Sketches (11 page)

“Lots of bags filled with clothes. It'll be a soft night's sleep.”

“Great,” Brent said. He turned to me. “Let me give you a boost.”

“Into there?” I moved back a half a step.

“You got a better idea? It's warm and it's dry.”

“But what if somebody comes? What if they drop something into the box on top of us?”

“The place is closed for the night and the gate is locked up. The only way in here is the way we came, and I can't picture anybody coming in through the fence with a donation,” Brent said.

“But still . . . it's a
clothing drop box
,” I said, emphasizing each word. “We can't sleep in there.”

“I'm telling you we
can
. I've done it dozens of times.” Brent paused. “Look, Dana, my head is hurting really bad. I need to lie down. You coming or not?”

Reluctantly I came forward and Brent bent down again, cupping his hands together. I stepped up and Ashley offered me a hand and I slid, head first, into the box. The slot slammed closed behind me and I was
engulfed in darkness. I felt a surge of panic. Then there was light as the slot opened back up. I looked up and saw Brent's silhouette against the light. He climbed in, and now the slot stayed open.

“I wedged a board in to keep it open,” Brent said.

“Thanks,” I mumbled.

“Once we've got everything sorted out in here we'll close it up so we can sleep.”

“Are you sure we won't get in trouble for sleeping in here?” I asked, apprehensively.

“We won't get in trouble . . . if nobody finds us,” Brent said. He began to chuckle, and it felt so good to hear. “We'll be long gone before they open up in the morning.”

“Besides,” Ashley said, “even if they did catch us they wouldn't do anything.”

“They wouldn't?”

“Nah,” Brent said, shaking his head. “This is the Salvation Army. The worst they'd do is force us to eat breakfast, read to us from the Bible, and try to convince us to stay in their shelter tonight.”

“Sleeping in a shelter wouldn't be so bad,” I said.

“You ever sleep in a shelter?” Brent asked.

“No,” I admitted. “You know that.”

“Believe me, this is better.”

“Are you serious?”

“Well, better than most of them. It's not that they don't try to help,” Brent said.

“Then what's wrong with them?”

“They have lots of rules and they ask lots of questions,” Ashley said.

“What sort of questions?”

“Like, ‘Are you carrying any weapons?' or ‘How old are you?'” Ashley answered.

That would be a problem for me. Things would be easier once I was sixteen—if I
lived
to be sixteen.

“How about if we stop talking and go to sleep,” Brent said.

“Are you sure you should do that?” I asked. “After a head injury you're supposed to be woken up every couple of hours,” I explained.

“You are?”

“Yeah. I remember that from my first aid course at school. Do you want me to wake you up?”

“Yeah. In the morning. Let's get to sleep.” He reached up and adjusted the board holding the slot. It closed almost all the way, with only a sliver of light still coming in. Brent lay down on the far side of the box.

I settled into the bags, my head close to the little shaft of light. I needed to sleep too, but maybe I needed to stay up for a while even more. I'd listen for sounds coming from outside, and even more important, listen for the sounds of Brent sleeping.

CHAPTER NINE

“
DANA
,
YOU
'
RE JUST IN TIME
!” Nicki exclaimed as I walked through the front door.

“In time for what?” I asked anxiously.

“In time to go.”

“Go . . . but I just got here! Are you closed for the day?”

“Open for business, but we're just leaving, and you can come with us.”

“Come with you where?” I asked.

“That would be telling. Come on, trust me,” she said with a smile. “We will be doing some genuine, true, 100 percent street art.”

“What sort of street art?”

Nicki laughed. “Did you come here to play Twenty Questions or do some art?”

“Art.”

“Then shut up and come with us.”

I joined in with the little group—Nicki, Robert, another counsellor, and five kids. Three of them I knew, and the other two I'd seen around before but had never talked to. Two of the guys were carrying large canvas bags.

“That's a nice top,” one of the girls said to me.

