Masterpiece

  “Hey,” he said softly. He padded over to the nickel and crouched, picking it up.

  Good for James, thought Marvin. Of course there was no reason to worry that he’d overlook it.

  James turned the coin over in his palm and smiled. “Huh,” he said, walking toward his desk. “I wonder where this came from.”

  Marvin stiffened and retreated farther behind the desk lamp.

  James gasped.

  Marvin watched James’s pale face, his eyes huge as he stared at the drawing. He quickly looked behind him, as if the room might hold some clue that would explain what he saw on his desk.

  Then slowly, brows furrowed, James pulled out the chair and sat down. He leaned over the picture. “Wow,” he said. “Wow!”

  Marvin straightened with pride.

  James kept examining the drawing, then the scene through the window, whispering to himself. “It’s exactly like what’s outside! It’s like a teeny-tiny picture of the street! This is amazing.”

  Marvin crept around the base of the lamp so he could hear the boy better.

  “But . . . how?” James picked up the pen and uncapped it, squinting. He lifted the bottle of ink and frowned, screwing the ink cap back on. “Who did this?” he asked, staring again at the picture.

  And then, without planning to—without meaning to, without ever thinking for a moment of the consequences—Marvin found himself crawling out into the open, across the vast desktop, directly in front of James. He stopped at the edge of the picture and waited, unable to breathe.

  James stared at him.

  After a long, interminable silence, during which Marvin almost dashed to the grooved safety of the wainscoting behind the desk, James spoke.

  “It was you, wasn’t it?” he said.

  Marvin waited.

  “But how?”

  Marvin hesitated. He crawled over to the bottle of ink.

  James reached across the desk, and Marvin cringed as enormous pinkish fingers swept tremblingly close to his shell. But the boy avoided him, carefully lifting the bottle and shaking it. He unscrewed the cap and set it down next to Marvin.

  “Show me,” he whispered.

  Marvin dipped his two front legs in the ink cap and walked across the page to his picture. Unwilling to change the details of the image, he merely traced the line that framed it, then stepped back.

  “With your legs? Like that? Dipping them in the ink?” A wide grin full of wonderment and delight spread across James’s face. “You really did that! A bug! That’s the most incredible thing I ever, ever, ever saw in my whole entire life!”

  Marvin beamed up at him.

  “And with my birthday present too! You couldn’t have done it without my birthday present.” His voice rose excitedly as he leaned closer to Marvin, his warm breath almost blasting Marvin over.

  “It’s like we’re a team. And you know what? I didn’t even want this birthday present before. I thought, ‘What am I going to do with this? I’m not like my dad. I don’t even know how to draw.’ But now, it’s the best gift I ever got. This birthday is the best one ever!”

  Marvin smiled happily. He realized that James could not for one minute see his expression, but he suspected somehow that the boy knew anyway.

  Just then, they heard a noise in the hallway and Mrs. Pompaday’s voice: “James, what are you doing in there? Who are you talking to?”

  Marvin dove for cover, squeezing under James’s china piggy bank at the exact moment that Mrs. Pompaday swept into the room.

  “It’s remarkable!”

  James leapt away from the desk. “Hi, Mom,” he said nervously. “I’m, um, just getting ready for church.”

  “Well, you need to hurry, dear.” His mother leaned over to kiss James on the cheek, balancing William on her hip. The baby flung himself forward, burbling excitedly. “Ya YA! Ya ya!”

  Mrs. Pompaday tried to restrain him. “Yes, William, that’s JAMES. Can you say ‘Ja-Ja-Ja-James’?” When the baby grabbed a fistful of her jacket, she chided, “Don’t muss Mommy’s nice blazer,” then redirected her attention to her older son. “We don’t want to be late, James. Everyone in this house is so slow in the mornings! Sometimes I think I’m the only one who cares about looking presentable and being on time.” She checked her hair in James’s mirror, patting it approvingly. “Who were you talking to?”

  “Nobody,” James said. “Just myself.”

