The Earth Painter (10 page)

Wayne’s discovery in the well—right.
“I haven’t been in the bathrooms today so I didn’t know about that.”

“Turns out, the kind of well we have has been illegal for public use for years. The school board is trying to figure out who let that slip. There’s an emergency meeting tomorrow afternoon. The trustees are trying to get it under control before we end up with a scandal that lands us in the news.”

Was he for real or was he repeating some crazy rumors he’d heard?

“Anthony, how do you know all this?”

“My mom’s on the school board.”

Could my world get any crazier right now?

Ms. Jones never showed up to class. The
emo
drama kids said she got spooked about the possibility of terrorists tampering with the well and turned around and left as soon as she got to school and heard about it. I stood up in the middle of the chatter. I looked around for my book bag and remembered I’d left it by the side door I had entered. I went to retrieve it, but when I turned around Theo was there.

His gray-blue eyes narrowed. “Where are you going?”

I looked away and down, not willing to look at him.
“To call my mom.
I’m not feeling well.”

“Oh... Hope you get to feeling better.”

He stood there. I finally looked at him. His eyes were dull.

“It’s just a lot…all that you told me.” I pointed up to the catwalk. “Up there.”

His expression was blank. “You’re the one who came looking. You’re the one who wanted to know what I was. I was fine with you thinking I was human.”

I let out a sigh. “I know.”

We stood there in silence forever, or so it seemed to me.

Theo ended the silence. “Can I ask one favor?”

“Sure.”

“Can I come with you to the meeting?”

I felt my forehead scrunch up. “What meeting?”

“The school board meeting Anthony mentioned.”

“Why would I go to that?”

Theo’s eyes narrowed. “Someone is tampering with the well. I’ve got a couple of friends coming in this afternoon to help me investigate.”

“Friends?
Who’s coming?” I was the only human who noticed him.

“Bio and Geo.”

He seemed to read the confusion on my face.
“Biology and Geology.
They’re two sciences I worked closely with as they gave my work function. We still get together to play cards. Anyway, they’re coming to help me figure out the secret going on in the well.”

“But why do you care about the well? It’s probably some mole or groundhog or whatever. I seriously doubt
it’s
terrorist like crazy Ms. Jones is scared of. Who would contaminate a well in Chesnee? I mean come on.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s not contaminated, but the opposite.”

“The opposite?”

The bell rang just in time for my stomach to growl. Theo pointed at me. “You need nourishment.”

The way he put it made me smile. “I guess my coffee and toast is gone. Why don’t you come to the cafeteria with me? You can ask Wayne what he’s heard from Clemson and Anthony what his mom knows.”

A huge grin spread across his face. “OK, I will. But you’ll have to introduce me, or they won’t notice I’m there, and I’m not allowed to do it myself.”

The question hit me for the first time. “Why do I notice you?”

Theo looked at me the way he had since our first conversation; the inquisitive way that made his brows dip. “I don’t know.”

Then he smiled. Oh, those dimples. “But I’m really glad you do.”

In the lunchroom, Theo followed me through the line, grabbing a little of everything— pizza, apple, leftover biscuit from the breakfast, a packet of jelly. Then we joined Anthony and Wayne at a table.

I reintroduced everyone. Wayne gave Theo that same look from the day in the basement. His quick affection for me but quicker distaste for Theo puzzled me a bit.

My hunger kept me occupied at first. I was biting into my pizza when I noticed Theo spreading jelly all over his and then taking giant bites of it. That was just before he salted and peppered his chocolate pudding and shoveled it in.

Wayne and Anthony were staring, mouths agape. I leaned closer to Theo and whispered, “Do you always eat like that?”

“I grazed with some zebras once, just to try it. This is my first time with human food. How am I doing?” It was then he noticed my friends watching him. “Am I doing something wrong?”

I smiled at the guys before turning back to whisper to him. “Your flavor combinations are just a bit odd. How does it taste to you?”

He shook his head. “Oh, I can’t taste any of it.” He stuck his tongue out and pointed. “No taste buds.”

“You can’t taste?”

“No. I might look human to you, but I’m not. I’m a painter. Painters were made to paint whereas people were made to live…learn…eat…grow…dream.” His expression was distant. “You’re multipurpose beings where as I’m niche. Did you know I can’t even sketch or sculpt or papier-mâché? All I can do is paint.”

He looked right at me. “As long as a person is alive and able to think, that person can become more today than he was yesterday.” He shrugged. “Too often people choose to be less, but they can choose to be more. Whereas, I will always
be
a painter with nothing left to paint.”

This wasn’t the upbeat grinning Theo I was used to. “You paint the fish camp.”

His eyes were still distant. “I paint things that were and flat lifeless copies of real things. But never again will I paint something that will be.” Theo pushed his tray away and sat silently until the rest of us finished eating.

We found out the school board meeting would be at the district office at one o’clock the next day. Wayne didn’t seem happy to answer Theo’s questions but did anyway. Clemson still had no idea what the unknown substance was and were coming to get another sample, not trusting a high school student to do it this time.

When the bell rang to tell us lunch was over Theo said he had to get back to his place to meet Geo and Bio.

“You know, I’m not officially here today. I never checked in at the office. Can I come with you?”

Theo beamed.
“Absolutely.
I can’t wait to introduce you to Geo.”

Chapter 10

When we got to Theo’s home, it was no longer white, but a cozy den with
bookshelves,
and a card table set up in the center of the room.
Khai-Ree
was painting a house plant in the corner of the room.

