The Boy Who Could Draw Tomorrow by Quinn Sinclair Read Free Book Online Page B

calm and cheerful. What sort of mother pulled a nut job on her kid on his very first day of first grade? She stood him in front of the full-length mirror set into the panel of his closet door.
    She stood behind him to admire her handiwork—the Indian Walk shoes, grey flannel trousers, navy blazer, white shirt and tie. Even his hair was in place, she noticed with happy surprise.
    She saw Sam smiling at her in the mirror and she reached her arms down to his chest and pulled him back against her.
    "You'll muss me."
    "Will I indeed?" she said, and ran to her room to get ready too.
    ***
    When she came back to collect Sam for the walk to school, he was seated at his worktable drawing.
    "Time to go, Sweetie."
    He capped his pen and closed the pad, and then he stuffed both items into the little L.L. Bean back pack Hal had sent away for.
    "Uh-uh," Peggy said, coming into the room to lift the back pack off Sam's shoulders. "Those things stay here."
    Sam widened his eyes in alarm.
    "I mean it, honey," Peggy explained. "School's school. You can do your drawing at home."
    "Miss Goldenson always let me."
    "That was different. That was nursery school. This is St. Martin's."
    "So what?" Sam argued.
    "It's just different, is all," Peggy repeated.
    She was stumped for a better answer. But what could she say to him that would sound reasonable? Already she could tell from looking at him that she was failing him in some serious way. She knew it was cruel to deny Sam his pad and pen, especially if it comforted him to have them on the very first day. But she had to be honest with herself: she  was now on tenter-hooks about what he might draw when she wasn't around to keep an eye out. However ridiculously she might be carrying on, she couldn't help but suspect that there was some bizarre connection between Sam's drawings and the future. Something about them seemed to influence events.
    The whole business baffled and unnerved her. How could you make sense out of something so impossible?
    It was then that Peggy remembered the drawing of the classroom, the pig-faced woman, the little boy who lay collapsed across his desk. What was she to do? She looked at Sam, and she could see that he was trying to steel himself to deal with the inevitable. But she could also see the tears that were beginning to gather in his eyes.
    "I'm being silly," Peggy said with a smile. "Of course you can take your drawing things, sweetie. For God's sake, I don't know what got into me. Does that make everything okay?"
    Sam nodded helplessly. She could see he was so relieved that he couldn't speak. He held out his hand for the backpack, and when Peggy gave it to him, he clutched it to his chest as if it were a stuffed animal that had the power to comfort and protect.
    "I'm really forgiven?" she asked.
    Again he nodded, even now not yet fully recovered from his shock.
    ***
    The school stood on Fifth Avenue between Ninety-third and Ninety-fourth Streets, an austere Georgian building whose balanced rows of windows overlooked the particularly lush section of Central Park. She saw the younger boys and their parents streaming through the eddying ranks of older boys and queuing up in front of the stairs. Tightening her grasp on Sam's hand, she took her place in line. Up in front, standing on the top step, she could see Mrs. Wendell-Briggs and a man who must have been the headmaster. She knew the name, of course—she'd seen it in the school catalogue—but she'd never met the man, and now that Peggy stood here waiting her turn, she was a little bit terrified.
    She looked down at Sam and tried to smile reassuringly When she looked back up to catch a glimpse of a ruddy, grinning man whose close-cropped white hair was like a beacon shining forth from the dark interior of the doorway, she realized with a frisson of anxiety that she'd forgotten his name. Wonderful !
    She squeezed Sam's hand to get his attention and then bent down so as not to be overheard.
    "Honey, you know the headmaster's