Brilliant Hues (6 page)

D
ad was working at home today, and Grant was over to walk Higgins, so the kitchen was crowded at lunch. Mom, Dad, Grant, and I sat at the table eating sandwiches. Higgins chowed down on a rawhide bone, since technically he only ate breakfast and dinner.

I ripped off some lettuce and nibbled, wondering how to make Grant smile again. Yesterday at the movies, he’d seemed almost human. If I could make him smile in front of my parents, that would be a true victory.

While I was still weighing options, Dad’s cell phone rang. He made an apologetic face and pushed back in his chair.

“I’m sorry, who is this?” After listening for a moment, he shook his head. “No. I have no statement. The case is confidential.”

Anger tightened at the corner of his lips as he continued to listen.

“I’m sorry to hear that. No. I have no public statement.” He hung up, put the phone back into his pocket, and took his nearly uneaten sandwich to the sink.

“Where are you going?” Mom asked.

“I need to go back to the office,” Dad said. “Grant, can you please stay tonight until I’m home? It may be after dinner. Call for take out or something, Cindy. And save me some, please.”

He kissed her on the top of her head, grabbed an apple and headed for the door, not looking at me once. I twisted my napkin, trying to keep my face neutral. He couldn’t know about the elevator, could he? I hadn’t even thought about possible security tapes. Someone could have seen Karl and said something to Dad. Was that why he was hurrying off to work?

“Wait, Matthew,” Mom said. “Who was that? What did they want?”

I couldn’t look at him, could hardly breathe.

But Dad only sighed. “I’ll tell you when I get home. It’s a mess.”

The kitchen door swung behind him and he was gone.

Grant picked up his sandwich, which, like everything, looked miniature in his huge hands. “I’ll pick up food later.”

I smoothed out my napkin. Like I could eat after all that.

“Not hungry, Sadie?” Mom asked.

“May I be excused?” I asked.

She nodded, and I went upstairs to wait for Grant to finish eating. I flopped onto my bed and closed my eyes.

I’m scared
.

The prayer, which was not much of a prayer, came out sharp and surprising. Everything had been happening so fast and I hadn’t taken time to be quiet, to pray. For me, the best way to quiet my mind and talk with God was to draw. Last year, no matter how bad things became, drawing had been my anchor. I’d begun to need to draw the way I needed to breathe. The smell of charcoal and the sound of stroke after stroke on paper calmed me until I could gather all my questions and thoughts and worries, and dump them all out on the page, so I could see them clearly. And as I did, tiny thoughts slipped into my mind, thoughts I hadn’t considered before. They calmed me and helped me see myself and even the rest of the world differently. Maybe I couldn’t hear God’s voice, exactly, but I’d begun to recognize these thoughts, the tone and feeling of them, and knew they were from God.

Drawing this way, opening up, was scary, too. I’d likely learn the truth about my feelings, even truths I had hidden from myself. Like my prayer. I’d been working too hard to cover up my secrets; I hadn’t admitted to myself that I was scared, too.

I took out my sketchbook and drew quickly, little snippets of whatever flashed to mind: Andrew throwing a stick into the creek for Sink-the-Boat, Pippa running on the beach, Ruth eating ice cream at Black Bear Java, Vivian
adding ceramics to one of her sculptures. I wasn’t afraid of any of these things, so why were these images coming to mind, instead of Karl, or Dad totally furious with me? Maybe I was afraid I’d never be happy like that again. My life would continue to get worse and worse, like a bad movie, with Grant, the muscle man, shadowing me everywhere I went. Dad, in the middle of huge trouble at work. Me, hiding a million secrets that weren’t entirely my fault, while trying to fit back into my life here. Deep down, I knew I’d have to eventually tell Dad about Karl, or he’d find out on his own. He’d find out about Charlotte and camp, too. And I’d be grounded for life, locked up in my house with my sick mom and the bodyguard.

“Ready, Sadie?” Grant called up to me.

When I came downstairs, he already had Higgins leashed up and ready to go.

Mom stood in the hallway, nervously straightening the pictures on the wall. “If you see anyone suspicious, call me right away.”

