After a quick trash-can tour, I’m in my room and I dump out all of my art supplies on the floor. I pull out poster paper from under my bed, sharpen my No. 2 Hard drawing pencil, and write Penelope Crumb’s Coat of Arms in big letters at the top.
Inside my toolbox, I find all the magazines that Grandpa Felix gave me. Real careful, I tear out the pictures that he took, including the one of Winston. Then I pull out Mum’s creepy insides drawings, the ones I found in her trash can. And the photograph of Grandpa Felix, and the one of my dad.
I tear out the pictures from my drawing pad that I drew of my family: Terrible’s alien spaceship and Dad’s toolbox and shoehorn. I add a picture of Great-grandpa Albert as a war hero. I cut around them and lay them out on the poster board, fitting them into the shape of a shield. All I have left to do is paste them on, but when I look over the pictures and drawings, my coat of arms doesn’t really look like anything special.
My coat of arms doesn’t look that different from Angus Meeker’s. Or Patsy Cline’s. “This is no good,” I say out loud. “Something is missing.”
Even Mister Leonardo da Vinci agrees. “Not bad, Penelope,” he would surely say. “But you can do better. You have everything you need.”
“I do?” I say. “But this is all I have!”
Leonardo must not have the answer either because he doesn’t say anything else. Which is very annoying because what good is having a dead and famous artist talk to you if he isn’t going to be more of a help?
I read Miss Stunkel’s instructions again: Discover what you don’t know about your family. Make a coat of arms for your family.
I look around the room for something else to put on my coat of arms. And when I see Grandpa Felix’s coat lying on my bed, right under my nose, I know what I need to do.
First, I draw a picture of my big nose, the biggest drawing of a big nose that I’ve ever seen before. Then I take the pictures off the poster paper and glue everything onto Grandpa Felix’s coat. On both sleeves, on the front, and on the back. Until all of the green is covered in pictures. I save the drawing of my big nose for last. Which I glue to the back of the coat, right in the centre.
“There,” I say when I’m finished. I slide my arms into the coat and look at myself in the mirror. If Mister Leonardo da Vinci was here, he would take one look at my coat of arms and would most surely say, “This is splendid work. A nose at the heart of a coat of arms. Why, that is very interesting indeed.” And he would be right.
At school the next day, I have a note for Miss Stunkel. The note says I need to be excused from gym class on account of the fact that if I get hit in the face by a ball or a knee or something, I could lose my nose powers forever. That may not be exactly what the note says, but I know that’s what it means.
Patsy Cline taps me on the shoulder and then shrieks when she sees my nose. “It’s a long story,” I say. So I tell her the short version.
“Nose powers?” she says after I’m finished. “From your great-grandpa?”
“And Grandpa Felix,” I say. “Did your mum call him about 
?”
“Yep, he’s hired,” she says, making a face.
“What’s the matter?”
“Now that there’s a photographer coming to take pictures of me performing, Mum said she’s going to need more time for my hair than usual.”
“Oh.”
Patsy Cline slumps her shoulders. “She wants to put ribbons in it.”
“That’s not so bad.” When she says oh yes it is so bad, I say, “Why don’t you just cut your hair off?”
Patsy gets a look on her face that says, I Know Something You Don’t Know.
“What?”
“Promise you won’t tell Angus Meeker,” she says.
I give her a look that says, What Do I Ever Tell Awful Angus Meeker? Then, after she looks around to make sure nobody is watching, she lifts up her thick hair. And what I see then is a big surprise.
“I’ve got my aunt Doreen’s ears,” she says with a grimace.
I cannot stop staring. I mean, they are the most wonderful things. “Can I draw them sometime?”
“Maybe,” she says, covering them back up again with her hair. “But not for art class. I don’t want anybody else to know.”
“Patsy Cline,” I say, having a thought. “You know what? Maybe that’s why you are such a good singer. Maybe you have big ears so that you can hear notes better.”
“I never thought of that,” she says, smiling.
Miss Stunkel says, “I want to remind you all that your coats of arms are due tomorrow.” Which makes me raise my hand and say, “Coats of arms don’t have to be in the shape of a shield, do they?”
Miss Stunkel cocks her head to one side. “Traditionally, that’s how they are done.” She taps her chin. “But if you have another idea, I think that could be very interesting.”
I repeat “Very interesting” in the direction of Angus, making a big deal out of the very.