Penelope Crumb

  PENELOPE

  CRUMB

  PHILOMEL BOOKS

  A division of Penguin Young Readers Group.

  Published by The Penguin Group.

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England.

  Text copyright © 2012 by Shawn K. Stout. Art copyright © 2012 by Valeria Docampo.

  All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without

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  a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street,

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  Published simultaneously in Canada. Printed in the United States of America.

  Edited by Jill Santopolo. Design by Semadar Megged.

  Text set in 15-point Fournier MT Std.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Stout, Shawn K. Penelope Crumb / Shawn Stout. p. cm.

  Summary: Fourth-grader Penelope Crumb’s large nose leads to a family discovery.

  [1. Nose—Fiction. 2. Families—Fiction. 3. Grandfathers—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.S88838Pe 2012 [Fic]—dc23 2011017478

  ISBN: 978-1-101-57529-1

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  ALWAYS LEARNING

  PEARSON

  PENELOPE CRUMB

  SHAWN K. STOUT

  with art by VALERIA DOCAMPO

  PHILOMEL BOOKS

  An Imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  For Opal, for Albert A. Beck,

  and for big noses everywhere.

  Table of Contents

  1.

  2.

  3.

  4.

  5.

  6.

  7.

  8.

  9.

  10.

  11.

  12.

  13.

  14.

  15.

  16.

  17.

  18.

  19.

  20.

  21.

  22.

  23.

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  1.

  Miss Stunkel’s art class is my All-Time Favorite. Don’t get me wrong, the rest of fourth grade is all right, I guess. But for me, drawing is like wiggling my toes in the ocean. It just feels good.

  I take out my No. 2 Hard drawing pencil from my red metal toolbox and carefully study my best friend Patsy’s face.

  “Hmmm.” I squint my left eye and pucker my lips, which is what famous artists do when they are concentrating hard. I know that because I saw a cartoon about Leonardo da Vinci once, who was a very, very famous artist who lived a very, very long time ago (he’s dead now, like all famous artists are), and that’s just what he did when he painted. I want to be a famous artist, too, but not a dead one.

  “What?” says Patsy.

  “I’m trying to decide which side of your face is the best one,” I tell her.

  “They’re the exact same, Penelope,” she says.

  “Are not.” But then I add real quick so she won’t be mad, “It’s okay, Patsy, nobody’s face is that way.”

  She gives me a look. I know that look because I’m real good at telling what different kinds of faces mean. It’s an artist’s job to notice things like that. Her face says, You Are Truly Making That Up.

  Patsy doesn’t know anything about art. I mean, nothing. She wouldn’t know Leonardo da Vinci if he handed her a paintbrush and said, “How do you do, little darling?” But that’s okay, because singing is her thing.

  When Patsy was born, her mom and dad must have known she would be a good singer because they named her Patsy Cline. After the famous country-western singer also named Patsy Cline (she’s dead now, too). Only, Patsy Cline (my very best friend, not the famous country-western singer who is dead) is her first name. Her full name is Patsy Cline Roberta Watson. Which is the longest name of anybody I’ve ever met. Even longer than Leonardo da Vinci’s. (I’ve never actually met him on account of you know…)

  So we just call her Patsy.

  “I’ll do this side,” I say. “Because the other side has dirt on it.”

  “Better stop your fibbing.”

  “True blue,” I say. “It’s right here.” I poke my finger at Patsy’s smudgy cheek. And then I get a whiff. “Mustard?”

  Patsy wipes at her cheek with the back of her hand. “Pretzels for breakfast.”

  “Hold still,” I say.

  Patsy makes her lips into a straight line.

  “Wow, Patsy, you look just like Mona Lisa.”

  She raises her eyebrow like she thinks I’m Queen of the Fibbers, but she keeps her mouth straight. “This is as bad as posing to have my picture taken for All-Star Kids,” she says without moving her lips. “You’re coming to my audition on Sunday, aren’t you?” I tell her that I am and to stop talking so I can finish.

  “It didn’t take me this long to draw you!” she says.

  “Patsy,” I say, being as patient as I can be, “do you think that Miss Mona Lisa told Mister Leonardo da Vinci to hurry up?”

  “I bet she would if she had a thousand-legger crawling down her neck. Or if she ate some spoiled ham the night before that gave her the runs.” Patsy sure has a way of putting things.

  After I get through with Patsy’s mouth, I draw her frizzed-out hair. It’s the color of chocolate cherry fudge, and she sure has a mess of it. Her curls sprout every which way on her head. “Tuck your hair behind your ear,” I tell her.

  Patsy cups her hands over her ears and then pulls her hair forward to cover them. “What for?”

