Dave at Night by Gail Carson Levine Page A

17
    W HEN WE GOT to our classroom, a man and a woman were in the front of the room, and Mr. Cluck wasn’t there at all. The woman wore trousers. I’d never seen a woman in pants before.
    â€œWho are they?” I asked Mike.
    â€œHe’s Mr. Hillinger, the art teacher. He’s nice, but he’s crazy. I don’t know who she is.”
    I hoped he was better than the art teacher who came around to our class at P.S. 42, who taught us over and over about the color wheel and showed us pictures of what famous artists painted three hundred years ago.
    â€œBoys,” Mr. Hillinger said, “you may remember today for . . . high point of your child—of your life possibly.” He talked so fast I wondered how he breathed. And he never finished what he was saying. He rushed around the room, handing out fat black crayons and big sheets of paper, which he put on the floor next to our desks. “Today . . . draw from a model . . . Heady experience . . . Draw on the floor, because your desks aren’t big enough. Our model is the pretty young . . . in the unusual . . . She’s Miss Hillinger, my sister.”
    Miss Hillinger wasn’t pretty and she wasn’t young. She had straight gray hair, a long face, and baggy cheeks. She looked a lot like Mr. Hillinger.
    â€œ. . . Wearing my best trousers, so you can see what her legs are doing when she poses.”
    Mike started drawing violins in his notebook with his crayon. The twins were whispering. Harvey tapped a rhythm on the top of his desk. Eli read a book hidden in his lap. I watched Mr. Hillinger.
    After he finished giving out the paper, he dug into a brown paper bag and pulled out a newspaper, which he waved at us. “Mine accident in Michigan . . . Jailbreak attempt here in . . . Houdini mourners . . . Better use for this.” He covered Mr. Cluck’s desk with newspaper. Then he put more newspaper across Mr. Cluck’s chair.
    â€œAllow me, dear.” He helped Miss Hillinger step onto Mr. Cluck’s chair and from there onto Mr. Cluck’s desk.
    Standing on a teacher’s desk had to be against every one of the six thousand and twelve rules of the HHB. Mike stopped drawing. The twins stopped whispering. A few kids giggled.
    â€œNow, Miss Hillinger will take . . . and you will draw her. Draw her big. Don’t worry . . . Plenty of paper . . . First pose is three minutes—hurry! On the floor, all of you. Don’t bother with fingers or Miss . . . her nose or her . . . hairstyle.”
    We made a lot of noise getting on the floor. My right heel knocked into the bandage on my leg. It hurt .
    â€œReady, my . . .” Mr. Hillinger said, while pulling his watch out of his pocket.
    â€œReady, Siegfried.” Miss Hillinger put her hands on her hips and twisted to her left, turning her head so she was looking away from us at the blackboard behind her.
    I stared. How could I do a drawing in three minutes?
    â€œGo!” Mr. Hillinger said. “See how she’s turned? Show the twist . . . This is gesture drawing you’re . . . It has a long and respectable . . .”
    I thought of the twist in a pretzel, and I drew a spiral in the middle of the page. Then I looked at Miss Hillinger again. The folds in her blouse sort of followed the spiral I had drawn. I kind of sketched them around it. How much time had gone by? Her feet were apart, and she was leaning on the toe of her right foot. I drew in her legs. Something was wrong. It looked like she was kicking with her right foot.
    â€œ . . . examples by Leonardo and Rem . . . And even Grosz or Picass— Stop. Time’s up . . . Now let me see . . .”
    Miss Hillinger relaxed. Kids were laughing. I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. She didn’t have a head. I put in a circle, which looked all wrong. Then I stopped, since I couldn’t remember exactly how she’d been standing. She didn’t have any arms in my drawing, and she had a circle