“Yeah, really nice,” one of the boys agreed.

“Thanks,” I mumbled.

“Is it new?” Nicki asked.

“Yeah. I picked it up this morning.” That was true. I had picked it up out of one of the bags that were in the drop box with us. We'd been looking for something to replace Brent's blood-stained and ruined shirt, but we'd also found a couple of things that Ashley and I liked. I felt a little bad taking something meant for the Salvation Army, but Brent just laughed and said that they'd be giving them to poor people anyway, and there was hardly anybody who was poorer than us.

Brent had insisted that we put everything we didn't take neatly back into the bags. He made sure that we didn't damage anything or make a mess, because he said we should “respect” the Salvation Army people. He kept talking about how they were doing “God's work,” and he even quoted from the Bible a few times. It was strange. I'd never heard him talk like that before. He sounded like he was some sort of minister or something. It was obvious that he'd spent more than one Sunday in a church somewhere. I wanted to ask,
but I figured that was against the rules. People talked if they wanted to talk.

Brent had looked terrible that morning. His face was bloody and swollen and he was complaining about a bad headache. Ashley wasn't much better. She had lifted up her top to show me the bruises over her ribs, and she winced in pain whenever she tried to take a deep breath. I had wanted to stay with them, but they had told me they were just going to “lie low” all day and that this was a good day for me to “goof off” at the drop-in centre. Besides, I thought maybe I could pick up some food to bring back, even if it was just day old muffins and milk.

Before I left I went and got them coffee and doughnuts. Those thugs hadn't taken all of our money. Brent kept most of the money in his sock—thank goodness. I was going to meet them back at the parking lot around five. I guess that meant we were going to spend another night in the box. Funny, compared to some of the places we'd stayed, the clothing drop box was almost luxurious, like our own private little apartment. I'd felt safe and warm in there.

“How about right here?” Nicki asked as we abruptly came to a stop.

Robert looked around. He was studying something, but I couldn't figure out what. “Looks good to me,” he agreed.

We were standing in a little park at a busy intersection. Traffic zoomed by on both sides, and people— moving almost as fast—bumped along on the sidewalk. I sat down on one of the two benches.

“You haven't even started to work and you're already taking a break?” Nicki said.

I quickly got to my feet, although my legs felt heavy and tired. Actually
all
of me felt heavy and tired. I had hardly slept at all. I'd been worried about Brent and had tried to stay awake to listen for his breathing. Then when I finally did drift off I was haunted by bad dreams. I could see that guy—that look in his eyes, that evil smile—I could hear his laugh, smell his foul breath. I shuddered. Then morning finally arrived and the sun heated up that little metal box so much that it felt like an oven.

“Take this,” Nicki said as she handed me a little whisk broom.

“What do you want me to do with this?”

“Dana, my dear, it's a broom. What do you
think
I want you to do with it?”

“I just don't know what you want me to sweep . . .
why
you want me to sweep.”

“You have to sweep to properly prepare our canvas,” she explained.

“Our canvas? I don't see any canvas . . . is it in one of those bags?”

Nicki laughed. “No. You're standing on it.”
I looked down anxiously. There was nothing beneath my feet except cement.

“The sidewalk is our canvas,” Nicki said.

“We're going to
paint
the sidewalk?” I was having trouble with the concept.

“Not paint. Chalk.”

I went from confused to even more confused.

“You sweep and I'll explain,” Nicki said. “This whole big block of concrete you're standing on is going to be our canvas, and chalk is going to be our medium,” Nicki explained. “You ever use chalk to draw on the sidewalk?”

“When I was a kid.”

“As opposed to the old woman that you are now?” Robert piped up.

“You know what I mean. When I was a
little
kid. I'd use it for hopscotch or writing my name on the driveway.”

“Same idea, but a little more complicated. Show her the book.”

