The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, 16th October, 1834 - Chapter 3
Chapter 3: A Painting of Their Own
“So, are you going to tell me what you are plotting up?” Peter asked when they finally got back to the Powell’s front porch. Neal eyed Peter as they settled down on the steps. He had been quiet the whole ride back, which was different from how he usually was, but Peter looked like he was more worried about what Neal was thinking of than anything else. Peter had gotten to know Neal and Neal knew that he had revealed more of his devious side with Peter than anyone that he usually met.
Neal glanced up at Peter one more time before finally nodding to himself. “Are you sure that you want to know?”
“Well, I’ll need to know if I have any hope of keeping you in some kind of line,” Peter said. “You know you don’t make that easy, don’t you?”
Neal laughed. “All right, we know that Professor Albright has stolen the painting and, if the museum does know that it’s stolen, they don't have enough information to know that it’s Professor Albright who stole it.”
“And your plan is?” Peter prompted when Neal paused.
“To give the police enough clues to lead them straight to Professor Albright,” Neal said.
“And how do we do that?” Peter asked. “It seems impossible to me.”
“Actually, it’ll be fairly easy,” Neal said. “All we have to do is paint an even more obvious forgery, replace it with the one that Professor Albright left in the museum, and leave enough of other clues to lead them to the Professor.”
“That is easy?” Peter exclaimed, staring at Neal as though he were crazy. “How are we going to do all of that?”
“It’s not like it has to be a perfect copy,” Neal said. “In fact, it should be pretty horrible to have the kind of reaction we want, but it still needs to be a masterpiece. I’ll get started on that tonight, after I get the supplies for it.”
“So I’ll finally get to see your attempt at art?” Peter asked, grinning at Neal. “That might be worth it, but I still don't think that it will work. How can we break into the Philadelphia Museum of Art?”
“I pointed out all of the security holes that the building has,” Neal pointed out, giving Peter an incredulous look. “It’ll be child’s play to get in and replace that painting with our obvious one.”
“And the other clues?” Peter got up and started pacing the length of the porch while he waited for Neal to answer. He obviously didn't believe in Neal’s plan, but that didn’t bother Neal.
“Well, we’ll have to replace it after your trip to the museum, on that trip, you’ll have to get Professor Albright to talk about his love for the painting and there will be a lot of stuff within the painting to show that it is his, and we’ll drop something that is Professor Albright’s to make it seem as though he was there,” Neal listed. He tilted his head back to look at Peter. “Got any idea of what we can drop that will connect back to Professor Albright?”
“I might be able to get one of his business cards when I hand in the form to go on that trip,” Peter said as he stopped pacing and faced Neal. “But I still haven't decided on whether or not we’re going to do this plan.”
“Hey, you’re the one who wanted to do something to bring this to the police’s attention,” Neal shrugged, “this is a way of bringing it to the police’s attention.”
Peter sighed and ran a hand down his face. “All right, we’ll try it out, but I’m blaming it all on you if we get caught for breaking into the museum to steal a painting.”
“A fake, and way to show your age, Peter,” Neal replied. He stood up and brushed off his pants. “I think I have a piece of canvas that’s about the size that we need, although I’m not too worried about it matching exactly. In the same way, I don't need to worry about the quality of paint, either.”
“Do your best,” Peter said. He shook his head once more and left the front porch, heading across the lawn to his own house. “I’ll prepare things on my end.”
Neal waved goodbye and went inside the Powell’s house. He dumped his backpack next to the stairs as he headed into the kitchen. “I’m home,” he announced. He then noticed that there was another person in the kitchen with Mrs. Powell and he froze.
“Neal, you’re back earlier than I expected. I thought that you were going to play with Peter for a while longer after your trip to the museum,” Mrs. Powell said, standing up from her place at the kitchen table. She bustled over to the cabinet and pulled out a glass. “Would you like a glass of milk and some cookies?”
“I suppose so,” Neal said, still eyeing the new person nervously. “And Peter had things to do, so I was thinking about starting a new painting.”
“Sit down, sit down,” Mrs. Powell said, pulling out a seat for Neal as she set the glass down onto the table. She then went over to the fridge and got out the milk.
Neal waited until she poured the milk and was heading back to the fridge before he cautiously moved to sit down. Mrs. Powell grabbed a plate of cookies from off of the stove and brought it over to place it in front of Neal.
“Thanks,” Neal said, reaching out and taking a cookie. He then waited for the shoe to fall.
