The Earth Painter Read online

  “Great.” I started to climb the steps of the dugout to walk around to the front of the school when the boy walked over to me.

  “I can open it for you.” He put the cigarette in his mouth then stooped down to grab the bottom corner of the door. He lifted it slightly, jarring the latch and opening it.”

  “Thanks,” I said before going back into the auditorium. I looked up at the stage to see the other students all ooh-ing and ah-ing over the backdrop.

  “Are you alright?” Theo was beside me just inside the doorway. We were hidden from those still painting on the stage.

  “Yeah, I just got confused…I mean dizzy.”

  Theo smiled, “You did a great job,”

  “No, you did a great job. All I did was hold the brush.”

  “Yes, the brush that painted a beautiful forest. Wasn’t that more fun than painting plain old gray?”

  I smiled at the memory of being in his arms. “Yes, but I didn’t do it. You did.”

  “We did it together.”

  I sighed and looked away trying to figure out the whole flirting thing on the fly. “But you could have done it just as well without me. Probably better and faster. You didn’t need me to paint that, but I couldn’t have done it at all without you.”

  “But I wanted you to be a part of it with me.”

  Should I ask what I wanted to know? “But why?”

  Theo shrugged grinning, showing off his dimples “Just because I wanted to. And you notice me—it’s nice.”

  The bell rang, and I shucked off the smock. “Are you coming Thursday afternoon to the basement? Wayne’s getting his water sample right after school that day.”

  “I didn’t know he was doing that then, but yeah, I’ll come.”

  “Great. I’ll let him know.” I grabbed my book bag and ran out the door to the cafeteria. Wayne and Anthony soon joined me, but were in the middle of a conversation when they sat down.

  Anthony’s bass voice was serious, “Man, you have to get that stuff away from those idiots before they hurt themselves or someone else… like me for instance.”

  “I will. I plan to tell them that I’ll help them with it… if they give it to me to divide. Then I’m giving it back to Mr. Winters.”

  Curiosity got the best of me “Whose going to get hurt? What’s going on?”

  “Wayne’s friends, Ralf and Matt, stole some Sodium Chloride from the lab. It’s volatile and can explode if it comes in contact with air or water.”

  Wayne interrupted him, “It’s shipped suspended in oil because it is so volatile.”

  “So why did they take it if it’s so dangerous?”

  Wayne leaned in to whisper. “They want to blow up some toilets. They got this idea to use vitamin E capsules and a syringe to make mini potty bombs. They plan to inject the vitamin E oil with small amounts of Sodium Chloride and drop them in the toilets to dissolve.”

  The two guys ate in silence, but then I had to ask, “Wouldn’t cherry bombs give them the same results and be less complicated?”

  Anthony threw his hand up. “That’s what I said, but Wayne told me that would be more punk than geek.”

  I laughed out loud. “True.” I didn’t know people aspired to be geeks. I thought they just were.

  ***

  Thursday afternoon, I waited by the locked door marked maintenance, where I was to meet Wayne. The empty halls made the two of them stand out as they came down the hall. Wayne wore a jumpsuit thing with harness gear, a minor’s hat with light and mounted camera and a fanny pack on his hip. I guessed the twenty-something guy in khakis and layered long and short sleeved t-shirts was Mr. Winters, even before Wayne introduced us.

  Mr. Winters’s facial expression showed no emotion as he spoke. “Holly, it’s terribly nice to meet you. Wayne’s told me so much about you.”

  He has? What could he tell? We’ve only spoken a few times. “That’s nice.”

  “You realize that only two percent of the entire human population are natural redheads. That makes you quite rare.” He looked over to Wayne to speak. “You’re right. Her freckles and matching eyebrows do indicated she is a natural redhead.” He then turned back to me. “Rarity is often an indicator of value. That’s why we cook with iron but wear silver, gold, and platinum as jewelry.”

