Smudge and the Book of Mistakes (3 page)

“By all means, take as much time as you need.”

“Thank you for being so kind.”

“Of course, I don't mind. Now go along to your cell.”

As Brother Gregory passed the scriptorium, Brother Bede popped out.

“Were you talking with the abbot? Complaining about Smudge? Insisting on Brother Ethbert?”

“Not at all. I'm more than pleased with Smudge.”

“You're not serious? The fool can't draw a single letter without a mistake.”

“Of course, there must be a little practice but the abbot has kindly given me extra time.”

Brother Bede was almost speechless but not quite. “Then you actually mean to use Smudge?”

“Yes, indeed.”

Brother Bede scurried to confer with Brother Ethbert.

Brother Ethbert said, “He is a very impatient boy. He will never practice his letters.”

“No stick-to-it-tive-ness at all,” Brother Bede agreed. “It is only a matter of days before Brother Gregory changes his mind.”

The following morning Smudge appeared in Brother Gregory's cell. He had a scrub brush in one hand and a pail in the other for nothing could make him believe he was to print the words for the Christmas Story.

“Enough of this foolishness,” Brother Gregory said, “put away the pail. You are about to become the finest scribe in Ireland.”

“But you have seen my work. It's rough and messy.”

“It's ideas that count and you have excellent ideas. You will make a fine scribe. You have only to practice.”

“Practice? You mean do something over and over? If you try something once and it doesn't work, why would you be foolish enough to keep trying it?”

“Smudge, I'm going to show you something that I have never shown another living soul.”

Brother Gregory burrowed deep into the chest that held his belongings. From the very bottom he drew out a bundle of parchment sheets.

“Here,” he said, “is the first illumination I ever did.”

Smudge looked at the clumsy drawing. The faces on the saints were crooked, the eyes were crossed, the mouths looked like sausages.

In spite of his nervousness, Smudge had to laugh. “Oh, Brother Gregory, why are you making fun of me? Of c ourse, that isn't your work. You are the finest illuminator of manuscripts in Ireland.”

“It is my work. And so is this, and this, and this.”

Brother Gregory showed Smudge sheet after sheet of faces twisted into ugly shapes, angel wings like the wings on a bat, beards and hair like tangled strands of straw, a lion that resembled a mouse. And worst of all—there were smudges!

“You mean I must do the same thing over and over?”

“Yes, until it is right.”

“But it will never be right.”

“Of course, it will. See here.”

Brother Gregory turned to the last page of his book of mistakes. The paintings were as fine as the masterful work he did now.

“It will only take practice,” he told Smudge. When he saw Smudge wince he said, “God gives us talent but we have to meet God halfway.”

There were weeks of
a
's. Thousands of
a
's marched through Smudge's dreams. There was ink on his robe and ink on his hood and ink on his nose.

 

The snows fell silent as feathers on the monastery roof. The gulls flew south. The snows melted, the gulls returned to the island. The first bit of spring green poked up amongst the rocks. The monks had their yearly baths in preparation for Easter.

 

Smudge was working on his
e
's. It was so hard to get that little enclosed space just the same in all the
e
's without actually getting out a ruler and measuring but Brother Gregory wouldn't allow that.

“You must develop your eye,” he said.

Brother Ethbert peeked into Brother Gregory's cell to see how the Christmas Story was coming along.

“He's only at the e's,” Brother Ethbert told Brother Bede.

Brother Bede gathered his courage and went to the abbot.

“Dear Abbot,” he said, “it will be years before the Christmas Story is finished. Heaven forbid, but what if you never live to see it? Let Brother Ethbert do the lettering.”

What Brother Bede could not know is that an angel had come to the abbot. At least the abbot thought it wa s an angel. It was something between a great shadow from the pine tree outside his window and a kind of rosy glow that comes over everything when the sun sinks down at the end of the day.

Because he was a little hard of hearing and because angels tend to whisper in your ear, what the abbot thought the angel said was that he would live to see the Christmas Story finished. The abbot knew the longer it took, the longer he would live.

“Don't bother me with details,” the abbot told Brother Bede and sent him on his way.

The little green lettuces sprung up from the warm earth. There were cockles and winkles in the rock pools. There were fresh peas in the soup and strawberries for dessert. The feast days came and went.

At last Smudge drew a perfect z. The top looked firmly in one direction while the bottom explored an entirely different direction. A firm and decisive line drew them together.

“Let us begin,” Brother Gregory said.

He took out his finest parchment. He set out his pots of paint:
red ochre from the earth, the yellow of malachite, the brown of lichen, the green of verdigris, and the precious blue of lapis lazuli. In a secret formula known only to Brother Gregory the colors were mixed with white of egg, fish oil, and a smidgen of glue.

“You may rule the lines,” he told Smudge.

Smudge had practiced lines until everything he saw was divided into horizontal sections. The lines he drew were perfect.

Brother Gregory marked the places where his illustrations would go, which initials he would embellish, and where along the margins his flourishes would decorate the text. He indicated the pages on which he would paint miniature scenes to illustrate the Christmas Story.

Smudge's hand trembled as he picked up his goose quill and dipped it in ink made of soot from slowly burning oak fires. Such ink would never fade. Smudge trembled, knowing that what he wrote would be there forever.

“
And it came to pass
,” Smudge wrote.

The
A
stood on its own feet, legs apart, just daring you to defy it. The
n
had a gently curved top and just the slightest indication of looking to the right. The
d
put a firm end to the word.

When the first sentence was completed, Smudge turned to Brother Gregory, terrified lest Brother Gregory find fault. Brother Gregory gave an ear-to-ear grin.

“Smudge, that sentence is not only perfectly formed, but it is unique! You have made a sentence with letters in a manner no one else has ever attempted.”