Monday with a Mad Genius Read online

  “Yes, over there,” said Zorro. He pointed at two large iron pots beneath the platform.

  “And you brought the wood?” said Leonardo.

  “Yes,” said Zorro. He pointed to a pile of wood stacked against a wall.

  Leonardo set down his basket and headed over to the platform.

  “What’s the plan, Leonardo?” asked Annie as she and Jack followed him.

  “My apprentices and I will fill the pots with wood and lift them onto the platform,” said Leonardo. “Then we will light fires in them. The heat of the fires will quickly dry the fresco.”

  “How can we help?” asked Jack.

  “Bring us some kindling,” said Leonardo.

  “No problem!” said Jack. He put down his bag, and he and Annie hurried to the wood stack.

  “Kindling?” she said.

  “Small pieces of wood,” said Jack. “They catch fire first and help get the big pieces started.”

  Jack and Annie picked sticks and twigs from the wood stack. They carried the kindling back to Leonardo, and he dumped it into the iron pots. Zorro brought over some logs. Then he and Leonardo hooked the handles of the pots to a system of ropes and pulleys.

  “Pull!” Leonardo shouted.

  The apprentices on the platform pulled on the ropes. The heavy pots swung into the air.

  “Steady! Steady!” Leonardo shouted.

  The apprentices slowly hauled up the pots. Then they pulled them onto the platform and placed them in front of the fresco.

  “Light the fires!” shouted Leonardo.

  Zorro lit a candle from a torch burning at the entrance of the hall. He carried the candle up the ladder and used its fire to light the kindling. Soon the wood in the pots began to blaze.

  “Bring more wood!” Leonardo shouted. “Bring more wood!”

  Jack and Annie hurried back to the woodpile. They gathered bigger pieces of wood and rushed back to the ladder. Apprentices lifted the wood up to the platform and added it to the fires in the pots.

  Soon flames were shooting high into the air, warming the fresco. Standing with Leonardo below the platform, Jack and Annie stared up at the battle scene. The room grew hotter and hotter.

  With the fires blazing above and smoke curling through the air, Jack felt like he was in the middle of the battle himself. He could hear the clanging swords, neighing horses, and shouting men. He could feel the “beastly madness” of war that Leonardo had talked about.

  Suddenly Jack heard real shrieks—Leonardo’s apprentices were all yelling.

  “It is dripping, Master!” one cried.

  “The paint is running!” shouted another.

  Jack looked back at the fresco. The helmets of the warriors were melting down over their furious faces.

  “AHHH!” cried Leonardo with a look of horror. “Kill the fires! Kill the fires!”

  The panic of the battle scene seemed to spread through the big room. Leonardo’s apprentices looked around wildly, as if they didn’t know what to do.

  “Water from the fountain!” Leonardo roared. “Hurry!” He ran out of the room. His apprentices rushed after him.

  “We have to help, too!” Jack said to Annie. They took off after the others, following them down the stairs to the courtyard.

  The apprentices were filling buckets with water from the fountain. “Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!” Leonardo shouted.

  Jack and Annie grabbed two of the full buckets and clumsily followed the others back up the stairs. “This is like—like Edo!” Jack said to Annie, remembering their recent trip to old Japan.

  “Yeah,” said Annie, “except that was a city on fire. This is just paint melting.”

  True, thought Jack. But Leonardo was acting like it was a matter of life and death.

  Inside the hall, Leonardo and the apprentices carried the buckets up the ladder. They splashed water over the flames in the two iron pots. But it was too late. The helmets and faces and swords of the fighting men had become a messy blur of streaks and blotches. The painting was ruined.

  Leonardo stared for a long moment at the wall. Then he climbed down the ladder and walked away. When he got to the door, Zorro shouted, “Master, wait!” But Leonardo kept walking.

  “We have to follow him,” Annie said to Jack.

  “He seems really upset,” said Jack.

  “I know,” said Annie. “But we have to do what the rhyme says—‘Help the genius all day long.’”

  “But what if he doesn’t want our help anymore?” said Jack.