  I had never been the most socially adept, but those two left me clueless on how to respond in ways I’d never experienced before. Thankfully, Theo walked up. “Hey, this is my friend, Theo. He wanted to watch you guys do this. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all,” answered Mr. Winters. “The more people to witness a scientific discovery the more easily it is verified. Right, Wayne?” He glanced over at his student, but Wayne didn’t look enthusiastic about Theo being there.

  Mr. Winters unlocked the door and flipped on a light switch. We descended the stairs single file until we reached the bottom. We walked just a few feet until we came to a locked trap door on the floor.

  “This is it.” Mr. Winters knelt and unlocked the padlock with a key and opened the well. Apparently, they’d been down there earlier in the week rigging up a pulley with straps and hooked it up to Wayne’s harness. Wayne pulled on the strap, and when he appeared satisfied he looked over at me. “I’ll see you in a few minutes with a sample,” he said and patted his fanny pack.

  “Wait!” Theo said, and then pulled a wadded paper Coke cup from his pocket. “Could you get some for me while you’re down there? It’s clean. It got wadded up in my pocket. I have a friend who wants a sample too.”

  Wayne held the paper cup out from him, scrutinizing it. “This is not sterile. It will taint your sample and make it useless for any type of scientific analysis.”

  Theo smiled. “Oh, it’ll be fine for what he’s going to do.”

  Wayne shrugged but took the cup anyway. Mr. Winters lowered him slowly down into the dark hole. Everything was going smoothly until Wayne yelled for him to halt.

  “Have you made it to the water already?” Mr. Winters called down to Wayne as he walked over and stared down into the well.

  “No,” he shouted back, “But I’ve discovered what’s been making the water muddy. Someone, or something, has tunneled into the side of the well, from the direction of the train tracks across the street. I can see light at the end of it.”

  “How odd. Get footage of that with your camera,” Mr. Winters shouted down the well.

  “I already have.”

  “I’ll need to report that. That could seriously pose a health risk.”

  The rest of the event went without any problems. Wayne came back up with his sample in the kit Clemson had sent as well as the paper cup Theo had handed him.

  We went upstairs so Wayne and Mr. Winters could put their collection in the lab for Clemson to come get. Theo ran off somewhere, and I waited in the parking lot, staring over at the train tracks, wondering about the tunnel. If something, or someone, was messing with the school’s well—that could not be good.

  Chapter 8

  When I got home, I told my mom about the well. She was concerned too and sent an email inquiring about it to the principal and superintendent. We told Dad about it when he got home.

  Dad had made another sale so we ate at the fish camp again.

  After my dad paid the woman we’d met before, an older gentleman walked up wearing a stained apron and carrying a white take out box. I guessed he was her husband because she called him sweetie.

  “Is this your husband…the one who hired my friend to paint?” I blurted it out, not paying attention to the fact that she and Dad were talking. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  She stared at me, her forehead wrinkled as she changed gears and caught up with my rude redirection of the conversation. “Yes, he is. George, this young lady is friends with the boy who paints the place.” She patted his back as he put the take out box in a plastic bag.

  “The painter?” He looked at me and smiled. “He has done a fine job. His work brings in people from
everywhere. When you see him tell him to step into the kitchen and ask for George next time he’s here. I’d love to finally meet the young man who does all this.” He made a sweeping hand gesture towards the restaurant.

  His wife glared at him and smacked him on the arm. “What do you mean you’ve never met him? You’re the one who hired him and pays him.

  The old man put his hands on his hip. “What are you talking about? I don’t do the hiring here. And I have no idea how to do payroll.”

  “George, you’ve handled the whole thing since you placed the ad in the paper ten years ago. I thought it was strange since you’d never hired anyone before. I figured you were paying him under the table since you never had me cut him a check.”

  The man’s face turned red around his white mustache. “I called the ad into the paper and that was all I did.”

  The woman looked at me and then back at her husband. “Well, who’s been paying him all these years? And letting him in to paint?”

  “I thought it was you.”

