The Ghost in the Big Brass Bed by Bruce Coville Page A

we were to see her. “Well, what brings you two here?”
    I wanted to throw the question right back at her. Unfortunately, I knew that wouldn’t do me much good. Adults can demand to know why kids are in a certain place, but kids don’t have the same privilege when it comes to adults.
    â€œWe got interested in that painting we saw at Phoebe Watson’s house and decided to find out more about it,” Chris said. “Next thing we knew—here we were!”
    I smiled. Chris had managed to answer Ms. Bond’s question and let her know what she thought of the way she had asked it, all without crossing that invisible line labeled “smart aleck.” She had stepped close , but she hadn’t crossed it.
    Ms. Bond’s face twitched a little. “You must be very interested in art to go to all this trouble.”
    â€œOh, we’re very cultured,” replied Chris. “We act, we sing, we look at pictures.”
    She was about to stick her toe over the line. “It was finding out that the artist was local that got us so interested,” I said quickly. I paused, then added, “Is that why you’re here?” I tried to ask the question in a way that wouldn’t offend her.
    â€œI’m here because I’m preparing a paper on the museum’s Fletcher collection. The work of Cornelius Fletcher is my specialty.”
    â€œOh,” I said, feeling a little silly.
    â€œWould you like to know a little about these pictures?” she asked. She sounded friendlier, which I thought might have something to do with the fact that she was slipping into her teacher role. Ever notice that people love to tell you what they know?
    â€œSure,” Chris said. “We’re always ready for a little culture.”
    If I could have kicked her without Ms. Bond’s seeing, I would have.
    â€œLet’s start with this one,” Ms. Bond said, leading us to a large picture that hung just to the right of the door. “It’s called ‘Love and Flowers.’”
    â€œHey, I like this!” I said in surprise. “It’s sure prettier than ‘Early Harvest.’”
    Ms. Bond gave me her “What a rude sound!” look. “It’s an inferior painting,” she said, as if I were some kind of moron not to have known that. “The museum keeps it out for historical purposes, so people can see the growth in Fletcher’s work. Other than that, it has little to recommend it. It’s shallow and sentimental, pretty much representative of the worst of American art during that period.”
    I stared at the picture, which showed a woman and a little girl playing in a field of flowers.
    â€œI still like it,” I muttered to myself.
    â€œNow this piece is from Fletcher’s sketchbook,” Ms. Bond said, pointing to a pencil drawing of a soldier leaning over a ragged, skinny boy. “He made it while in France, during the war. Notice that the style is cleaner, less cluttered. Of course, it’s still sentimental. But he’ll get past that.”
    She showed us several more sketches. The work seemed to get progressively more dark and ugly, which Ms. Bond seemed to think made it progressively more artistic.
    â€œI like the sentimental ones,” I said at last.
    Ms. Bond sighed. “Most young people do. I suppose as decoration they’re quite nice. But they have very little personal vision in them. In the later work you see a man being forced to face a terrible truth, and sharing that truth through his art. Cornelius Fletcher went to war filled with foolish ideas about glory. His later pictures show what he found instead.”
    After the series of sketches we saw a big painting of a battle scene. Unlike looking at “Early Harvest,” where the horror was hidden at first, seeing this picture was like getting hit between the eyes with a hammer.
    â€œThis was Fletcher’s first major painting after his return