  “Look! He forgot his basket, with all his stuff in it,” said Annie. “We can take it to him.”

  “Okay. Good,” said Jack.

  Annie picked up Leonardo’s basket filled with feathers, flowers, cheese, and a loaf of bread. Jack grabbed his own bag and they hurried out of the council hall. When they got to the entrance of the palace, they saw Leonardo striding across the square.

  “Leonardo!” Annie yelled.

  Leonardo didn’t look back. He disappeared down a narrow lane.

  “Quick!” said Jack.

  Jack and Annie took off across the square. When they got to the lane, they saw Leonardo at the far end.

  “Leonardo, wait!” Annie shouted.

  But Leonardo didn’t wait. He kept going and rounded a corner.

  Annie and Jack ran faster. When they turned the corner, they looked right and left. Kids were playing in the street. Two women were leaning out of windows talking to each other. But there was no sign of Leonardo.

  “Excuse me,” Annie called to the women. “Have you seen Leonardo da Vinci?”

  “Oh, yes, he just got home!” one woman said.

  “He lives just over there!” said her neighbor. She pointed to a narrow building across the street.

  “Thank you!” said Annie. She and Jack walked quickly to the building. A stone arch opened onto a wide pathway. They walked under the arch and down the pathway to a sunny cobblestone courtyard. A big white horse was tied to a cart. Chickens pecked the dirt between the warm stones.

  “Hi, guys,” Annie said to the horse and chickens.

  Jack pointed to an open doorway across the yard. “He’s in there. I hear him,” he said.

  Annie and Jack moved quietly across the courtyard. They stopped outside a window.

  Leonardo was pacing up and down inside. His cap and cloak were on the floor. His hair was wild.

  “I’ll leave Florence—that’s what I’ll do,” Leonardo said to himself. “I shall go to Rome! Or back to Milan!”

  Jack turned to Annie. “We shouldn’t bother him,” he whispered. “If I felt that bad, I wouldn’t want people to bother me.”

  “Not bother,” said Annie. “Help. If I felt that bad, I’d want people to help me. Come on, at least we can give him his stuff.” Before Jack could stop her, Annie stepped into Leonardo’s room. “Knock, knock,” she said loudly.

  Leonardo whirled around. His face was red. He was scowling. “What are you doing here?” he said.

  “We brought your things,” said Annie. “You forgot them.” She held up the basket.

  “Oh.” Leonardo’s face softened. “Thank you. Leave it all by the door, please,” he said.

  Annie put the basket down. Then she looked up at Leonardo.

  “We’d better go,” Jack said softly to her.

  “Wait.” Annie stepped farther into Leonardo’s room. “We’d like to help you,” she said.

  Leonardo scowled again. “You cannot help me,” he said. “Do as your brother says, little girl. Go now.”

  But Annie didn’t move. “Excuse me, but we’re supposed to help you all day,” she said. “You made us your apprentices for the day, remember?”

  “Can you not see that I am miserable?” said Leonardo.

  “But why are you miserable?” said Annie. “You said that fame was the secret of happiness. And you’re still famous.”

  “But what good is fame in the face of failure?” shouted Leonardo. “This fresco was to be my masterpiece! What
good is fame when everyone will now laugh at me and mock my failure? Go! Please!”

  “Oh, okay. I’m sorry,” said Annie in a small voice. “We just wanted to help.” She and Jack turned to go.

  “Wait, wait, wait,” said Leonardo. “Forgive me.”

  Jack and Annie looked back at Leonardo. The great genius rubbed his face and sighed. Then he waved his hand. “Please, forgive me. Come in, come in,” he said.

  “Thanks,” said Annie. And she and Jack stepped inside Leonardo da Vinci’s studio.

  A low fire burned in the hearth. Sunlight slanted across the warm room. Jack caught his breath as he looked around Leonardo’s studio.

  There were mirrors, wooden trunks, globes, paint pots, and brushes. Sketches, paintings, and handmade maps were all over the walls. There were stacks of old books, half-built furniture, piled-up papers, theater masks, pieces of costumes, and musical instruments.