“This is Mr. Jeffries,” Mrs. Powell introduced the stranger across from Neal. She nervously smoothed out her skirt as she sat down and Neal repressed a frown at the nervous gesture. “He’s the director for a foster home in Detroit.”
“Detroit?” Neal asked, giving Jeffries a sharp glance.
“I’m not going to lie to you, things have been set into motion to send you to Mr. Jeffries’ home in Detroit,” Mrs. Powell said. She gave him a sorrowful look. “I’m sorry, I can’t keep you for much longer and there isn’t any other place but Detroit.”
“I know you won’t be happy, but my home is a good place and I hope that you’ll find some happiness there,” Mr. Jeffries said. Neal searched his face, but did concede that it looked like Mr. Jeffries was a good man and believed in what he was saying.
Neal looked down at the cookie in his hand. “How long do I have? Because I was planning on doing something with Peter, but it’ll take a few weeks.”
“I think we can hold off that long,” Mrs. Powell said. She glanced over at Mr. Jeffries for confirmation.
“If you’re all right with it, then it’s fine with me,” Mr. Jeffries said. “May I ask what you’re working on? Peter’s your friend from next door, right?”
“Right,” Neal answered. “I promised that I’d help Peter paint something for his art class. You know how interested he is in the class; although I still think that he’s mostly in it for the girls.”
“Boys that age often are,” Mr. Jeffries said. “I’m still in contact with one of my boys who’s just about a year younger than Peter is.”
“I’m only friends with Peter because he’s the only interesting person around here,” Neal said, crossing his arms. “But I promised that I would help him with this, so I’d like to at least do that.”
“Don't worry, we’ll let you stay until you’re done,” Mrs. Powell said. She reached over and patted Neal on the arm. Neal resisted the urge to pull away from her, since he knew that she was trying. It wasn’t her fault that they had recently gotten into financial trouble and he had known that it was all temporary from the beginning anyway. At least he would be able to get the painting done and set up Professor Albright to take the fall that he deserved.
“I’m going to get started on the painting, then,” Neal said. Plans were beginning to form in his head and he needed to straighten them all out. Besides, if he had only until they thought that he was done with the painting then he would have to get the painting needed for the museum as fast as he could.
“Are you sure you don't want to stay and talk?” Mr. Jeffries asked. “You can add in your opinion on the whole thing.”
“It doesn't really matter," Neal said as he picked up his glass of milk and put a couple more cookies onto a napkin. “After all, I’m still going to be moving to Detroit, so my input isn’t really needed.”
Neal left without letting them say another word. It was the truth, after all, it didn’t really matter what he wanted, as long as he was a foster kid, they would place him wherever they could. In the mean time, he had important things to do.
He took his snack up to his room and put the cookies and milk down on his desk. He sat down on the desk chair and ate his snack while thinking up all of his plans. By the time he was done with the cookies and milk, he had it all figured out.
He got up, brushed the crumbs off of his hands, and set to work. He found a spare canvas and put up onto an easel. He got out one of his art books and flipped through until he found The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, 16th October, 1834. Neal then got out his charcoal and started sketching the basic lines of the painting. He was soon absorbed into sketching out the painting, copying from out of the book, and he tuned out the outside world. He barely noticed when the front door closed, signifying that Mr. Jeffries had left.
He continued the sketch until Mrs. Powell poked her head into his room to remind him of his bedtime. He grumbled to himself, but did put down the charcoal and went to wash his hands. He then stood in front of the canvas and looked at the charcoal markings. “Hmm, this might be trouble. I’ll have Peter look at it tomorrow.” With one last glance at the almost perfect sketch, Neal went to bed for the night.
The next day, Neal met Peter on the front porch and then dragged him up to his room.
“What’s this all about?” Peter asked as he stumbled into the room. “Are you having problems with the painting or something?”
“In a way, yes,” Neal said. He brought Peter over to the easel and took off the sheet that was hiding it from view. “Look at it.”
“Whoa,” Peter said when he first saw it. He continued to stare at it in amazement, tracing the lines with his eyes. “Are you sure that you drew this, Neal?”
“Of course I drew this,” Neal said. He scowled and crossed his arms.
“But this is good, this is really good,” Peter said. He looked down at Neal, ignoring how annoyed the younger boy looked. “I can't believe that a kid like you drew this.”
“I told you that I had a right to criticize your drawings,” Neal grumbled. “But that’s the problem, it’s too good. You need to fix it, Peter.”