  “Well, try not to do that. It’s not normal. Oh, I don’t want to see that ink bottle uncapped, James! It’ll get knocked over. You promised to be—”

  James hurriedly shuffled the pages on the desk, trying to hide Marvin’s drawing. But he wasn’t fast enough. Mrs. Pompaday marched across the room and lifted the paper.

  “What’s this?”

  James hesitated. He looked in the direction of the piggy bank, where Marvin crouched out of sight. “Nothing. Just . . . just a picture.”

  “Yes, I can see that.” Mrs. Pompaday turned the page in her hand, studying it. “Where did you get it?”

  Don’t tell her, Marvin thought. Please don’t tell her.

  He had a sudden understanding of how grave a risk he’d taken: drawing the picture, showing himself to James, taking credit for the artwork. Not only was he personally in danger if Mrs. Pompaday realized a beetle had done the drawing, but his whole family would be in jeopardy as soon as she discovered there were beetles in the house . . . artistically talented ones or not. She wasn’t a woman with a tolerance for bugs.

  Mrs. Pompaday continued to stare at the picture. “Did it come with the ink set, as an example?” she asked. She turned slowly toward the window, still holding the page. “Oh . . . why . . . oh, my goodness! James! Did you draw this? Why, it’s . . . I can’t believe it. It’s remarkable!”

  Marvin watched James’s face from his viewpoint under the piggy bank. He saw so many feelings chase across it—worry, then surprise, then a flash of pure joy as his mother exclaimed over the drawing.

  “James, I had no idea you could draw like this.” William lunged for the paper and Mrs. Pompaday raised it out of his reach. “No, William, mustn’t touch.” She held it at arm’s length, scrutinizing it. “I don’t understand why your art teacher at school hasn’t spoken to me. You’ve a fantastic talent, dear!”

  Marvin saw James open his mouth to protest, then weakly close it. His mother continued to gush. “This is—well, it’s astounding, that’s what it is. Such cunning detail. I must show it to Bob.”

  She called repeatedly for Mr. Pompaday, who eventually appeared in the doorway, tightening his tie. “Yes? What’s the fuss?”

  “Bob, look at this. Look at the wonderful picture our James has made.”

  Mr. Pompaday considered the drawing and harrumphed. “James couldn’t have drawn that. It looks like some kind of museum reproduction, like one of those old engravings.”

  “I know, I know,” Mrs. Pompaday agreed. “That’s what I thought myself. But, look, it’s the scene outside James’s window! He drew it with his new pen-and-ink set.”

  Mr. Pompaday took the paper and walked to the window. He surveyed the street and looked back at the picture. “Huh,” he said. “So it is.” He squinted irritably at James. “Where’d you get the art set?”

  “From my dad,” James said, looking down. “For my birthday.”

  “That’s right, Karl stopped by yesterday,” Mrs. Pompaday added in a rush. “Dropped off a pen-and-ink set for James. I didn’t think much of the idea, myself. An eleven-year-old boy using permanent ink? But look what James made! Honestly, I can hardly believe it. I never imagined he had this kind of gift!”

  Marvin winced.

  Mrs. Pompaday went on, “I suppose, with his father being an artist, I did suspect that James might have some sort of aptitude in that area, but really—”

  Mr. Pompaday frowned. “Karl! This is much better than that hogwash Karl paints. This actually looks like something.”

  “I know. Isn’t it splendid? I can’t wait to show
it to the Mortons. They’re always purchasing those fancy little sketches at Sotheby’s for outrageous sums. Wait till they see what my own child has drawn.” Mrs. Pompaday squeezed James’s shoulder, and William reached for a fistful of his hair. James smiled uncertainly, batting William’s hand away.

  “Well, um, should I get ready for church?” he asked.

  “Look at the time!” Mr. Pompaday snapped. “Yes, hurry up, James. We have to leave in twenty minutes.” He grabbed William from his wife and stomped into the hall.

  Mrs. Pompaday started to follow him, the drawing in her hand. But James touched her sleeve. “Mom, could I keep the picture here? With my ink set?”

  “Oh.” Mrs. Pompaday hesitated. “Yes, of course. I’d like to show it to a few people, that’s all. It really is so lovely.” She placed it regretfully on the desk. “You’ll be careful, won’t you, James? Not to spill anything on it? Perhaps you could work on another one this afternoon.”