  Dad patted Mom and me and pointed towards the door. We got away, and to the car before he spoke. “Wow. I hope those two have adult children around to help them. It looks like they both suffer from senility.”

  Mom nodded in agreement. “They must because the restaurant runs smoothly. Someone’s helping them.”

  That night I tossed and turned in bed. The old couple from the fish camp had both said Theo had been painting there for years. Both thought the other had hired him and was paying him. And neither one had seen him.

  Then there was the first day I’d met him. Ms. Jones didn’t see Theo sitting on the stage until I pointed him out to her. She’d forgotten all about him the next day. I sat up, remembering the day I had flipped through the year books in the school’s library. A boy was sitting on the stage in the photo of my mom’s crowning.

  I got up and tiptoed to the book shelf in the living room were my mom kept her year books. I grabbed one, took it back to my room and flipped to the pages where the pageant pictures were. The large picture at the top of the page was a close up of the winner, but on the bottom of the pages were small, wide shots of the whole stage. In each one, a guy was sitting on the stage in the same spot Theo was sitting the day I met him. Only, the pictures were so small and only focused on the contestants. The boy was a blur.

  I put the year book down. The photos were taken back in the nineteen-eighties. It didn’t make any sense. I tiptoed back to the bookshelf and pulled out a stack of Mom’s scrapbooks. I dropped them onto my bed, took one from the stack and started flipping through the pages. Most of the pictures had been cropped down to just faces. But then there was a whole scrapbook devoted to the Miss Chesnee High pageant. Whoever took the pictures was on the same side of the auditorium we sat on during drama. In the center, of the book was a blown up, uncut picture of the stage. There he was—Theo—sitting on the stage watching the pageant just as he had sat on the stage that first day I met him.

  The picture was over twenty years old, but Theo still looked my age or near it.

  I hadn’t slept all night when I got into Shelby’s car without even looking at her. When she cleared her throat for the fifth time, I finally glanced at her. I almost didn’t recognize her. I stared at her now chestnut brown hair that flowed to her waist. The hair on top was lifted in a bump, and the strands were held back by a clip

  “Wow…your hair… is completely different.”

  Shelby laughed. “I dyed it and added extensions. We learned how to put them in yesterday in class.”

  “It looks good.”

  “I’m playing around with false lashes too. What do you think?” She blinked super fast and smiled.

  “It’s nice.” I didn’t sound particularly enthusiastic.

  “You don’t like it?”

  “No… I mean yes… I like it. I didn’t sleep well last night so I’m kind of not thinking straight.”

  “Are you going to be up for this afternoon?” Shelby pulled into the school’s parking lot.

  “This afternoon?”

  “Shopping. Dinner. Football game. Ring a bell?”

  “Oh, right. See I told you, I’m not all here.” Shelby Parked the car. “I’m sure I’ll have it together by this afternoon.”

  “If not, we’ll take a detour through the Starbucks drive-thru. I’m overdue on shopping. Only death can get you out of it.”

  Shelby opened the door and got out, but I didn’t move. “I’m going to sit here for a few minutes and try to wake up.”

  “Ok. See you.” Shelby shut the door and walked to the bus parking to get on the bus for the vocational school.

  I only sat in the car a few minutes before getting out and heading for the door. Just as I was about to go in, the late bell rang. That meant the back door would automatically lock and all late students would have to walk to the front door to enter by the office and check in.

  I trudged around to the front of the school noticing the dug-out that led down to the auditorium’s side door. The one I’d ran out after painting. No wonder it was popular with the smokers. The door was completely hidden at the bottom of the steps. The same door the boy with the cigarette opened just by lifting the bottom. I looked both ways to see if anyone was around, and then ran down the steps into the seclusion of the underground doorway. I glanced around once again, just to be on the safe side before bending and grabbing the bottom of the door. I almost expected an alarm to sound when I lifted it and the door popped open. When nothing sounded, and no one came to investigate, I peeked in. The stage lights were all off except for the ghost light. I stuck my head in a little further, not quite sure what I expected to find in there. I was about to chicken out and leave when I heard a voice. It was Theo calling out to somebody.