“I thought you said
Khai-Ree
couldn’t paint
on his own
.”

Theo started to answer, but
Khai-Ree
walked over to us, paint brush in hand. “I cannot conceive an idea and paint it.” He shook his head in disgust. “Why anyone would want to ruin a perfectly clean canvas is beyond me. But I can copy the work of my painter. I am a
Khai-Ree
. I follow my painter’s orders to the letter.” Then the bald, red man walked to another part of Theo’s home.

Theo closed his eyes and shook his head. “Sorry about him. He has…what is it people say…Oh, yes. He’s got chronic PMS.”

I stifled a giggle.

“Let me show you how
Khai-Ree
painted this room”

Theo walked us through the painted doorway and into a room with giant file cabinets lining the walls. He pulled one open and lifted up a painting of the room we’d just been in. “This is what he painted. I painted this long ago to give the guys and me a nice place to play cards. It would be too dull to keep my home like that all the time, so I paint over it, and
Khai-Ree
paints it back when I need it again.”

I noticed the file cabinets on the other wall had a symbol on them, sort of a crest or seal that the others did not have. “What’s in those files?” I wandered over to them, but Theo stopped me.

“Those are the files of my blessed work.”

“Blessed?”

“The ones made real at the beginning. When Walden, Fritz and I were painting our ideas for the world, we didn’t paint directly on the Sculptor’s work. We painted canvases and our
Khai-Ree
would take them and lay them at the Sculptor’s feet. If he was pleased, he would stamp that symbol you see on the cabinets on it and it would be made so.”

“Can I see some of them?” I moved again towards the other cabinets, and again he stepped between them and me.

“I never look at any of that anymore.”

“Why not?”

That distant look was in his eyes again. “It’s hard to live past your usefulness. It’s easier not to dwell on my glory days, so please don’t ask me to.”

I let it go, but Theo did pull out his paints and painted a gold settee over to the side of the card table for me to sit on while they played. Just as I sat on it to try it out, a loud voice boomed from the door. “What’s going on man?”

“Geo!”
Theo met him at the door with a hug and a pat on Geo’s black leather clad back.

I sat there with my mouth wide open. I’m not sure what I had expected a science to look like. Something
like
Wayne or Mr. Winters—kind of geeky. Not black leather pants and matching jacket with a faux-hawk. Theo pointed to me and introduced me. I stood and closed my mouth.

Geo’s dark eyes darted between me and Theo. “What’s a human doing up here?”

“She noticed me and followed me up here today.”

Geo’s head tilted. “You know that’s against the rules.”

Khai-Ree
busted into the room and pulled a seat out for Geo. “No. He didn’t do anything to make her notice him, so now he gets to tell her all the secrets kept back from humans. He found what humans call… a loophole.” He bowed to us before the little man rushed out as quickly as he had rushed in.

Geo sat in his spot and burst into laughter. “You’re still painting your
Khai-Ree
? Man, when are you going to let it go? So he lost a painting, big deal.”

“My greatest masterpiece since…well, the beginning”

Khai-Ree
reentered with the wadded Coke cup Wayne used to collect a water sample for Theo in. “Hardly you’re greatest masterpiece. I don’t even remember it, so it couldn’t have been that great.” He then placed the cup on the table in front of Geo.

Geo picked it up and examined it. “What’s this?”

Theo took a seat at the table next to him. “The reason I’ve been hanging out at this school for so long. There’s something different about the water from this well. See what you think?”

Geo took a sip of the water and sloshed it about in his mouth. Then he spit it on his finger and rubbed it between them and his thumb close to his eyes. Finally, he sniffed the cup that held the remaining sample.

“There’s something in this water. It tastes like a mineral, but none I made. It’s not chemical. That would have that nasty human made aftertaste.” He looked over at me. “No offense.” Then back at Theo. “You might want Bio to check it too—just to make sure it’s not biological, but I don’t think
it’s
bacteria or waste from anything living.”

He took one more sip. “You know…it kind of tastes heavenly.”

Theo jumped up from the table. “I knew it! I knew it! I knew it!”

I looked between the two of them utterly lost. “Knew what?”

“It’s
Mia-
Dae
.
I’ll bet anything it is.”

Geo’s eyes grew wide as he looked at the cup again.
“Mia-
Dae
?
What makes you think that?”

“The way the students here change after they drink it. I noticed it years ago. Suddenly a boy or girl knows exactly who and what they need to fulfill their purpose.”

“When Fritz finds out, he’s not going to be happy.” Geo stood and handed the cup to Theo. “He buried it to keep it from the humans. He took banishment for it, refusing to tell anyone where he hid it.”

I’d had enough. I stood and demanded an answer. “What is Mia-
Dae
?”

Theo came to sit on the settee with me. “It’s one of the things that got Fritz in trouble. After we had completed the world to the Sculptor’s satisfaction, there was a ceremony to honor our work and turn the running of the world over to the sciences. Anyway, I was presented this as my gift.” He pointed to his home. “But Fritz was given two gifts meant to be passed on to the Sculptor’s crowning pieces…humans.”

“Gifts for the humans?”

“
Mia-
Dae
was to be added to all the water of earth. When
a human
drinks water laced with it, it opens the eyes of their soul to what matters most—if they come in contact with it after a drink. If a student drinks it and learns a subject they are meant to pursue as a career, or if a guy drinks it just as the girl who will make him happy for life walks by, something inside just knows.