Free The Art of Secrets by Jim Klise Page A

they’re sticking to this plan to use the Darger money to help the Khans. At one point, Principal Stickman posted a letter on the school’s website. Did you see that? Here, I’ll pull it up:
    [He grabs an electronic tablet from his gym bag so he can show the Web page to the reporter.]
    To: Principal Stickman
    Subject: Artwork donation
    A message to the Highsmith community:
    (Dr. Stickman, please feel free to share this. We have received many,
many
thoughtful phone calls like yours.)
    With all of you, we celebrate this unexpected good fortune. We do appreciate your guidance about how to proceed on this matter. However, at this time I respectfully submit to the wisdom of my children, Kevin and Kendra. After all, they are the ones who found the treasure in the first place. If they have decided to sell the Darger artwork and use the money for the benefit of the Khan family, then I support that decision. The Khans are part of our community, and something that benefits one family benefits all of us.
    Most of all, I admire my children’s altruistic spirit, which gives us hope for the future of the great nation called the United States of America.
    Sincerely,
    Monica Spoon
    That’s the kind of people they are, these Spoons. I guess that particular flavor of crazy runs in the family.
    All I know is, my girlfriend, Saba, is suddenly worth half a million dollars.

Afterward, as the gym floor swarms with his teammates running drills,
    Kevin Spoon, senior,
    finally gets a chance to speak to the reporter again.
    You know what’s funny? I meant to tell you this the other day. My sister and I first learned about Louise Denison in
your
paper. This was last summer, long before we had any clue we might need her help. But the story really caught our attention because this woman’s life sounded freaking awesome.
    Do you remember the article? Ms. Denison has an “eye for art,” the story said, an “expert genius,” “glamorous globetrotter,” passionate advocate of self-taught artists who work in isolation. “Outsider artists,” the article called them, “whose work often isn’t discovered until after the artist is dead.” The article said that Denison had just returned from India, where she had seen the work of a guy named Nek Chand, an ordinary government worker who spent half his life building this elaborate, whimsical kingdom in the woods near his house. Twenty-five acres, thousands of sculptures, gods, people, animals, made of cement, marbles, bottle tops, broken glass and tile, you name it. And the cool part was, he did it all in secret.
    When Mom showed us the clipping, she told us, “Here’s the perfect job for one of you.” The newspaper story included a big photo: two cement people, bug-eyed, straight nosed and long necked, covered head to toe in shiny beads. And dozens more just like them in the background.
    I said, “Mom, do you want me to build you a secret kingdom in the woods?”
    She was like, “No! Look, the art appraiser. She lives in Chicago, but she travels all around the globe, scoping out amazing art. And she gets paid for it. Who wouldn’t want to do
that
?” She stuck the clipping on the fridge, between an article about a lady who designs super-tiny houses for rich people and one about the dude in Taiwan who invented Razor scooters.
    So earlier this month, when we needed to have the Darger artwork authenticated, we were all like,
yes!
We knew exactly who to call.
    My sister nearly flipped when she finally got to meet Ms. Denison. Kendra was all, “I gotta be honest. I want your life.”
    â€œI want your
luck
,” Denison said. “You found this in an alley?”
    After she authenticated the work, Denison told us that when a painting is not part of the artist’s known body of work, then the painting usually doesn’t have a title. Since this art was legit, she said, Kendra and I had the right to name