“Okay, Mom,” I said. “But you’re not supposed to answer the phone.”

Mom fluttered her hand impatiently. “I can answer if it’s Grant’s number. And keep your eyes open, Sadie.”

“I will.”

Mom gave me a once over. “Maybe you shouldn’t go today. Should I call Dad and ask?”

“Mom, I need air. You can’t keep me cooped up inside all the time. And I’ll be with Grant. And Higgins.”

“We’ll be all right,” Grant said. “I promise. See you in about half an hour, Cindy.”

Higgins took off the minute Grant opened the door, and I nearly had to run to keep up with them. We turned left out of the driveway and lurched along the wide embankment between the two-lane road and the redwood forest as Higgins darted after every squirrel. Our house wasn’t really in a neighborhood. Woodside was more like a forest that had been tamed every half-mile or so to allow for a house.

“Did anyone train him?” Grant asked as Higgins yanked his arm yet again.

“He grew up in a real forest, and I gave up on leashing him. He’s addicted to squirrels.”

“I see that,” Grant said, his elusive smile playing at the edges of his mouth.

He tugged on the leash. “Sit, Higgins.”

Higgins sat, immediately, and I stared, “How did you do that?”

“Here, you take the leash.” Grant handed over the leash and traded me places. “Stand on his right, and give him a little slack with his leash. If it’s tight, he’ll always pull.”

I let the leash out a bit.

“Now say, ‘heel,’ and start walking. The minute he pulls, stop, and make him sit again.”

I took two steps and Higgins was already tugging at the end of his leash. “He doesn’t know this command.”

“No, but he’ll learn. As you go, give the leash little tugs
and remind him to heel. When he walks beside you, give him a treat.” Grant passed me a handful of small treats.

I started up again, tugging and telling Higgy to heel. The second he started prancing along beside me, I laid on the encouragement thick, telling him what a good dog he was and gave him a treat. He tilted his head and cocked an ear, his classic are-you-nuts look. We started up again, and he heeled for a good fifteen seconds. I gave him another treat.

“He’s smiling at you,” Grant said. “And catching on.”

We did the heel-treat thing until my treats were gone and my arm muscles ached.

“Okay, your turn.” I handed the leash back to Grant.

Higgins was far from a perfect walker, and he lost focus every time something rustled in the underbrush, but at least I could keep up with him and Grant now. If only every problem were as easy to solve. I felt like I might explode with all the secrets building up inside me, knowing that Dad might come home totally furious. Still, I wasn’t ready to talk about Karl. Maybe if I talked to Grant about one of my other million problems, I’d start to get a grip.

“What do you think of Margo?” I asked, the question nearly bursting out of me. “You know, the girl who dropped the earrings in Bri’s purse?”

After a pause, Grant said, “She’s angry about something.”

I stopped walking. “Why do you say that?”

“You can tell by the way she stands, the way she walks. Like with Higgins. You can see stubbornness in his body
language. He clearly wants to do things his own way, but he also wants to please. All this heeling and giving treats wouldn’t work if Higgins were angry. We’d have to train him a totally different way.”

There was no way that the solution to fixing Margo was like training a dog.

Still, I couldn’t help asking, “So, uh … how would you train a dog if it were angry?”

“First you’d have to convince the dog you were a friend,” Grant said.

All I could think about was Karl. “Can I tell you something?”

Grant didn’t answer. He just looked at me, waiting for whatever I would say.

I chickened out. “My friends do this thing where they try to stop people like Margo from pushing them around, by intimidating them or threatening them. And I know it’s wrong, what my friends are doing, but I can’t ask them to sit back and let Margo treat them like that, either.”

Grant nodded, and when he didn’t offer advice, I started walking again. It felt good to talk, even if I wasn’t telling him about Karl.

“In Owl Creek, this girl, Frankie, picked on me from the minute I arrived for no good reason. But like you said, she was super angry about a lot of things that mostly didn’t have to do with me. And after a while, a long couple months, she and I started to work things out.”

Grant had Higgins totally under control as we walked side by side. “What changed?”