  James shot an awkward glance at Marvin. “I don’t know, Mom . . . maybe. But Dad’s coming, remember? And it would take me a while.”

  “Oh, I can imagine it would! I don’t know when you found time for it yesterday, with the party and everything else.” She smiled at him again. “I can’t believe you were able to draw this, James. And think: If you hadn’t gotten that ink set, we might never have discovered this fabulous talent of yours!”

  As she clicked out of the room, something about her approving gaze reminded Marvin of his own mother, who would be frantic with worry back at home. He’d been gone all night. His parents would have no idea what had happened to him. With the coast clear, he sped across the desktop and down the wooden leg to the floor.

  “Wait!” James cried. “Where are you going?”

  But Marvin dashed away, feeling comfortingly certain that his new friend wouldn’t try to stop him.

  A New Kind of Trouble

  When Marvin finally crawled through the cupboard wall into the family’s living room, he was greeted by a dozen of his relatives in an anxious huddle. Their faces lit with relief when they saw him. Only cousin Elaine seemed somewhat let down.

  His mother rushed to him, gathering him in her many legs. “Marvin! Oh, darling, where were you? You gave us such a fright!”

  “What happened, son?” Papa pressed. “Elaine said you’d gone to deliver the nickel, but when Albert and I went looking for you, we couldn’t find you anywhere.”

  “We thought something terrible had happened to you,” Elaine added, her voice grave. “Why, it could have been anything. You might have caught a leg in one of the floorboards, or the nickel could have fallen on top of you, or you might have been crushed underfoot by one of the Pompadays making a midnight trip to the bath—”

  “That’s enough, Elaine,” Uncle Albert said severely.

  But Marvin’s grandmother was not so easily quieted. “Marvin, Marvin! Have you forgotten about Uncle George?” she cried, hugging him close. “Is life so cheap?”

  Marvin sighed. Of course he hadn’t forgotten about Uncle George. Who could forget about Uncle George, whose fate was the subject of frequent cautionary lectures by the adults in the family? The lead tuba player in the neighborhood band, Uncle George had ventured out one night with the bass guitarist to retrieve a piece of dry macaroni (his preferred instrument) from beneath the stove. They were intercepted by a particularly bold and hungry mouse. The guitarist escaped, but Uncle George was not so lucky.

  “I’m sorry,” Marvin said. “I didn’t mean for anyone to worry. I was in James’s room, up on his desk. That’s why you didn’t see me, Papa.”

  “But, darling, whatever were you doing there?” Mama asked anxiously. “James isn’t allowed to eat in his room, you know that. There wouldn’t have been any food.”

  “No, I wasn’t looking for food.” Marvin hesitated, scanning the ring of puzzled faces. Even his cousin Billy, the wild one who’d lost a leg surfing in the garbage disposal, had never gone missing for an entire night. In the beetles’ world, that inevitably spelled doom. There were too many things that could go wrong.

  “Then what, Marvin?” Papa asked. “What were you doing?”

  “I—” Marvin didn’t know how to explain it. The wonder of the drawing seemed too new to him, too fragile to share with his family. He took a deep breath. “I wanted to do something for James, because his birthday party was so awful. You know how he got that ink set from his dad? Well, it was on the desk, with the cap off.”

  “Don’t tell me you fell in!” Mama gasped.

  “No! No, Mama.”

  The family waited.

  “I dipped my front legs in the ink and drew a picture for him.”

  The room fell silent. Marvin looked from his mother to his father.

  “A picture?” Papa asked. “What kind of picture?”

  “The scene outside his window,” Marvin mumbled, studying the floor. “The building across the street, with the tree and the streetlamp. Just a tiny picture of it.”

  “But, Marvin,” Mama said softly. “You could have been caught. And now . . . the picture . . . well, what will James think? Is it even big enough for him to see it? And if it is, who will he think drew such a thing? He’s too old to believe in fairies.”

  Marvin paused. “He knows I did it.”

  “WHAT?” The cry came in unison from the assembled relatives, their faces frozen in horror.