  “Oh, man,” murmured Jack, “I love this room.”

  “Me too,” said Annie.

  “Please, sit at my table. Let me get you something to eat,” said Leonardo. He pushed a bunch of things to the side of a long wooden table and pulled up two chairs.

  “Thanks,” said Jack. He and Annie sat down.

  Leonardo took the cheese and bread from the basket by the door and gave some to Jack and Annie. The cheese was dry but tasted good. And the bread was really delicious—hard and crackly on the outside, but soft and chewy on the inside. Hmm, I wonder how they make it like this, Jack thought.

  “So why do you want to leave Florence, Leonardo?” Annie asked, her mouth full.

  “Because I will no longer be respected here,” said Leonardo. “Last week, the council told me I must finish my fresco soon. And now I will not finish it at all. Just recently Michelangelo accused me of never finishing anything!”

  “Michelangelo? The great artist?” said Jack.

  Leonardo snorted. “You think Michelangelo is a great artist? Have you seen his statues? Those men with their big muscles? They look like sacks of walnuts!”

  Jack and Annie laughed.

  Leonardo tried to hide a smile as he looked at them. “In truth, Michelangelo is a great artist,” he said. “Still, he should not accuse me of never finishing anything … even if it is true.”

  “Why don’t you finish things?” asked Annie.

  “Well, I shall not finish my battle scene now because I experimented with my paint,” said Leonardo. “I am experimenting all the time. And often my experiments lead nowhere.”

  “So is that your main problem?” asked Annie.

  “One of them,” said Leonardo, sighing. “The other is that there are too many things I want to do, and there is never enough time!”

  “What else do you want to do?” asked Jack.

  “Oh, I have thousands of ideas,” said Leonardo. He put down his bread and cheese and crossed to a wooden trunk in the corner of his studio. He raised the lid of the trunk and stared for a moment at its contents.

  Leonardo turned back to Jack and Annie. His eyes were bright again. Whatever was in the trunk had made him happier. “Come, look,” he said.

  Jack and Annie walked over to the trunk and peered inside. It held dozens and dozens of plain black books, large ones and small ones.

  “Notebooks,” said Leonardo. “I have filled over a hundred of them with my ideas.”

  “Oh,” said Jack, his eyes wide.

  “Jack keeps notebooks, too!” said Annie.

  “Do you mind if we look at them?” asked Jack.

  “No, not at all,” said Leonardo.

  Jack and Annie started picking up the notebooks and turning the pages. The pages were crammed with doodles and writing. They showed sketches of people’s faces, animal heads, flowers, trees, rivers, mountains, the sun, and the moon.

  One notebook was filled with drawings of horses. Another had sketches of bridges and buildings. Another had drawings of birds and machines. Many of the drawings in the notebooks had labels written in a strange language.

  “You cannot read my notes, can you?” said Leonardo.

  Jack and Annie shook their heads.

  “Hold them to a mirror,” said Leonardo.

  Jack and Annie stood in front of a wall mirror.

  Each held up a notebook and looked at its reflection in the mirror.

  “Oh, I get it!” said Jack. He could read the words now! Leonardo had written everything backward—from right to left across the page. So the word bird was written as , and the word wind was written as .

  “Why do you write this way?” asked Annie.

  “People think I am trying to keep my ideas a secret,” said Leonardo. “But, in truth, I am left-handed, and when I write normally from left to right, I smear ink across the page. One day I realized that if I wrote backward, I would not be so messy.” He laughed and sat down at the table. As he took a bite of bread, he seemed his happy self again.

  “What do you write in these notebooks?” said Jack.

  “Oh, I’ve written down thousands of ideas,” said Leonardo. “For example—” He opened a notebook and read: “Fossils of tiny sea creatures have been found in the mountains of Italy. It is my belief that ocean water once covered the mountains millions of years ago.”

  “Your belief is right,” said Jack.

  Leonardo looked at Jack with surprise. “You seem so certain,” he said.

  “Well, I know from science books that the oceans once covered many mountains of the earth, and that’s why you can find sea fossils there,” said Jack.

  “We read lots of books,” said Annie.

