Paint by Magic (9 page)

"'Famous?'" He looked gratified. "At your service, lad. And always in need of people to sit for me, even if they don't knock before coming in. I do portraits mostly."

I was still trying to understand what seemed to be happening here. "You mean—" It couldn't be so, but I had to ask it, anyway.... "You mean, you're the painter in the art book? The one with the muse?"

In a flash the seemingly mild man turned into a raging tiger. He lunged, toppling me back down onto the floor. "WHO TOLD YOU ABOUT THAT?" he roared. His eyes blazed down into mine with a fiery intensity. "WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT HER?"

I struggled to get him off me, but he was much stronger. He pinned my arms above my head with one big hand. The other hand grabbed the neck of my T-shirt. I thought he was going to hit me—or strangle me.

"Fitzy!" I heard his mother shout over the roar in my head.

"Tell me, young scoundrel, before I thrash it out of you!" the man yelled at me. "What do you know of her? Where is she? Where is my Pamela? TELL ME!" His voice rose with every word until he was shouting the house down. "TELL ME OR I'LL THROTTLE YOU!"

He knows Mom's name?
I thought in terrified amazement as I kicked him hard in the leg and heard him grunt with pain. But he didn't let me go. Then the woman, waving the dish towel over her head like a lasso, pushed herself between us.

"Fitzgerald!" she yelled. "Stop it this instant! My goodness gracious, what has gotten into you?" She pulled him away from me. Shakily I got to my feet. The maniac stood meekly aside as if he'd never done anything wrong in his whole life.

"Sorry, Mother," he said humbly. "I guess I just lost my temper."

"I guess so!" exclaimed the woman, dusting me off with her dish towel. "Now, are you all right, lad?"

"Not really," I said haltingly.
He knows Mom's name. He knows Mom's name!

"He should be thoroughly ashamed of himself."

"I am ashamed, Mother. Indeed I am," said her son meekly. "The lad just—surprised me." Fitzgerald Cotton's words came out in a rush. "I thought he might know something about her. Or at least about a missing sketch of mine. One that is very dear to me. It's the one I did of Pamela—"

"I'm sure he wouldn't take any of your sketches," said Mrs. Cotton. "Would you, lad?" she asked me.

I shook my head. I was feeling dizzy again.

"Just a misunderstanding, then," the artist answered quickly in a mild, friendly voice. But the look he shot me was anything but mild or friendly. It was full of menace.

"He seems to be a good lad," continued Cotton in the same fake voice. "Just moved in around the block, you see. Father's a geologist at the college ... I'm hoping he'll come back and model for me. How about it, boy? Will you come back tomorrow and let me finish this sketch? Then I'll turn it into a portrait."

I didn't answer.

The woman looked at me with a frown. She started to say something, then thought better of it and pressed her lips together. She turned to her son. "Well, I hope you'll pay the lad for his time."

The man nodded his shaggy head. "Of course, Mother. I'll pay him handsomely! I'll pay him for his time today. A whole quarter. How about that?" He fished in his pockets. His hands were trembling as he pressed a coin into my palm. "Now, you be back here tomorrow morning sharp on the dot of nine, and we'll finish up the painting."

I just stared at him and started backing toward the door. I couldn't get my mind around what seemed to have happened to me—and the fact that this man knew my mom. How could any of this be real? A calendar that said 1926? A man with the same name as the artist from the big art book—attacking me? And now, the guy calm again, trying to arrange to paint me?

None of this made sense, and yet a little niggling throbbing in my head was telling me it did make sense, if only I could believe it. I rubbed my eyes, hard.

"You're looking tired, lad," the artist said in his deep, kind voice that nonetheless held the hint of menace. "So we'll talk again tomorrow—about all manner of things. Things that interest us both, my boy. How about that?"

I hesitated, my heart still thumping hard. I wanted to mention Mom again, and the sketch of her that made the wind start blowing, but I was afraid of what he'd do. And if the calendar on the wall was right, and this was 1926...

But of course it
couldn't
be. But what if it really was?

Time travel?
A quick vision of Mom astride a brontosaurus flashed behind my eyes.

So the crazy artist was right about one thing: We definitely
did
need to talk. I needed to find out what was going on—and how I would get home again.