“Her dad forced her to pretend to be my friend, but while she was pretending, we actually got to know one another, and we realized we’d made unfair assumptions about each other. And then, when the truth came out about her dad, we had to learn how to trust one another.”

“Not everyone can end up friends in the end, though,” Grant said.

“No.” I kicked a pinecone out of the path. “I can’t imagine Juliet and Margo becoming friends.”

“Still, mutual respect might be possible.”

I nodded, tucking this away to think about later. Maybe it was possible to find a solution that didn’t involve ganging up on Margo. I could try to figure one out at least. And maybe eventually, Dad could help Tyler and Karl find some mutual respect, too.

I looked across the road at the giant house coming up on our right, white pillars and all. I’d almost forgotten to look for doors. Not that door, though. Too stuffy.

A small winding road led off to our left, lined with smaller houses that looked like cabins and giant redwood trees.

“Can we go that way?” I asked.

Grant glanced up the road, probably assessing risk. Then, he gave a small nod and turned. Somewhere, one of these houses had to have a door worth painting. I’d even settle for
a creaky old gate as long as it was interesting. And had good texture. With paint, texture mattered.

We rounded a corner and there, tucked into the trees, was a house entirely covered in ivy. The door had been painted red once, but now was weatherworn and peeling. I stopped and stared.

Grant stopped a hundred yards beyond me, realizing I wasn’t with him. “What?”

“Can I borrow your phone?”

He hurried back. “Do you see something?”

“No, I just need a picture of that door. Tell me a family of dwarves doesn’t live there.”

Grant looked at me like I’d grown an extra ear. “A family of what?”

“Never mind. So can I borrow your phone?”

He handed it over and I snapped a picture of the door.

Grant checked his watch. “We should start back, so your mom doesn’t worry.”

Okay by me. Now that I’d found the door, I couldn’t wait to dip my brush into paint.

“You take Higgins again,” Grant said. “It’s good practice.”

I
had never seen so many kids before in my life. Okay maybe that was an exaggeration. Still, there were literally kids everywhere, bouncing off the walls, drawing self portraits on the tables, and playing some form of crawl-tag under the tables.

“Oh good, you’re here,” Jess said. “The natives are getting restless.”

I scanned the room. I was supposed to teach these kids how to draw? How was that even possible?

“Beetle,” Jess called over the din.

Suddenly, amazingly, they all stopped, turned to her, and shouted, “Face!”

They all made crazy faces with fingers wiggling like antennae for about ten seconds and then dropped obediently into chairs, as though they were the best behaved group of kids you’ve ever seen.

Jess grinned. “Impressive. Ten more beetle-faces like that and you’ll win your Popsicle party.”

“Who’re they?” asked a boy whose cheeks were still streaked with chalk from making self-portraits.

“These are our art teachers,” Jess said. “Miss Sadie and Miss Pippa.”

“But I’m more of a helper than a teacher,” Pips chimed in.

Right. Like I was the teacher of the two of us.

“Today you’re going to make a drawing that tells us a little about you,” Pips used the smart board pens to draw a simple example. She started with a curved v to represent a bird. “If I could be any kind of animal, I’d be a bird. I like to see everything and know everything that is going on, so I know I’d love to fly. If my bird could live anywhere, she would live at the beach.” Pips added a scalloped wave to the bottom of the picture, and then handed me the pen. “My friends would all be good at different things. Sadie, can you draw a crab and an otter?”

Right. Put
me
on the spot for the hard part. I drew a rough outline of an otter on its back, and added a rock for the crab to lounge on.

Pips went on. “The otter would make me laugh, and the crab would help us gather food with his pinchers.”

Kids hands shot up all across the room.

“I’d be a giraffe because I want to be taller than everyone else. But I’d have a mouse friend who sat on my head, so she’d really be the tallest of all. I’d help her.”

“I’d be a dog and I’d be good at all kinds of tricks. And
I’d work at a library so I could go fetch all the books that people wanted.”

“I’d be a kangaroo who hopped higher than anyone on the trampoline. And I’d join the circus.”

How did they think of these things? I took out paper and pencils. No need for me to show more examples. There were ready to go.

