Sketchy Behavior (2 page)

C
RISPIX HAS TO BE THE BEST CEREAL EVER. IT IS LIKE A
race to see who wins breakfast — will you get them all eaten before they get soggy? Or will they win out when your dumb dog puts her giant head on your lap and slobbered all over your brand-new skirt?

“Lolly!” I shouted, mashing at her head until she finally moved her big drooly face. “No!” I looked down and there was a big huge patch of slime oozing on my skirt.

Fabulous.

“What’s wrong, Kate?” Mom asked, running into the kitchen. It was nearly eight and Mom was trying to put in her earrings while simultaneously pouring her coffee into a travel mug.

It didn’t work out too well.

“Crumb!” Mom said, which is her version of swearing. She swiped at the coffee blob on the counter before looking at me. “Sorry, Katie-Kin, I have an appointment at eight fifteen.”

She kissed me on the forehead and left, yelling, “Lock the doors!” behind her.

The house was completely silent. And there was still a big slimy splotch on my skirt.

When I was a kid, I once read a story about this little girl who was an only child. Her parents worked and she had to walk four
miles home from school every day by herself, and she made up all these adventures.

Mom said that the little girl must have had some version of schizophrenia brought on by the stress of being six and having to stay alone all the time. Dad said that instead of having “adventures,” she could have been doing her homework so she could have skipped a few grades and left her loser parents behind while she went to college sooner.

I said, “Hey, Dad, I’m home a lot by myself.”

And Dad said, “I think I still have some of my old calculus textbooks in the garage.”

I never said another word about being home alone after that. Dad has been known to bring flash cards to the table.

So I cleaned up my bowl of soggy Crispix and decided to go hungry rather than pour another bowl. And I exchanged the slobbery skirt for jeans.

This was why I never looked cute at school.

Not like it really mattered whether I looked cute or not. We had to run three miles every day in gym. Our crazy gym teacher, Mr. Hannigan, told us that the most responsible thing we can do for our human bodies is run. And when he said run, he meant run until your feet were bleeding and you were coughing for mercy.

But when we pleaded and cried for mercy, he just told us this story about a woman who was saved from some horrible avalanche or mudslide or whatever because she was like this long-distance running champion. And then Mr. Hannigan told us we would all die in the mudslide.

I might die in the mudslide, but when they uncovered my preserved body thousands of years later, they wouldn’t find calluses so deep on my feet that they hadn’t even started decomposing.

I got to school with a few minutes to spare, so I headed on into art. It was so early that Miss Yeager wasn’t even in the room yet.

How come our principal, Mr. Murray, couldn’t see me now?

I sighed and plopped into my seat.

Silent Justin was already there. He was sitting there with his sketchpad and pencils all laid out on the table and two erasers on each side of the pad.

“Good morning, Justin,” I said.

I thought he grunted, but I guess I’d never know.

Supposedly, Justin didn’t always used to be silent. I’ve heard that all freshman and sophomore years, he was like the school chatterbox. But then this year he walked through the doors to SWF High’s first day of school without saying a thing, and nobody had heard a word from him since.

Maddy said that she thinks Justin joined some cult during the summer that made him take a vow of silence.

And then my friend Aubrey said she heard that Justin went to Bosnia or somewhere all weird like that and he ate the food and his tongue got all infected and they had to amputate it.

I’d seen him lick his lips in art class, so I was pretty sure he still had a tongue.

I looked over at him and watched him stare at his sketchpad, at the chalkboard, at the lights, and back at his sketchpad.

“So did you hear about this John X guy?” I asked.

Allison Northing slid into her seat just then. “Hi, guys. Oh my gosh, I heard that the school board decided to repaint all the lockers a horrible green color next year, can you believe that? I mean, green. Green? Our school colors are black and red! It totally doesn’t fit.”

She pulled her sketchpad and pencils out while she talked. Allison has always been slightly fascinated with the lockers. Every time we had to draw something freestyle, she drew a row of lockers.

Everyone went through an “Awed with the Lockers” phase when we first got to SWF High, because our one and only junior high did not have lockers, but still. It had been three years — maybe she could start finding other stuff more interesting.

