WHEN WE GOT to our classroom after breakfast, Mr. Hillinger was putting a flute on Mr. Cluck’s desk. I wondered what it was for.
Stacks of notebook-size paper were on our desks. When we sat down, Mr. Hillinger walked around giving us boxes of colored chalk from a big paper bag. “Good morn . . . You’ll have to share the pastels, I’m afr . . . Although it’s not so . . . A limited palette is good. Good disci . . .”
There were eight sticks of chalk in the box Mike and I were supposed to share. The red chalk was in two pieces, and the blue was a half-inch nubbin.
“Today we’re going to draw to express . . . to show feeling or a mood. An artist can say he’s angry or . . . You only think you need words . . . It could be any feeling.” He played three long slow notes on the flute. “How does that make you feel, boys?”
Nobody said anything. I raised my hand. “Sad?”
“Good, Dave. Anybody feel anything else?”
Harvey raised his hand. “Definitely lazy.”
“Good too. Other boys may feel something else. I’ll play . . . Remember what we’ve learned . . . Draw over the whole page. Composition is . . . Listen.” He played more sad music.
I stared at my stack of paper. I didn’t know how to draw sadness. A face crying? How did you draw tears? Mike had gone to work already, but he was drawing violins.
And then I knew what to do. I held the purple chalk on its side and covered the page with purple. Mike had the black. I borrowed it and broke it in half. Now we both had black.
From the right side of the page I drew part of a long rectangle. The rest of it you had to imagine, because it was off the page. I filled the rectangle in so it was solid black. To the left of it I drew a man bent over from carrying his end of the box. You saw him from the side, and I filled him in in black too. Behind him came a woman. One of her feet was in the air, so you could tell she was walking. She was following the man.
The room was quiet. When had Mr. Hillinger stopped playing? He started a happy song, but I kept drawing the sad one. I drew a boy following the woman. I swallowed around the lump in my throat. Another man came after the boy. None of them touched each other. That was important.
Mr. Hillinger walked through the aisles while he played. He walked by me drawing the first song. I kept going, rushing to catch up with everybody.
I finished. Seven and a quarter people followed the coffin. You only saw a hand and a leg of the eighth person all the way on the left side of the page. The people weren’t much more than stick figures. But the picture was sad. I had never seen such a sad picture. I had done it, drawn sadness. It felt grand. Sad, but grand.
I took a new sheet of paper and tried to think what a happy drawing would be, but Mr. Hillinger stopped playing. “Here’s another . . .” He looked at his watch. “We have time for . . . Take a new sheet, Eli. No more music. Here’s a poem to . . . Draw whatever it makes you . . .” He recited:
“’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogroves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.”
He went on. How were we supposed to draw that? It didn’t mean anything. Some of the words meant something, and for a second I thought I understood, but then it was gone. There was a son and some monsters, a “Jubjub bird” and a “frumious Bandersnatch,” which sounded like an animal to sic on Mr. Doom.
I drew a green lion with big twisty horns coming out of its mane, a red rabbit that was bigger than the lion, and a yellow goat upside down and high on the page. Around the animals I drew shapes that fitted into each other.
Mr. Hillinger came down our aisle. At my desk he picked up my funeral picture and stared at it for a long time. When he put it down again he said, “Very nice, Dave. Fine.”
“Mr. Hillinger . . .” I took the drawing of Irma Lee out of my pocket and unfolded it. “I messed up her face. How do you draw faces?” I hated showing it to him. I hated to look at it, with the stupid one eye in the wrong place.
He studied the drawing. “You like to draw?”
“Yeah. Yes, sir. I do.”
He raised his voice for everyone to hear. “Listen, boys. You draw faces just like everything . . . They’re no different. We shouldn’t be frightened by a nose or a mouth . . . Be sure to bring your faces on Friday. You’re going to do por . . .” He handed the messed-up picture back to me without saying anything else. He probably didn’t want to hurt my feelings by talking about it. “Now hold up the drawing you like best,” he told the class. “You should see what your . . . Look at what ideas you all . . .”
I held up the funeral picture. Everybody else held up their happy drawings. Joey’s was of food—a cake, an ice-cream cone, and something that might have been a chicken. Eli had drawn a lake with a sailboat. Mike’s was pink, blue, and orange guess-whats. I liked Harvey’s, which was a smile that filled the whole page. I didn’t tell him, though.
He had something to say about mine, of course. “You shouldn’t have colored the background purple. There should be trees or houses.”
“That smile you drew is too big,” Mike said, sticking up for me. “And it’s too—”
Mr. Cluck came in.
“Boys,” Mr. Hillinger said, “show Mr. Gluck your . . . Aren’t they hand . . . You must be so proud to . . .”
Mr. Cluck bustled to the front of the room. Ira and Joey raised their hands to go to the toilet. It was their turn to watch Mr. Doom’s office. I’d forgotten all about it.
Mr. Hillinger started collecting our blank paper and chalk. “Save your drawings, boys. You can . . . Mr. Gluck, may I borrow Dave for a . . . He can help me . . .” He gestured, and I knew he wanted me to help him get the chalk and the paper.
Mr. Cluck said, “All right, if he is any help.”
Mr. Hillinger had gotten almost everything already, but I walked along the desks by the window and picked up the rest.
“Now if you’ll . . .”
I put the chalk and paper into the paper bag. Mr. Hillinger picked up the bag. “Would you be so . . .”
I took the flute and followed him into the hall and out to the lobby, where Ira and Joey were walking quickly, looking like they were on an important errand—except when they saw Mr. Hillinger, who knew they were supposed to be going to the toilet. Ira stopped. Joey slowed down, then grabbed Ira’s arm and tugged him along.
“Hello, boys.” Mr. Hillinger smiled at them and kept going till we reached the front door.
“Dave, would you . . . On Thursdays . . . It would mean missing school, just an afternoon. Everyone is talented, but . . .”
I wouldn’t mind missing the whole week, but what did he mean?
“A few . . . Such ability . . . I teach a few boys . . . It’s a special . . .”
I started nodding. If he was saying he had a special drawing class, I wanted to be in it. “Yes,” I said. “For drawing? I’d like to . . .” I sounded as jumbled as he did.
He smiled broadly. “Wonderf . . . It’s not just . . . We paint too. Oils, watercol . . . You’re very . . .” He took the flute from me. “I’m so glad. You have . . .” He opened the HHB door.
Finish the sentence, I thought. Finish it! What do I have?
“. . . a gift.” He left.