“But I don’t know how to draw an elephant,” a little girl with two bright red pigtails said.

To tell the truth, I’d have a hard time drawing an elephant off the top of my head. “Um …” And then I remembered the shelves of picture books Jess had shown us in her office.

“Jess, could we borrow some of your picture books?”

“Sure. I’ll go get some.” She hurried out, leaving us alone with the kids.

It was fine. We’d be fine. Pips gave me an encouraging look, and I tried to smile back.

I cleared the smart board page. “You can look in the books for examples of the animals you want to draw. Then, look for the main shapes. For instance, an elephant needs a big round body …” I drew an oval, and then added to my picture as I explained. “You’d need four rectangle legs, and a roundish head, and a rope-like tail.”

“What about the ears?” As soon as I saw his cape, I knew he must be Fritz.

I held up my pen, and then paused. I didn’t want to admit I had no idea how to draw the ears, but I probably couldn’t stall until Jess returned with the books.

“You know what,” I said finally. “I can’t picture the ears. That’s why the books are so helpful. When Jess gets back, I’ll find an elephant picture and add ears.”

One of the girls smiled shyly at me. I think she was Isabel, the girl Jess said never spoke. Maybe admitting I didn’t know everything wasn’t the worst thing in the world.

Pips and I passed out paper and distributed cups of colored pencils, and just as all the kids were settled, Jess came back with books.

“Miss Sadie,” the little girl with pigtails called. “Help me find a picture of an elephant.”

“I need an alligator!” the boy with the chalky cheeks shouted.

Pips and I hurried around the room helping the kids find books and draw their animals.

“Miss Sadie.” Charlotte waved me over to the bookshelf. “I can’t find a book with tulips.”

We flipped through book after book, and I found roses, violets, and daisies. Charlotte found lupines and lilies.

“Cici likes tulips,” Charlotte insisted, her eyes bright. “And anyway, the flowers under her window are tulips, so that’s what I’m going to draw.”

She took my hand and led me back to her table. When she sat down, she took a scrap piece of paper and started sketching. After her first and second try, she tilted her head to look at her flowers.

“They should look softer,” she finally said.

Smart girl. Her tulips were roughly the right shape, but she had trouble making the curves smooth.

“Maybe if you held your pencil a little more loosely,” I suggested.

She tried again, and beamed up at me. “Yes!”

I’d worn that look before, many times, after Vivian had taught me some trick or other—pure happiness. I grinned and slid the fresh sheet of paper in front of her.

“I can’t wait to see your field of tulips.”

Three other kids were calling for me, so I hurried away to help. The class kept us so busy that I still hadn’t drawn my elephant ears by the time the kids started finishing and waving their papers in the air, wanting Pips and me to come see.

Jess called out again, “Beetle!”

“Face,” they all answered, made silly faces, and went dead silent again.

“Just nine more,” Jess said. “Getting close now. When you’re done with your drawings, bring them up to the carpet area. We’ll share them all together.”

It took about four minutes for the kids to settle in at the carpet area and put their papers on the floor in front of them. Most of their drawings had odd shapes and lumps, but I was astonished by their ideas. Charlotte had drawn a butterfly in her field of tulips, and said if she were a butterfly, she could sit outside her sister’s hospital window. Jake, a boy who barely spoke through the entire lesson, said he’d be a lion so he could hang out with any animal in the forest. Isabel wouldn’t share, but she had drawn herself as an alligator. I’d have to ask her about that sometime. Fritz refused to be an animal, and instead drew himself with a cape. He
also insisted that I draw my elephant ears before they left for the day. I did, and then Jess lined the class up for their next activity.

“This will be so good for them,” Jess said, as the kids followed another teacher out of the room.

“I wasn’t sure they’d even understand the assignment,” I said. “But they’re amazing.”

“People think six and seven year olds aren’t deep thinkers, but that’s because they don’t take the time to really listen to kids.” Jess said. “You girls did an excellent job today.”

“Can we go wait in the parking lot for Grant?” I asked.