  I eased in, making sure to stay in the shadows. Theo was on the stage, looking up towards the rafters in the flies. “I’ll be right up.”

  I tiptoed up the steps and hid myself in the black stage curtain. It smelled like dust. I’d probably dislodged a cloud of it. I couldn’t see in the darkness because I almost sneezed.

  Theo started climbing the ladder. I waited until he was swallowed by the shadows before I jumped out to follow. I didn’t like heights, but I had to know what Theo was up to and…what he was for that matter.

  I started climbing, but stopped to look down. That was an enormous mistake. I closed my eyes and a flash of clues started playing in my mind. I looked up the ladder and resumed my ascent. I climbed with stealth. When I got to the top, he was gone, but I saw an opened door. The light coming in looked like it led outside to the roof.

  I crept onto the catwalk and over to the door. I closed my eyes, gathered my thoughts before I opened them and looked through the opening. It wasn’t the roof. Tall green trees swayed in a slight breeze of a tropical rainforest. Birds called out from up in a nest. It was then I saw a herd of brightly colored brachiosaurus grazing on the trees. Theo was there with them, petting them.

  I shook my head and looked more closely before jumping back, no longer able to stay still and quiet. A knocking sound echoed in the auditorium. It took me a minute to realize I was the source. I was shaking all over, and my elbows were beating against the wall behind me as I slid down into a pile. I tried to get control of myself, but I couldn’t.

  I looked up and stared into familiar gray-blue eyes. Beside him stood a short, bald man who was candy-apple-red from head to toe. Even his clothes were red. Theo reached out to touch me, and I screamed before it all went black.

  I opened my eyes to stark white all around me. For a moment, I was afraid I was dead and floating into the light that people who have had near death experiences always talk about. My head was being cradled by someone. I turned to see Theo sitting there on the floor, holding me.

  “You gave us a scare.” He smiled. His eyes were soft and comforting. “I was afraid I was going to have to go to the office to get you some help.”

  “But that would have drawn attention to you and been
in complete violation of the Sculptor’s orders. You’d be no better than Fritz,” a chirpy but masculine voice spoke just behind me. I turned to see the bald, red man leaning almost into my face. I screamed out before I could stop it.

  Theo laughed. “He is scary isn’t he? I’m not sure why I don’t scream every time I look at him.” Then he looked over at the bright little man and smirked. “I think I’ll start doing that from now on, Khai-Ree. My new greeting for you will be, AHHHHH!”

  I sat up and watched as the red man’s eyes narrowed. “I wouldn’t be so frightening if you hadn’t painted me flaming red. I am Khai-Ree-Hloa-Theo,” he said in a breathy accent, “assistant painter to Theo, not Theo’s spare canvas.”

  Theo stood and extended his hand to me and helped me up as he spoke to the man he called, Khai-Ree. “Well when someone loses someone else’s canvas, that someone has to replace it.”

  “For eternity?” Khai-Ree spun and walked off.

  Theo called out after him, “Keep up your attitude, and tomorrow you’ll look like a rainbow.” He turned his attention back to me. His eyes narrowed. “How are you feeling? I’ve heard that humans often have headaches after fainting. Do you need to run to the office and get a…what’s that medicine the humans all take… Tylenol?”

  “No, I’m good.” I shook my head a bit faster than normal as I glanced around the white nothingness. “Where are we?”

  “This is my home, sort of a 3D living canvas.” He motioned at our stark surroundings. “When I paint it—it is the way it is in my head. Full, living and moving. Not flat and lifeless like on an earthen canvas. Sort of a retirement gift from the Sculptor for my devotion and service.”

  He glanced around. “Khai-Ree cleaned up the place while you were unconscious. He thought it was the dinosaurs that scared you. I find a forest full of animals remarkably soothing and peaceful but Khai-Ree…” Theo shook his head, “he likes plain, clean, boring, white.”