Masterpiece (32 page)
Authors: Elise Broach
“Oh!” he heard James cry. “There you are, little guy! Let me give you a ride.” He leapt off the bed and plunked his cast in front of Marvin, grinning.
“What do you think?” he demanded. “It’s pretty great, huh?” The white of the cast was obscured by colorful Magic Marker signatures and doodles. “I got everybody in my class to sign, and about half of Mrs. Kellogg’s class too. They love this thing.”
Marvin clambered onto the cast, and James lifted him up. “Did you get the ink? And the paper? I checked and it was gone, so I guess you did. That way you can keep drawing! And when you need more ink, just leave the cap out in the cupboard and I’ll refill it. Okay?”
Marvin smiled up at him.
James carried him across the room. “I wanted you to come ’cause I have something to show you,” he announced, barely able to hide his excitement. He walked toward the bedroom wall and stopped a few feet away, holding his cast aloft. “Look!”
There, in front of them, was Marvin’s drawing of the street, beautifully matted and framed. It hung next to the window, a tiny replica of the outdoor scene with its streetlamp and tree and rooftop.
Marvin stared at it. This was the drawing he thought
James had sold. To the Mortons, for four thousand dollars. How could it be here, in his room, hanging on the wall like a real picture? Like something that could be in a museum.
“Doesn’t it look great?” James continued happily. “Christina framed it for me. And guess what. She’s going to frame your
Fortitude
, too, and give it to me.
She said it was the least she could do after all my help.” He grinned at Marvin. “All our help.”
Marvin looked at James in amazement. He’d get to see
Fortitude
again, too! He couldn’t wait to show it to Mama and Papa and all of the relatives.
James rested his cast on the wall next to the picture so that Marvin was only inches away from his little cityscape. “You’re surprised, right? You thought we sold it. And we were supposed to, but after what happened to my hand, my mom couldn’t do it. She’s all worried I’ll never be able to make another one. And”—he smiled—“I won’t.”
James flexed his fingers and studied the cast. “Wow, did that hurt! But it worked out okay in the end. You and me, we couldn’t keep making those little drawings, you know? I wish there’d been a way to tell everybody the truth. But it was too hard. And I was afraid of what they might do to you . . . you know?”
Marvin looked up at James, filled with a warm tide of something he’d never felt before. It was more than happiness. More than affection or gratitude. It was something deeper. It was the sense of being seen and loved exactly for who he was.
Not the way his parents loved him, which was as steady and certain as the streetlamp shining outside James’s window each night. This was different: the feeling of being chosen. Out of everybody in the world, Marvin realized, this boy had picked him as the one he liked best of all.
“Anyway,” James was saying, “my mom decided we
couldn’t sell it because it might be my last great masterpiece and we have to hold on to it. She wanted to put it in the living room, of course, because that way more people would see it.”
He laughed. “But it looks good here, don’t you think? It’s like having another window in the wall . . . a really tiny one. And you know what? If
you
had a little bedroom in this same spot, next to mine, this is what you’d see from
your
window.”
Marvin smiled. It was true. It was James’s window in miniature, the perfect scale for a beetle.
“You’ll never guess what I’m doing tonight,” James said, carrying Marvin over to his desk and setting his cast gently on the wood. Marvin climbed down and looked at him expectantly. “I’m having dinner with my dad”—James paused, grinning—“and Christina! They’re taking me out for pizza.” He lowered his voice conspiratorially. “I think my dad likes her.”
Karl and Christina. That fits
, Marvin thought. It would be like a second family for James . . . a different, artistic family.
James laughed suddenly. “You know something? You’re my best friend. Isn’t that funny?”
Marvin beamed up at him.
A great friendship was like a great work of art, he thought. It took time and attention, and a spark of something that was impossible to describe. It was a happy, lucky accident, finding some kindred part of yourself in a total stranger.
There was a knock on the door, and Marvin heard Karl’s voice.
“I have to go now,” James told him, setting him gently on the desk. “Dad’s here. But I’ll see you tomorrow. Or I’ll check for the X behind the wastebasket!”
He got his jacket from the closet and waved at Marvin. “Bye, little guy.”
Marvin lifted one of his legs and waved it in response.
When the room was empty, he crawled to the edge of the desk and looked out the window. He thought of all the things he and James could do together when spring came. They could take long walks. They could go to the park. They could visit the Met with Karl and Christina, and then Marvin could come back to his little studio and make pictures of his own.
Marvin smiled to himself. There was a whole wide world waiting to be explored, and there was nobody he’d rather do it with than James.
A
BOUT THE
A
RT
In this story, all of the background information about Albrecht Dürer and his contemporaries is true, but Dürer’s four
Virtue
drawings are purely a figment of my imagination. Dürer did complete several miniature drawings, in ink, with the level of detail described here. He was also a long-standing admirer of the Italian Renaissance artist Giovanni Bellini, who did a miniature drawing
Fortitude
(the girl wrestling the lion), which is indeed held by the J. Paul Getty Museum in California and is described in this story. It is reproduced below.
Giovanni Bellini,
Fortitude
, about 1470 Pen and brown ink, approximately 3.5 inches square
Courtesy J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
A
BOUT THE
T
HEFT
Except for the thefts of my fictional
Virtue
drawings, all of the art heists described in the book really happened, and there is a special FBI unit focused on the recovery of stolen art. However, for understandable reasons, art museums and law-enforcement agencies are very reluctant to share information about their security practices. The details in this story concerning the theft of
Fortitude
from the Met and the FBI procedures involved are purely fictional.
A
BOUT THE
B
EETLES
Marvin and his family are intended to be a kind of ground beetle, of which there are more than two thousand varieties. Their life span can be as long as three or four years, and though they generally live outdoors, they sometimes wander indoors and remain. Most species don’t fly. They eat a variety of foods and tend to be more active at night.
Dürer,
Stag Beetle
, 1505
Courtesy J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
In a book about friendship, it is a particular pleasure to thank the following people who are such an important part of my life: my editor, Christy Ottaviano, whose careful eye and thoughtful insights have immeasurably improved my work; my sister, Mary Broach, who has a gift for responding to a manuscript as a parent, former kid, and critic simultaneously; and my enormously talented, far-flung group of readers, who are also wonderful friends—Jane Burns, Claire Carlson, Laura Forte, Jane Kamensky, Jill Lepore, and Carol Sheriff. I am very lucky to have them.
I am also grateful to several young readers and listeners—Jane and Margaret Urheim, and Gideon and Simon Leek—for their helpful reactions to a draft of this book. Special thanks to Caroline Meckler for sharing her knowledge of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and to the staff at Holt for doing such a fine job of ushering my books into the world.
Finally, a big and endless thank-you to my family—my husband, Ward Wheeler, and my children, Zoe, Harry, and Grace—for their flexibility, enthusiasm, and support. Years ago at a Chinese restaurant, the fortune in my fortune cookie read: “Your family is one of nature’s masterpieces.” I believe it.
Elise Broach
is the author of the acclaimed novels
Shakespeare’s Secret
and
Desert Crossing
. The idea for
Masterpiece
started when she lost a contact lens down the bathroom sink. She sat on the tile floor for an hour trying to get the pipe loose to no avail and fantasized about how wonderful it would be if a tiny creature could go fetch it. She wrote the first few chapters of the story that night and then didn’t return to it for twenty years. Elise holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in history from Yale University. She lives with her family in Easton, Connecticut.
Kelly Murphy
has illustrated many books for children including
Hush, Little Dragon
. She lives in North Attleboro, Massachusetts.