Jess rubbed her nose, looking uncomfortable. “I wish I could say yes, but I promised your mom I’d keep you inside until Grant came in for you.”

I made a face. “He’ll scare all the little kids.”

“It will be okay,” Pips said quickly. “We can just clean up in here and then prep for our next lesson while we wait.”

Jess picked up her keys. “Okay. Thanks for everything, girls. I really am impressed.”

As she left, I slumped into a chair.

“What’s wrong, Sades? Didn’t you think that went well?” Pips asked.

I didn’t know where to start. “I don’t want you missing out on everything because of me.”

“Sadie, I’m the one who suggested coming to this camp. I want to be here. You’re the one who wasn’t sure about all the little kids, remember?”

What I really needed to talk about was Karl. But when I

opened my mouth to tell her, I stopped. Ruth and Andrew were already worried, and it wasn’t really fair to make Pips worry too. I needed to ‘fess up to Dad. No more stalling or putting it off. And I’d tell him about Charlotte, too.

“Have you heard from the girls?” I asked. “About Margo?”

“Bri called me last night and said she didn’t have a plan yet. Margo hasn’t cheated yet, or anything.” Pips almost sounded disappointed.

“But that would be good, wouldn’t it?” I asked. “If she didn’t cheat, and Bri can win fair and square?”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Pips didn’t sound very sure. “Anyway, we’re all getting together at Juliet’s house tomorrow night to talk about it. You’ll come, right?”

“Yeah, okay.” Now I was the one who didn’t sound sure. Maybe Margo would surprise them all, and the whole thing would just go away, and I would have one less problem to deal with. I could hope, at least.

“So what will we do tomorrow?” I asked.

Pips sat down with me. “I like Jess’ idea about picture books.”

“Oooh, yeah, me too.” Now that I’d seen the kids in action, I could hardly wait to see what kinds of stories they’d write.

We started sketching out plans while we waited for Grant. After about fifteen minutes, he opened the classroom door, his face even blanker than usual.

“Let’s go, girls.”

“Is something wrong?” I asked.

“A film crew showed up outside, but they’re distracted right now, so we need to go now.”

I didn’t like the sound of this. I put my notebook in my bag, and hurried down the hall behind Grant. “What, like a news reporter?”

“I think she’s filming a documentary.” Grant didn’t offer any more information.

When we opened the church’s front doors, a burst of noise met us. Three cameramen stood with bright lights aimed at a rumpled looking guy who had wrinkled clothes, mussed hair, and dark circles under his eyes, as though he hadn’t slept for days. Jess stood behind him at the doors, her arm draped protectively across Charlotte’s shoulders. A woman in tall heels held a microphone toward the guy she’d apparently trapped on the stairs.

“Do you have a statement, Mr. Walker?”

The man looked from one microphone to the other, and then back at Charlotte, who was wide-eyed, looking scared.

“I’ll be happy to give you a statement in your studio, tomorrow. Right now, I need to take my daughter home.” Mr. Walker, who must be Tyler, handed one of them his card, and then stepped away, scooping Charlotte up into his arms.

She buried her face in his neck as he brushed past the camera crews.

“Keep walking.” Grant slipped behind Pips and me and didn’t stop until we had climbed safely into the Hummer and closed the doors. He didn’t turn the engine on right
away. Instead, he watched the camera crew load up into their trucks, watching the parking lot.

“Who are you looking for?” I asked.

Grant ignored my question. “Did you know Tyler’s daughter was in camp?”

Pippa and I exchanged a look.

“Yes.” My voice sounded small.

Grant studied my face, his own expression impossible to read. “I promised to protect you, Sadie. I can’t do that if you lie to me.”

“She didn’t lie,” Pippa protested. “It was just—”

Grant’s voice cut through Pippa’s. “Do you understand me, Sadie?”

Pippa went still by my side while I picked miserably at my fingernails.

“Yes,” I finally said.

“I’ll fix this, then,” Grant said.

“Actually, I need to talk to Dad,” I said. “I’ll tell you both everything tonight.”

Grant eyed me in the mirror, but didn’t press me to say more. In fact, no one said anything for the rest of the ride home.