The other counsellor—I didn't know her name— rummaged around in one of the canvas bags and produced a big, thick, glossy-looking book. She handed the book to Nicki, who showed it to me.

“It's an art book,” I said.

“It's an art book filled with the most famous paintings in history. And we're going to reproduce one of those pictures right here on the pavement.”

“We are? How?”

Nicki's brow furrowed. “I thought you could show us how to do it since you've had all that experience using chalk to play hopscotch.”

“Me?” I exclaimed. “I don't know how to . . .”

I let the sentence trail off as Nicki and Robert and the other counsellor broke into broad smiles.

“Don't worry, it's not hard,” Nicki said.

“And we'll walk you guys through it, real slow, step by step. By the end of today you'll be able to do it yourself if you want,” Robert said.

“That's right. You get back to sweeping and we'll get everything set up.”

IT WAS AMAZING
to watch. Right after I finished sweeping Nicki went over the entire square to make sure there wasn't a grain of sand or a speck of dust. She used a large ruler and a measuring tape to make a “frame” on the pavement. The frame was bigger—a lot bigger—than the picture in the book, but in perfect proportion. Then important spots on the painting were measured from the side and marked on the pavement at the same distance from the frame that had already been created.

From there a light outline of faint white chalk was used to start sketching the features of the painting. The other counsellor—I found out her name was Becca— did most of the outlining. Sometimes it looked good
the first time. Other times it was wrong and she rubbed it off and retraced it. After watching the process a couple of times Becca asked me to give it a try. It wasn't hard at all. She even said I had a talent for it. I did seem to be able to do it fairly easily.

Becca was nice. She was young—not really that much older than me or the other kids. She was dressed in overalls and sandals. Her hair, the little bit of fuzz that she had, was a shocking shade of pink. And maybe to make up for the lack of hair she had over a dozen earrings, as well as a nose ring and a lip ring.

The next step involved selecting the right shade of chalk to match the colour of the painting. Once that was done it was about as complicated as using crayons and a colouring book to just fill in the outline.

Quickly the painting—at least the chalk reproduction of the painting—came to life. It was a gigantic copy of the picture in the book: Starry Night, by Vincent Van Gogh. It was a painting that I'd always loved—the way the lights in the sky seem to actually be alive and move. When it was done, it really did look like the original. And even more amazing than watching the painting come to life was that I was part of creating it.

And it wasn't just me who was amazed. People slowed down as they passed. Some stopped for a few seconds or half a minute. Others stayed for a lot longer. People were really friendly. They watched us work, and the book was propped up for us to work from so they
were able to compare our reproduction to the original. They asked questions, or made jokes, or gave us suggestions and compliments. They also gave more than that—they gave money.

Originally I hadn't even noticed the hat sitting beside the painting. That is, I hadn't noticed it until the first coins started dropping in. And of course there weren't just coins. There were bills, including a twenty that was sitting on the top of the pile of change. Every ten or fifteen minutes Nicki or Robert would clean out the money in the hat and slip it into one of the canvas bags. They never removed all of the money, though. Some of the change, and a couple of the bills— including the twenty—were always left behind. Robert said they did that because they wanted people to know that not only were we taking contributions, but we'd be happy to accept
really
big contributions. Both he and Nicki seemed to really know what they were doing.

Speaking of Nicki, where was she? I looked around. I was so occupied by the creation that I hadn't even noticed her leave. She was nowhere to be seen. Then I saw her down the street, walking toward us. She was carrying something. A white plastic bag and some boxes. I watched as she got closer. They looked like pizza boxes! She was carrying pizza! I'd been so immersed in the work that I'd forgotten just how hungry I was.

“Okay, everybody, time to break for lunch,” Nicki sang out.

Everybody stopped working as she set the two boxes down on one of the benches. She opened up one of the boxes, and steam and a delicious pizza smell rose up into the air.

“I hope pepperoni is okay,” she said. “And I brought along juice and pop and water.” She started to unload the drinks from the bag.