Justin just looked at her. I opened my mouth to be polite and respond, but Miss Yeager walked in right then.

“Okay, class, get settled.” She had this super-excited look on her face and her cheeks were all flushed like she just made a homemade organic face mask with strawberries. My mother said that the antioxidants in strawberries could do wonders for your skin.

Miss Yeager said, “I have a very important visitor here today. We’re going to be discussing how art can be used in the real world and so I asked Detective Masterson to share a little bit about the field of criminal sketches.”

She turned and nodded to the doorway, where a tall guy who looked vaguely like a tougher and less-girly-looking Orlando Bloom stood.

That explained the strawberry face mask.

“Uh, hello,” Detective Masterson said. He stepped all the way inside the classroom and took the seat of horror in front of the class. Pete Faraelli picked up his pencil to start sketching him and Miss Yeager told him not to.

“We’re not sketching Detective Masterson, Peter. You can put the pencil down.”

“Right, right, right,” Detective Masterson said. “Don’t draw me.” Only he said it like
don’t drawl me
, because Detective Masterson was apparently not from around here.

Missourians had their own weird way of saying things, but we didn’t stretch words out that weren’t meant to be stretched.

“So I’m supposed to, uh, talk about criminal sketches. I’m a detective with the SWF police, but I actually spent my first five years with the force doing criminal sketches. Kelly … uh, I mean, Miss Yeager, asked me to come down here and give a little example of what a criminal sketch artist would do.”

He looked nervously at Miss Yeager, and she smiled too brightly. Miss Yeager was very passionate and excited about art, but she was not usually overdramatic about it.

“Yes,” she said. “And today we have a special exercise, so everyone get your pencils ready.” She looked expectantly at Detective
Masterson. “Would you like to explain a little bit of the nuts and bolts of this procedure?”

“Yeah,” Detective Masterson said. “Forensic sketch artists, or criminal sketch artists, are usually part of the interview team when we are talking to witnesses. Uh, you need to know how to ask good questions, because usually the witnesses are so emotionally battered they can’t really think straight.”

“Wow,” Miss Yeager said.

Allison raised her hand. “You mean questions about the bad guy?”

Detective Masterson almost flinched at the words
bad guy
. “Yeah. Uh, so, I’m going to show you a quick demonstration, and then Miss Yeager is going to have you guys do an exercise, I think.”

Miss Yeager nodded. “Yes, that’s right.”

Detective Masterson picked up a Sharpie and walked over to the huge sketchpad that covered almost one side of the classroom. “Typically, you want to start with the gender and an approximate age. Next, work your way down from the forehead to the chin, ending with the details.”

He wrote each point out on the paper. “If you’re observant and you’re skilled at drawing, this can be a great job. Uh, I had a lot of fun with this back when I was forensic sketch artist. You feel like you’re really contributing to the case, you know? I once helped slam a guy who used to be a pharmacist and then sold drugs on the black market.”

I raised my hand. “Better money?”

Detective Masterson nodded. “Fewer hours too.”

“More nights and weekends, though,” I said.

“True.” He gave me kind of a half-grin. “So, I think you guys are going to do some kind of a practice of this.”

“Yes, you are going to have a chance to practice this.” Miss Yeager picked up a folder from her desk. “I want you all to pay attention and do your best. This is a very valid field for those of you who are talented at art.”

“Definitely valid field,” Detective Masterson hummed.

Miss Yeager started reading. “Male. Around thirty-five.”

Allison immediately started drawing.

I kept listening.

“Short dark hair, widow’s peak. Wide forehead. Wide eyebrows. Brown eyes. Five o’clock shadow and a square chin. High cheekbones.”

Silent Justin began sketching.

“Nose is long, but not skinny. Lips are thin, but not too thin.” Miss Yeager looked at me now. I glanced back, but mostly I just kept staring at the floor in front of Detective Masterson’s shoes, listening.

Miss Yeager continued. “Eyes are small in comparison to the rest of his face. Wears wire-framed glasses.”

Allison began erasing.

Miss Yeager looked around the room and everyone was already sketching. Except for me.

“Do you need to know anything else, Kate?” she asked.