  “Indeed?” said Leonardo. Then he picked up another notebook and read: “If a wolf stares at you, your voice will become hoarse.”

  “Um … that’s not true,” said Annie.

  “It is not?” said Leonardo.

  “Well, think about it,” said Annie. “How could an animal make a person hoarse? And why would they want to?”

  Leonardo nodded. “Yes, I think I agree with you,” he said. He cleared his throat. Then he read another idea: “A spider hatches its eggs by staring at them.”

  “Nooo,” said Jack and Annie together.

  “No?” said Leonardo.

  “Trust us,” said Jack, smiling. This is really fun, he thought, knowing more than a great genius. Scientists have discovered a lot since Leonardo’s time.

  “All right. I don’t know why, but I shall trust you,” said Leonardo. He turned some pages and read: “The moon may be bright because it is made out of rippling water.”

  Jack shook his head. “Actually it’s made out of rocks,” he said. “It’s bright because it reflects the light of the sun.” Jack knew lots of facts about the moon.

  “And did you know there’s no wind on the moon?” said Annie. “So someday when people walk there, their footprints will last forever!”

  Leonardo grinned. “Wonderful,” he said. “I fear you are both speaking nonsense. But I like your original thinking!”

  He turned the page and read another entry:

  “There must be a way to use a natural force, such as steam or wind, to help people do their tasks in less time, with less work—”

  “That’s a great idea,” said Jack. “Maybe someday steam engines could run ships. Or maybe steam could help run a train.”

  “A train?” said Leonardo.

  “Yes, a train!” said Annie. “A train is this thing we’ve imagined. It’s like—um—”

  “Like wagons connected to each other!” said Jack. “And they run over tracks that go across the land.”

  “Interesting,” said Leonardo. He closed his eyes as if trying to imagine it.

  “And then there are planes,” said Annie. “We’ve imagined these things called planes.”

  “Yeah,” said Jack, “they have wings, and they fly you through the air.”

  “Like birds!” said Annie.

  Leonardo sat up very straight. “You imagine such a flying thing is possible?” he asked.
r />   “We’re positive,” said Jack.

  Leonardo leapt to his feet. “You have been sent to me as a sign!” he said.

  “A sign of what?” said Annie.

  Leonardo’s eyes were gleaming. “I, too, believe humans can fly like birds. And today I shall prove it!”

  “You will?” said Jack.

  “Yes! Until now, I have been fearful of testing my idea,” said Leonardo. “But the two of you have given me courage!”

  What is Leonardo talking about? Jack wondered.

  “I am sure my plan will work now!” said Leonardo. “And it will bring me everlasting fame!”

  “We don’t really know that much about flying,” Jack said.

  “Yeah, we were just imagining,” said Annie.

  But Leonardo had grabbed his cap and cloak. “Come with me, friends!” He headed out to the courtyard.

  Jack grabbed his bag, and he and Annie followed. Leonardo jumped into the horse cart and picked up the reins. “Climb in! Climb in!” he said.

  Jack and Annie climbed into the cart and sat beside Leonardo.

  “Today the Great Bird shall rise aloft high into the sky!” said Leonardo. “And the universe shall be filled with wonder!”

  Leonardo shook the reins. The white horse clopped out of the courtyard and into the street.

  “So where are we going?” Annie asked.

  “To a steep hill just outside the city walls,” said Leonardo. “One day you will tell people that you were with me on this historic Monday. You saw the mad genius, Leonardo da Vinci, and his Great Bird!”

  “Cool, but can you tell us exactly what you’re planning to do?” said Jack.

  “For twenty-five years, I have sketched birds and bats,” said Leonardo. “I have studied all their movements, their gliding, their flapping, their landing, and their rising into the air. I have asked myself over and over, Why can a person not fly as birds do? So, years ago I began building my Great Bird.”

  “Your Great Bird?” asked Annie.

  “Ha-ha!” laughed Leonardo. “Wait and see! Wait and see!”

  The horse pulled the cart through the city gates, heading into the countryside. The chilly air was warmed by bright sunlight.