He shot out his hand, grabbing my arm. "Tomorrow, boy. How about it?"

There was a curious pleading note in his voice. I glanced down at the coin in my hand. It was a quarter. Slowly I held it up, squinted at the year: 1924. It felt hard and cold in my hand, and as real as anything.

Proof that this wasn't all some fantastic dream?

"All right," I whispered.

"Well, if you've got that settled," said Mrs. Cotton, "then why not come downstairs with me for that glass of lemonade?" She smiled kindly at me and tucked a long gray strand of hair back into the bun at the nape of her neck. "The children will want to meet you. If you've just moved here you've probably not met many playmates, I'll be bound."

"Thanks," I murmured, "ma'am." I don't think I'd ever used the word
ma'am
in my life, but it seemed to come naturally now.

Then she spoke to her son. "You come on down and have a glass, too, Fitz."

He shook his shaggy head. "No, Mother. Not me." Then he looked straight at me. "Nine o'clock sharp?"

Without a word I sidled past him, out of the room. He didn't stop me.

As I started down the steep stairs, following Mrs. Cotton, I glanced back. Fitzgerald Cotton was still standing in the doorway of his studio, looking after me with hard, glittering eyes. I stared back at him, my eyes just as hard.

I felt baffled and threatened at the same time, but I would be back. And I wanted answers.

I tried to catch my breath.
Okay, okay,
I told myself.
Relax.
Take a look around 1926. Try to figure things out.

Mrs. Cotton was leading me down a hallway lined with doors. I peeked inside the bedrooms as we passed them. The rooms were a lot smaller than the ones at my house, but the ceilings were high. The beds were all neatly made. Quite a lot of beds, it looked Uke, and one had stuffed animals and dolls heaped on it. All the window shades were half drawn against the sun outside, so the rooms were dim and quiet.

The last room was a bathroom with a funny clawfooted tub. "Excuse me," I said, stopping at the door.

"Come down when you're ready," Mrs. Cotton said. "The towel is clean."

I slipped into the bathroom and closed the door, leaning against it for a moment. I felt lost. Things were just
happening
—unplanned things. I didn't know the script for this movie. I didn't have a schedule of events for my time here—the way I have stuff written in my Day Planner at home to keep me on track with everything I'm supposed to do. And I had no special powers like I would if this really were a movie. Just to make sure, though, I pointed my finger at the sink. "Water!" I commanded. But of course nothing happened. "
Mom,
" I whispered into the mirror above the white porcelain sink. "Mom, I want to come home." I leaned forward and pressed my forehead against the mirror. It felt cool on my hot skin.

I felt like some sort of Goldilocks, sneaking around in the bears' house.
Fee-fi-fo-fum!
No, wrong story. That was Jack, up his beanstalk, hiding from the giant. I saw the video when I was little.

I took a deep breath and tried to push thoughts of bears and giants away. But the fact was that I was an intruder in this house. I really was like Goldilocks—or Jack. I tried to remember what had happened to them. I stared at myself in the mirror and wondered what would happen to
me.
My face looked so familiar—still the same, even in 1926. Same wild dumb curls, same greenish eyes, same weird nose.

I used the toilet, and when I finally figured out that you had to pull the long dangling chain hanging from a tank at the top to make it flush, I felt like I'd accomplished something great. I washed my hands and practically scalded myself because the sink had two taps, one cold and one hot, with no way to mix the water together to make warm—unless you put in the plug to fill up the whole sink. Before I left the room, I just had to sneak a peek into the mirrored medicine chest.

In
my
bathroom cupboards there are. bottles of shampoo in bright colors and cream rinse with big plastic heads of cartoon characters. There's my musical electric toothbrush, some half-used-up tubes of toothpaste, and my retainer. And deodorant, Band-Aids, cotton balls, and this gross green mouthwash stuff Crystal gave me for my birthday. But here, in
this
bathroom medicine chest of 1926, there was only a little orange bottle labeled IODINE, a round box marked BEST TOOTH POWDER, and eight toothbrushes.

