Read Online Leon and the Spitting Image by Allen Kurzweil - Free Book Online
Authors: Allen Kurzweil
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have to be postponed. Luckily, I unearthed these handouts from a previous year.”
Leon, as usual, had to wait to receive his assignment. Even so, he had a pretty good sense of what to expect because of the classroom clamor.
“I got a T. rex!”
“Mine’s a pterodactyl!”
“Miss Hagmeyer? This iguanodon
looks
funny. Can I make his spikes spikier?”
“Miss Hagmeyer? I thought hadrosaurs had
webbed
feet. That’s what they said on the Dinosaur Channel.”
“Quiet down, all of you!”
A worksheet eventually fluttered onto Leon’s desk. It said DIPLOCAULUS and showed a picture of a fishlike creature with a head shaped like the point of an arrow. The list of materials indicated that the project required only three pieces of cloth, two of which were exactly the same shape.
The simplicity of the assignment surprised Leon. It almost seemed easier than the first. He decided to find out if his classmates’ dinosaurs were as beginnery as his.
Pretending he needed to sharpen his pencil, Leon walked to the front of the room. As he did, he peeked about.
Lily-Matisse had snagged a triceratops that had
fourteen
pieces, including a nose horn, two side horns, and a jazzy neck frill.
Antoinette had received a complex ten-piece T. rex.
P.W. scored a duck-billed corythosaurus, a fantastic eight-piecer with terrifying body armor.
Lumpkin got a stegosaurus.
At least that makes sense, Leon told himself.Stegosauruses, he knew, were the pea brains of the dinosaur kingdom. But his comfort disappeared when he spied that Lumpkin’s dinosaur required
six
pieces of material
—twice
the number his animile demanded.
By the time Leon returned to his seat, he was feeling thoroughly down. Why couldn’t
he
get spikes or horns or neck frills?
He read through the worksheet. It turned out his animile wasn’t even an actual dinosaur. It was, according to the text, a “weak-limbed, bottom-feeding amphibian.”
Leon knew what Miss Hagmeyer was up to. She had given the cool-looking, complicated dinosaurs to the coordinated students and had stuck him with the beginner’s kit, a three-piece fake.
Miss Hagmeyer tapped the cabinet doors with her needle. “Since we do not know what dinosaur skin actually looks like, I’m allowing everyone to choose his own fabric.”
In the general rush for the cabinet, P.W. tested his earlier theory. “Miss Hagmeyer?” he said. “What about the dinosaur eyes?”
“They’re a mystery, too. That’s why I didn’t put them on the worksheets.”
P.W. beamed. “And why she didn’t put any eyeballs on her cape,” he whispered to Lily-Matisse, who passed the info along to Leon.
This revelation did little to improve Leon’s mood.He hated that his dinosaur was so lame. In fact, Leon was so disappointed that when it was his turn at the cabinet, he settled for the first three scraps he touched: a blue-and-white striped cotton for the top of his diplocaulus, solid green corduroy for the bottom, and a piece of black-and-red polka-dotted material for the mouth.
Two weeks after the start of the second animile project, the finished bin started to fill. Lily-Matisse’s triceratops was the trash can’s first occupant. Antoinette’s T. rex soon followed. P.W. deposited his corythosaurus a couple of days later. Even Lumpkin binned his pea-brained stegosaurus.
Leon lagged behind. Once again, everything seemed to go wrong. The first time he tried stitching the body together, he sewed the inside of the cotton to the outside of the corduroy.
Miss Hagmeyer made him start over.
The second time around, he matched the two halves correctly, but ripped through the head of the diplocaulus by pushing too hard with the tongs.
“What did you expect?” MissHagmeyer said sourly. “Those tongs were never meant for that purpose.” She took him over to the finished bin and tapped her boot against the side.
“I have a math problem for you, Mr. Zeisel. Are you ready?”
“I guess,” Leon said.
“A class has
Leon, as usual, had to wait to receive his assignment. Even so, he had a pretty good sense of what to expect because of the classroom clamor.
“I got a T. rex!”
“Mine’s a pterodactyl!”
“Miss Hagmeyer? This iguanodon
looks
funny. Can I make his spikes spikier?”
“Miss Hagmeyer? I thought hadrosaurs had
webbed
feet. That’s what they said on the Dinosaur Channel.”
“Quiet down, all of you!”
A worksheet eventually fluttered onto Leon’s desk. It said DIPLOCAULUS and showed a picture of a fishlike creature with a head shaped like the point of an arrow. The list of materials indicated that the project required only three pieces of cloth, two of which were exactly the same shape.
The simplicity of the assignment surprised Leon. It almost seemed easier than the first. He decided to find out if his classmates’ dinosaurs were as beginnery as his.
Pretending he needed to sharpen his pencil, Leon walked to the front of the room. As he did, he peeked about.
Lily-Matisse had snagged a triceratops that had
fourteen
pieces, including a nose horn, two side horns, and a jazzy neck frill.
Antoinette had received a complex ten-piece T. rex.
P.W. scored a duck-billed corythosaurus, a fantastic eight-piecer with terrifying body armor.
Lumpkin got a stegosaurus.
At least that makes sense, Leon told himself.Stegosauruses, he knew, were the pea brains of the dinosaur kingdom. But his comfort disappeared when he spied that Lumpkin’s dinosaur required
six
pieces of material
—twice
the number his animile demanded.
By the time Leon returned to his seat, he was feeling thoroughly down. Why couldn’t
he
get spikes or horns or neck frills?
He read through the worksheet. It turned out his animile wasn’t even an actual dinosaur. It was, according to the text, a “weak-limbed, bottom-feeding amphibian.”
Leon knew what Miss Hagmeyer was up to. She had given the cool-looking, complicated dinosaurs to the coordinated students and had stuck him with the beginner’s kit, a three-piece fake.
Miss Hagmeyer tapped the cabinet doors with her needle. “Since we do not know what dinosaur skin actually looks like, I’m allowing everyone to choose his own fabric.”
In the general rush for the cabinet, P.W. tested his earlier theory. “Miss Hagmeyer?” he said. “What about the dinosaur eyes?”
“They’re a mystery, too. That’s why I didn’t put them on the worksheets.”
P.W. beamed. “And why she didn’t put any eyeballs on her cape,” he whispered to Lily-Matisse, who passed the info along to Leon.
This revelation did little to improve Leon’s mood.He hated that his dinosaur was so lame. In fact, Leon was so disappointed that when it was his turn at the cabinet, he settled for the first three scraps he touched: a blue-and-white striped cotton for the top of his diplocaulus, solid green corduroy for the bottom, and a piece of black-and-red polka-dotted material for the mouth.
Two weeks after the start of the second animile project, the finished bin started to fill. Lily-Matisse’s triceratops was the trash can’s first occupant. Antoinette’s T. rex soon followed. P.W. deposited his corythosaurus a couple of days later. Even Lumpkin binned his pea-brained stegosaurus.
Leon lagged behind. Once again, everything seemed to go wrong. The first time he tried stitching the body together, he sewed the inside of the cotton to the outside of the corduroy.
Miss Hagmeyer made him start over.
The second time around, he matched the two halves correctly, but ripped through the head of the diplocaulus by pushing too hard with the tongs.
“What did you expect?” MissHagmeyer said sourly. “Those tongs were never meant for that purpose.” She took him over to the finished bin and tapped her boot against the side.
“I have a math problem for you, Mr. Zeisel. Are you ready?”
“I guess,” Leon said.
“A class has
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