betty were the same age.

And Homer said to me, "Hey, Con, wanna help me and Chess build a tree fort? Grandpa has loads of scraps of wood out in the stable we can use."

That sounded fun. But the big clock in the front hallway said 9:00 now. "I have a better idea, Homeboy," I said casually. "How about we all go up to your uncle's studio?"

"What's that you called me?" he asked, balling up his fists like he was going to deck me.

Whoa!
"It's just a nickname," I told him quickly. "Like you called me 'Con.' And you call Chester 'Chess.' Nicknames sound friendly. I was just being friendly and asking you to come up to your uncle's studio."

"Oh." Homer relaxed his fighting stance. "I don't have a nickname," he said. "Everybody else does, but I don't."

"That's why I thought I'd call you Homeboy. It means, like, you're one of the gang. But if you like Homer better, hey, I'll call you Homer. No problem. I could even call you Homer
Junior
if you want to be formal."

He was balling up his fists again. "Don't you dare!"

"Sorry! Just plain Homer. Homer is a great name." Actually I thought Homer was a really dorky name. "Anyway,
Homer,
" I continued, "what about it? I'm supposed to model for your uncle." It was the only appointment in my Day Planner for 1926. "Want to come with me?"

"Not in this lifetime," Homer Said, shaking his head. "Uncle Fitzy is a grouch. You go on your own, and when he's done with you, come out to the big tree in the back. Chess and I will be working on our fort."

When he was done with me? I didn't like the sound of that. I turned to go inside. But when Homer called my name, I turned back.

"Hey ... Con? Maybe I could get to like that nickname. You know,
Homeboy.
It's the bee's knees." He waited a second, but I didn't answer right away. He called again: "Hey, Con?"

"Hay is for horses, Homeboy," I shot back, and he laughed. Then he and Chess went down the porch steps. I closed the front door, suddenly all alone.

I thought about magic as I climbed the stairs to the third floor. If happy families made their own wonderful magic, as Homer Senior had believed, then did it follow that unhappy people like Fitzgerald Cotton made their own
terrible
magic? Their own
black magic
?

Taking a big breath, I rapped on the door at the top of the stairs.

"Go away!" boomed Fitz's voice. "Get out of here, whoever you are! I don't want coffee and I don't want tea and I don't want your blasted lemonade! If you have any proper whiskey, there might be something to talk about—but if not, then stay out!" There was a crash, like a pile of canvases tipping over. There came another crash and the sound of shattering glass. "Where is my muse?" The voice rose to a shout. "Answer me
that!
" Another bang, another crash, as if the maniac behind the door was throwing his brushes and paint pots around. "I tell you, it's not working anymore, that's all there is to it—and I'm going to sit up here the rest of my life until I get it right. And if I never get it right, then I'll be here until my corpse is a moldering, stinking heap on the floor!"

I guessed it would be okay after all to go out with the boys and build the fort. But just as I was turning away, there came another crash that made me jump, and then a howl.

"Pamela, my angel, you
will
come back to me! You
must
—and you SHALL!"

At the sound of that crazy man's voice calling my mom's name, I bashed open the door so hard that it slammed against the wall. I gasped at what I saw.

There was Fitzgerald Cotton, still in his bathrobe, standing in the center of the room under the skylight, holding a paintbrush. His wild grayish hair stood up in tufts. Light streamed in from the skylight and lit up the whole studio. Piles of canvases had been knocked over onto the floor, as well as chairs, paint pots, glass jars holding pencils and extra brushes, stacks of magazines, a small table, and an easel. The place was trashed.

"Oh no," I said. "Oh no, oh no, you don't!" I wasn't talking about the mess in the room. I was looking at the painting on the big canvas under the skylight.

There was Mom. Painted on the canvas. Frozen in the exact terrible pose she'd been in when I'd grabbed the sketch. Her mouth was stretched in a scream. Her eyes were wide, the pupils distorted. The eyes seemed to be looking at me—not staring blankly but imploring me to help. There were dabs of fresh paint along her cheekbones.

I stared in shock at the painting, feeling as frozen as she had been last time I saw her. Mom looked so alive on the canvas, and so frightened. Then I unfroze and raced to the easel.

"Get back!" snarled Fitzgerald Cotton, taking a step toward me. "This is going to be my masterpiece, and I don't want anybody near it."

"Masterpiece?" I cried. "It's
horrible
! Why are you painting her like
that
?"

"I know it's not my best work—yet—but it will be! It must be! With her gone, I'm painting only from memory, and I can't get it right now, no matter how hard I try. But I'll
never
stop trying! Get out of here, boy—don't distract me from my work!"

"Stop painting her!" I shouted back. "Just leave her alone!" How could he see into the future to know how Mom looked when she was frozen? How could he know to paint her with that horrifying face?