What's Behind the Mighty Fitz? by Joanne Reisberg

Author:Joanne Reisberg
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Juvenile, Art Heist, Edmund Fitzgerald
Publisher: North Star Press of St. Cloud, Inc.
Published: 2014-08-13T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

After getting online at home, he typed in “Max Hallie” and clicked the search button. He waited, anxious to see Hallie’s art. Soon the screen filled with fantastic Max Hallie paintings. Lucas stared, his mouth half-open, at a four-masted galleon plowing through a giant wave. Lucas could almost feel the mist of the ocean and taste the saltwater spray.

So Max Hallie’s really a famous artist? He scrolled down for a photo.

No picture. They listed his age as forty-one. Lucas read about all the colleges he’d attended and degrees he’d received. Hallie had had art shows in San Francisco, New York, Paris, and Bangkok. They didn’t mention any stolen paintings, though at least one hung in McKinley Elementary school.

“That’s a Max Hallie painting,” Mom said, coming up behind Lucas.

Lucas spun around. Huh? “Mom, how do you know that name?”

“He’s a well-known artist.” She headed for the closet. “Remember that meeting I had in New York a month ago?”

“Sure. You brought home a new Wii game for me.”

“Well,” she called over her shoulder, “a few of us got tickets to his latest art show.” She opened the closet door. “I bought one of Max Hallie’s prints.”

Lucas leaned back and ran his fingers through his hair. His mom had met Max Hallie and bought a print? Did it get any crazier than that? “Does he wear glasses? Is he a tall guy?”

“We didn’t get to meet him, and they didn’t include his picture in any brochure they passed out.”

As his mom turned, Lucas saw the back of the small print she held, encased in clear wrap. It was no larger than a sheet of paper.

“They sold the original of this painting to a private collector for fifteen thousand dollars,” she said, holding the print.

Fifteen thousand? She had to be kidding. “How many copies did they make?” he asked.

“They ran off one hundred prints.” She turned the painting toward him. “Look near the bottom. You can see sixty-four over one hundred. This means I have the sixty-fourth copy they ran off.”

Lucas didn’t look at the number or the signature. He stared instead at the yellow-and-orange bouquet of flowers covering the thick paper. He’d never forget his first glimpse of that small canvas he had taken from Mr. Dawson’s office. Those flowers looked real enough to put into a vase of water.

“Well, what do you think? Isn’t he a talented artist? Can’t you almost smell the flowers?” Lucas’s mom asked.

If he’d been standing, he knew he would have collapsed and passed out on the floor. “Great, Mom. Awesome.”

He had seen the original!

Even held it.

If the art from the principal’s office was really the original, he’d had fifteen thousand dollars worth of art under his t-shirt, hidden like that eye behind the Fitz. And then it hit him again full blast: behind that flag in Mr. Dawson’s office, hidden under a poster, hung stolen art. Tell her. Tell her, part of him insisted. Instead Lucas asked, “Mom, do you think people still steal art?”

“Well, Lucas, an article in last week’s newspaper told about three paintings stolen from a Rome museum.

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