“What?” Peter asked, surprised. He pointed at himself. “You want me to fix it? How am I supposed to do that?”
“You stink at drawing, so you need to finish the painting. Listen, I’ll tell you how to use the oil paints, so you need to finish it,” Neal said.
“I can't do that,” Peter exclaimed. He looked helplessly at the painting. “I would ruin it, your perfect sketch.”
“I can do another one,” Neal said. “But we need this one to be bad, as bad as possible and you're the only one who can do it.”
“Hey, my drawing skills aren’t that bad,” Peter protested, scowling at Neal.
“Oil painting is totally different than drawing, since I took care of the sketch,” Neal said. “Calm down, I’ll help you with learning it, but you need to do it or else I’ll just make it into a decent copy.”
“I suppose I can do it,” Peter said. “And maybe I’ll actually take an art class after all this is over.”
“I wouldn't bother to go that far,” Neal said. “But it’s enough that you do it now.”
“So what’s the first step?” Peter asked. He rubbed his hands together as he stepped up to the easel.
“Let me mix the paints together and then you can start painting,” Neal said. “I’ve already done the under painting, so we can start with the second layer. That’s what’s called a mosaic, color swatches going from darkest to lightest.”
“Right,” Peter said. He went and leaned against the desk while he watched Neal set up the pallet with all of the colors that they would need. It took a while, but finally Neal handed Peter the pallet and a brush and motioned towards the canvas.
“Just try to paint within the lines and follow along with the book,” Neal said as held up the art book that had the picture of The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, 16th October, 1834 in it.
“If you say so,” Peter said as he dipped his brush into the first color.
Neal stood beside Peter, instructing him as the older teen started to paint. From the first few strokes, it was obvious that Peter wasn’t cut out to be an artist, but that was exactly what Neal wanted. Peter continued painting, ignoring all of the mistakes that he made. Gradually, he started to get the hang on doing it and Neal wandered over to his desk.
He figured the few things that he had out on the desk and wondered when he should start packing things up. He glanced around the room, picking out all of the things that he had accumulated during his stay at the Powells. He hadn’t had a huge amount of things when he had first come to the Powells, but now he had enough to fill a room. Neal glanced over at his comic books and started calculating which ones belonged to Peter and which ones he would be leaving with Peter. Some of the action figures he might also give to the older boy, and some he would keep as trading supplies for the new home.
“Neal? Neal,” Peter called out almost an hour later. Neal looked up to see Peter stepping back from the easel. “You okay, Neal?”
“Yeah,” Neal said. “Are you done with the second layer?”
“Yeah, I think so,” Peter said. He put the pallet down and stretched his arms up. “I can’t believe how hard this is.”
“It helps if you actually enjoy it,” Neal said. He stood up and looked at the painting, evaluating it. He nodded to himself. “This is exactly what we want. I’ll let it dry before adding in some of the details.”
“So we have a painting?” Peter said. He blinked and looked at the painting once more. “I don’t think that will fool anyone.”
“It doesn’t have to fool anyone,” Neal said. “In fact, it needs to shout out how fake it is to everyone. Some of the finishing details will make that even clearer.”
“I still don't know about this plan,” Peter said. “But I suppose we’re stuck with it now that we have our own fake.”
“Well, so far everything has gone according to plan,” Neal said. “Now, we have to wait a couple of weeks to let this dry, but that fits with what we were planning on with the trip to the museum.”
“And I’ll get his business card when I turn in the paperwork tomorrow,” Peter said. He shook his head as he started towards the door. “I can't believe that we are doing this.”
“I can't believe we didn't just steal the painting instead of going through all of this,” Neal said as he looked at the painting.
“I told you, no stealing,” Peter said. He shook his finger at Neal in admonishment. “Now I’ve got to go do the rest of my homework. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“See ya,” Neal replied. He waved to Peter as he left and then headed over to his bed.
He knelt down next to his bed and pulled out his suit cases. He left them in the middle of the room as he sat down on his bed. He stared at the suit cases, not thinking of anything at all except for how much it sucked to have to move again. “I wonder what Detroit will be like? I wonder if we’ll be close to any museums, or maybe I could get started on banks,” Neal muttered to himself. He grinned, trying to come up with new challenges to get through at his new place. He wouldn't have Peter, but that didn’t bug him; there had been plenty of places where he was all alone and he survived just fine before. Detroit couldn't get him down, nothing could.
Chapter 2 // Chapter 4