My heart started thudding hard because eight toothbrushes meant eight people. It hadn't sunk in when I'd seen all the beds, but now there were these toothbrushes ... and now I could hear people in the house. There was music—a piano, played badly. There were running footsteps and a slamming door. A child shouting, "Hey, no throwing lemons!" And someone giggling wildly, high-pitched, like a maniac.

I pictured goblins hurling lemons at each other, like in some weird fairy tale.

I shut the door of the medicine chest carefully.

"Yoo-hoo!" called Mrs. Cotton's voice up the stairs, and I jumped back from the sink. Slowly I crossed the small room and opened the bathroom door.

"Coming," I squeaked. Then I tried for a normal voice. "Coming!" And I took a deep breath and headed out into the hall and down the last flight of stairs.

First thing I saw was a weird telephone on the wall in the hallway. It looked just like one I'd seen on a field trip to a museum once, without the display case.

I looked frantically around at the dimly lit hallway, the quiet rooms leading off it, the utterly unfamiliar spaces. I didn't know what house I was in, or what town or what state—or anything. I looked back at the telephone. I grabbed the horn and held it to my ear. My finger lifted, wanting buttons to punch. There weren't any. There wasn't even a dial tone, just a woman's nasal voice in my ear saying, "Your exchange, please?"

I didn't know what that meant. I said, very quietly, "I want to make a call. To California. Area code nine-two-five. The number is four-six-five-nine-six—"

I heard a nasal snort in my ear. Then the voice said again, "Your
exchange,
please."

"I'm trying to tell you the number!" I was whispering. But I suspected that no matter what number I asked for, it would never ring a phone at
my
house.

"Speak up, please, I cannot hear you..."

I knew somehow this wasn't going to work. But ... it had to work! Telephones were our lifeline! I'd been taught from the minute I was old enough to remember: In an emergency, push 9-1-1.

Here there was nothing to push.

I took a deep breath, feeling like I couldn't get enough air in this place. But there
was
air—a breeze coming right in from the open front door. It smelled fresh, like lemons.

"We're out on the porch, dear," said the woman's voice from outside.

I hung the receiver gently back on the wall. Then I stuck one hand into my pants pocket to try to look casual—and I found Doug's key chain. I rubbed it for good luck as I opened the screen door and stepped out onto the porch of this old-fashioned house in 1926, somewhere in the world—if it was even the same world anymore.

I felt like Luke Skywalker entering the Death Star.

There were kids on the porch, and at first I couldn't even tell how many there were, the way they were running and leaping around and making so much noise. A frosty glass of lemonade appeared in front of my face, and a voice said, "Here you go, dear. Freshly squeezed."

A little boy careened past me. Mrs. Cotton clapped her hands at him and called out sharply, "Chester! Come over here and meet our new neighbor." Then she patted me on the shoulder. "This is Chester, my youngest and wildest grandchild. And what did you say your name was, dear?"

I took a deep breath, hesitating, thinking maybe telling her my name wasn't a good idea. But then I thought:
What can it hurt? I'm not even born yet.

"I'm Connor," I told them. "Connor Chase." I gave the kid a little smile, all the while darting looks around me. The cars in the street were big and boxy and black, with skinny wheels and running boards. They looked like something right out of an old movie. There were a couple of houses across the street, with big porches like this one. Tears pricked behind my eyes, they really did, when I saw Mount Diablo rising above the hills, right in its usual spot. I was somehow so glad to see it. It meant that even if this was really 1926, at least I was on our own planet Earth, in America, in California—in Shady Grove, even.

I remembered something Mrs. White always said: "
Be grateful for small mercies.
" I looked at the mountain and was very grateful.

If the familiar view of the mountain was anything to go by, then this 1926 house was standing where my house should be. Would one day be? I remembered my dad telling me how our whole housing development had been built on land that was an old neighborhood in a lemon grove. Here and now the wildfire that burned everything down was decades in the future, and the air still smelled of lemons.

"Say hello to Connor," the woman was telling the kids. She pointed at them one by one. "Connor, these wild things are my grandchildren. Betty is thirteen, and Homer is eleven. Elsie is nine, and Chester here is eight. And did I introduce myself? I'm Mabel Cotton—Mrs. Edgar Cotton. But never you mind asking
my
age!"