Free Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt Page B

wasn't
    there with a whole lot to say and letting himself say it. So my mother did the talking. No, she hadn't
    heard that Spicer's Deli had been robbed last night. No, she had never shopped there, but her youngest
    son worked for Mr. Spicer. She did not know Mr. Spicer and she had no idea why he would think that
    her son had anything to do with the robbery. Yes, she knew exactly where he had been last night:
    home. No, he had not gone out after nine o'clock. Yes, she was sure of that. Yes, she was very sure of
    that. Yes, very sure.
    The two policemen did not look very sure.
    They looked at me. Yes, I knew Spicer's Deli—I worked there. No, I didn't hear my brother go out
    last night. No, I'd never seen him near Spicer's Deli. Nope, I was sure. Never. Just ask him.
    The policemen said they would do that. Did I have any idea where he was right now?
    I didn't. My mother didn't either.
    They looked at each other. They said they'd ride around some and if it was okay with my mother,
    they'd ask my brother the same questions—if they happened to see him, that is.
    My mother said that would be fine.
    When they left, she leaned against the sink. Her breathing was quick and short.
    "Douggie," she said, "you don't think..."
    "He was here all night," I said.
    She looked at me.
    "He was," I said.
    And in case you think I'm lying because of the lie I told about not seeing him at the deli—which, by
    the way, isn't that big a lie and one you probably would tell too—I know that he didn't leave last night
    because I was awake for most of it. I was awake with a flashlight and drawing the tern's feathers
    again, the way they were supposed to be. On a new page, I drew in the body lines lightly, and then I
    erased them as I went. The feathers came out pretty good. You could feel them moving through the air.
    They were moving the way no stupid Large-Billed Puffin's feathers could ever move. And I'm not
    lying.
    So my brother didn't rob Spicer's Deli, no matter who says he did.
    This didn't matter a whole lot to my father, who came home really late with Ernie Eco after
    someone had told him that he'd seen the police talking to his son. I heard the door slam open and his
    feet on the stairs— taking them two at a time—and him calling for my brother, who probably wished
    he hadn't come home that night, who sat up in bed and said, "I didn't—" before my father was on him.
    I guess I should have been happy about what happened to him. Like he was when it happened to
    me. But I saw my brother's face when my father flipped on the light switch.
    The terrified eye.
    "Look at the way Audubon has arranged the two puffins," said Mr. Powell.
    "You mean the two stupid puffins," I said.
    "All right, the two stupid puffins. Remember the tern? Remember how everything was pointing
    down? The horizon lined the very bottom of the painting, but your eye hardly saw it. What's different
    about the setting of this painting?"
    "You mean except for the two stupid fat birds?"
    "Yes, Mr. Swieteck, except for the two stupid fat birds."
    I leaned over the glass case. "The horizon is halfway up the painting," I said.
    "That's right. If you drew lines out from these rocks, do you see how they would go across the
    page, just like the horizon?"
    "So everything is going side to side instead of up and down."
    "Good. That's thinking like an artist. Now, put one finger at the tail feathers of the bird on the left.
    Now another on the far foot of the one on the right. I'll put my finger at the top of the head of the left
    bird, and we've made..."
    "A perfect triangle."
    "Right. And a triangle whose longest side is at the bottom. So what is different about the feel of this
    painting?"
    "Except for the—"
    "Yes, except for the two stupid fat birds."
    I shrugged. "Not much is moving."
    "Not just that. What else? Think like an artist. Think of everything in the painting, not just the
    birds."
    And then I saw it. The long horizons. The flat lines. The triangle resting on them. So