“Teeth. Are they straight?”

Detective Masterson looked at the paper Miss Yeager was holding. “Doesn’t say.” He looked back at me. “But they didn’t mention the teeth either when it came to the pharmacy school guy.”

I nodded. “Pharmacy school is expensive.”

“Nothing compared to braces.” He shrugged. “So I imagined straight teeth. Think about the guy’s face and then see what comes to your mind.”

I closed my eyes.

Pharmacy school was stuck in my head. Mike had a friend who wanted to go to pharmacy school. He was a little straggly guy who looked for all the world like he would blow away with the next windstorm. He always had his hands in his pockets and he talked with a permanent
um
sound. “Um-hi, um-Mrs. um-Carter, um-Mike um-invited um-me um-for um-dinner.”

It got annoying.

Dad told Mike that if he ever brought “Um-Chris” back to dinner, we would need a full day’s warning.

I started sketching.

I decided to start with his chin. Square chin. Not too many guys have square chins anymore. I like square chins.

I snuck a quick peek and, yup, Silent Justin had a square chin.

For a person to have a square chin and high cheekbones, they would need a seriously dramatic jawline. So I gave the sketch a dramatic jawline. And sprinkled it with some of the five o’clock shadow Miss Yeager mentioned. Sort of à la Matt Damon.

The bell was ringing way too soon.

“Okay, class, please turn in your drawings before you go,” Miss Yeager said. She and Detective Masterson spent the whole class quietly whispering.

She still looked like she had on the strawberry face mask.

“So cute,” Allison hissed, nodding toward Miss Yeager before she left to go turn in her paper.

I packed up my pencils.

It wasn’t that I
didn’t
think it was cute. It’s just I thought it was overrated. Look at what happened with Maddy and Tyler. Detective Masterson could have been over the age of thirty-two and therefore dateable for Miss Yeager, but still. Was it really worth it?

I had no good luck with guys. My one dating experience was labeled “Do Not Speak of Ever Ever Ever.”

So. I didn’t speak of it. Ever.

I handed my paper to Miss Yeager.

She smiled at me. “Thanks, Kate.”

“You’re welcome, Miss Yeager. You are the best teacher at this school. I appreciate your honest desire to teach us the proper techniques for art.”

Miss Yeager narrowed her eyes at me, but flushed more. “Compliments don’t buy A’s.”

“But they might buy lunch,” I said, nodding to Detective Masterson.

She blushed even more, and this time the detective joined her.

“Kate!” Miss Yeager gasped as I left.

The hallway between classes is always packed. South Woodhaven Falls was quickly becoming one of the best, albeit smallest, suburbs of St. Louis.

I pushed slowly through the throng and finally ended up at my locker. All around me people were talking on cell phones or laughing with their friends.

I grabbed my algebra book.

My mother was always concerned that at school I was a loner. I told her that there were not very many logical people left in my school to talk to, which was when Dad busted into the hallelujah chorus. When I was a freshman, I hung out with all of the juniors and seniors.

Now I was a junior, and all the seniors were so wrapped up in what the theme of prom was going to be, we had nothing in common.

I told Mom that I knew Maddy.

Which was why Mom sent me to that church camp last summer. She said I needed to “make more friends” and “spend a week in a wholesome environment.” Really, I thought Mom and Dad just wanted the house to themselves for a few days and the only other camps I could have gone to were for kids with eating disorders or disabilities. Both fine and good purposes, but I didn’t fit into either one of those categories.

The Christian camp wasn’t bad. I didn’t make a ton of new friends. The guy who led it kept harping on all of us to read our Bible more and stuff like that. I read my Bible the camp handed to us every day for a week after I got home.

It didn’t make very much sense. I didn’t really know where to start, so I started in Leviticus, because I thought that was a weird-sounding word.

I was hoping it was just a poor choice on my part, because if the whole Bible was written like that, I didn’t understand why there were so many churches around.

Mom and Dad weren’t really religious, per se. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe in God. I just didn’t know what to believe. Some people claimed “God is love” and all that jazz so He sounded like a heavenly Santa Claus, but then others talked about “God is just” and “God is everywhere” and “We are all gods.”