  Marvin hurriedly explained what had happened. “But James won’t tell anyone. I know he won’t. He wouldn’t do anything to get me in trouble.”

  Mama shook her head. “Marvin, I know you like James—we all do—but he’s a HUMAN. He has no loyalty to our kind. Humans can’t be trusted.”

  Papa turned to Uncle Albert. “We’ll have to get the drawing. That’s the only answer.”

  “No, Papa, you can’t!” Marvin cried. “It was a present for James. I made it for him. And Mr. and Mrs. Pompaday have seen it now. They think he was the one who drew it. You should have seen how happy that made him! You can’t just take it away.”

  “Marvin,” his father said sternly. “I don’t think you understand the gravity of this situation.”

  His grandmother nodded. “I know you meant well, dear boy, but that drawing endangers all of us.”

  Marvin turned desperately to his mother, but her response was firm. “James can’t keep it, darling, especially now that he knows you’re responsible.”

  There was a murmur of assent from the relatives.

  “You’ll have to get it back.”

  “Go now, while they’re at church.”

  “Paper’s heavy. You’ll need a few extra legs.”

  Marvin looked around the room in utter dejection.

  “Okay,” he said finally.

  Miserably, he led a small posse of beetles—consisting of his parents, Uncle Albert, Uncle Ted, and Elaine—out of the cupboard and through the quiet apartment in the direction of James’s room.

  When the six beetles finally reached the desktop, the picture was right where James had left it, resting at an angle atop the scattered sheets of newspaper. Marvin felt his heart leap wildly at the sight of it. His parents stopped dead in their tracks.

  “Marvin,” Mama said, her voice hushed.

  Papa’s jaw dropped. “Son, you made this?”

  Elaine crawled eagerly across the paper, gushing praise. “Marvin, it’s beautiful! The lines are so little and neat. It looks exactly like what’s outside! And you drew it in the dark too. I’d like to see a human try that. They can’t see for beans at night.”

  “It’s stunning, my boy,” Uncle Albert agreed. “There’s no other word for it.”

  Uncle Ted clapped Mama on the back. “Marvin’s an artist! We’ve got a real artist in the family! Do you remember Jeannie’s murals, the ones she made with toothpaste? She wasn’t nearly this good.”

  Marvin glowed with pride.

  Mama stroked his shell. “It’s a marvelous picture, darling. Just marvelous . . . so beautiful and true.
I can’t imagine how you did it. No wonder James was pleased. What a gift!”

  Papa studied the drawing regretfully. “And what a shame we have to take it away.”

  Just then they heard the front door unlatch and a commotion in the foyer, punctuated by William’s trademark bellow.

  “Oh! The Pompadays are home from church!” Mama cried. “Quick, try to lift it.”

  The beetles surrounded the paper, one at each end, two on the long sides, and wedged their shells under the edges. They could hear James’s sneakered feet thudding down the hall.

  “There’s no time,” Papa hissed. “We can’t do it.”

  “Hurry, everyone, under the piggy bank and down the wall,” Uncle Ted ordered.

  “What—are we just going to leave Marvin’s picture?” Elaine protested. “After all this, we’re not taking it with us?”

  “Elaine, hush,” Uncle Albert scolded. “James will be here in one second.”

  The beetles dashed for cover just as James came racing into the room. They clustered for a moment beneath the piggy bank, then Uncle Ted climbed from the desk to the grooved wainscoting and started down the wall, leading the way.

  Marvin hung back in the shadow of the piggy bank. “Papa,” he whispered, “can I stay for a little while? I want to see what he’ll do with the drawing.”

  His father hesitated, poised between the wooden edge of the desk and the wall. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, son.”

  “But he might move it, and that way I’ll know where it is.”

  Papa frowned, considering. “I suppose that would be helpful.” His eyes followed the retreating line of beetles, already halfway down the wall. “All right,” he decided. “But you need to keep yourself hidden this time, Marvin. Do you understand? And we’ll expect you home by dinner.”

  “Oh, I will be, Papa!” Marvin promised. “That’s hours and hours away.”

  “It could be a Dürer.”