  “So I can draw your ear. You know, the thing that’s on the side of your head.”

  “Never mind my ear,” she says. “My hair is my best feature.”

  I give her a look that says, That’s a Good One. I know for a fact that Patsy wishes she could get the curls out of her hair but good. Especially when Patsy’s mom attacks them with bobby pins and hair gel before singing contests just so she can get her cowgirl hat to fit. But I decide to keep this nugget to myself and keep on drawing.

  “Are you done yet?”

  “Almost.” I draw her eyebrow. I can only see one,
since I am drawing just one side of her face. (The side without the mustard.)

  Her eyebrow is like a furry caterpillar that might curl up in the palm of my hand. It is so cute, I name it. Marge.

  I am right in the middle of drawing Marge the Caterpillar when Patsy leans over my desk to try to get a peek at my drawing. But I quickly cover it with my arms so she can’t see. “You’re not supposed to look yet,” I tell her. “Remember?”

  “Okay, everyone.” Miss Stunkel taps her desk. “Who would like to go first?”

  Fast as a flash, I finish furry Marge and then raise my hand high.

  Miss Stunkel peers around the room and touches her Thursday Lizard pin on her blouse. Thursday Lizard is plain and silver and not as good as Friday Lizard, which has red stones for eyeballs. But Patsy Cline hates them all because she’s allergic to things with tails. “Well, I don’t see many hands.”

  I raise my hand higher, but Miss Stunkel keeps on looking. I think she might need glasses.

  I raise my hand even higher still, so high that my fingers begin to tingle. “Oooh.” The tingles start creeping down my arm. I see Miss Stunkel look my way.

  Then she looks right at me.

  I flash her a smile that says, Look How Quiet and Good I Am, So Pretty Please with Sprinkles on Top, Will You Pick Me? Miss Stunkel smiles back. But I know that smile. It says, I’ve Already Called on You Several Times Today, So Let’s Give Someone Else a Turn.

  “Patsy Cline, why don’t you go first,” Miss Stunkel says.

  Well then. I shake the tingles out of my arm. Miss Stunkel always picks kids who aren’t even raising their hands. I think it must be something teachers learn in How to Be the Kind of Teacher That Kids Don’t Like School, because last year my third-grade teacher, Mr. Adler, did the same thing.

  Patsy slumps her shoulders, and I can tell by the look on her face that she is not one bit happy about having to go first. I try to give her a look like the one my mom gives me at the doctor’s when I’m about to get a shot: It Will Be So Fast You Won’t Even Feel It.

  Patsy hugs the drawing to her stomach and heads to the front of the room.

  I look from Patsy to my drawing of Patsy’s face and decide that Marge could use a bit more fur. I add a couple more hairs on Marge and then I hear Patsy say, “This is my drawing of my best friend, Penelope Crumb.” I put down my pencil and give Patsy a big grin. But then I see her drawing of me.

  Good gravy. I’m not 100 percent sure, but I think I stop breathing right then and there. I might even go dead for a second. Maybe two. But somehow I get alive again, and when I do, Patsy is still holding up that drawing.

  Don’t get me wrong. For a singer, Patsy drew my hair, eye, ear, and chin just fine and dandy. But that nose. My nose. Is. Humungous.

  In the next row, Angus Meeker laughs. And for a second, I think he’s laughing at Patsy’s bad talent for drawing: Ha-ha, that’s a real mess of a picture. Patsy drew a potato sticking out of poor old Penelope’s face! But then he looks right at me, that awful Angus Meeker does, and he says, “Yep, looks just like her.” Which gets other people going.

  I give Miss Stunkel a look that says, Aren’t You Going to Say Something about This?

  But Miss Stunkel just smiles like Patsy is Mister Leonardo da Vinci himself. “Very nice,” she says to Patsy, making a big deal out of the very. And then Miss Stunkel says something else. “Your drawing bears a remarkable resemblance to Penelope.”

  Which just about makes me go dead again.

  2.

  Nose thoughts, GREAT BIG ONES, are in my head for the rest of the day. And when I get home to our apartment, I let loose with a howl. “Mom!”

  “Back here!” she hollers.

  Down the long hallway to the back of our apartment, I find Mom perched at our dryer. She’s been using it as a desk ever since it broke last year. She won’t get it fixed, like most everything else that’s broken-down, and so we dry our clothes at the Laundromat or sometimes on our tiny porch if it’s not raining.

  The top of the dryer/desk is cluttered with glass jars stuffed full of felt-tip pens, No. 2 Hard drawing pencils that I sometimes borrow, and paintbrushes that Mom says are made from real horse’s hair. “What do you think?” she says, pulling her feet out of the dryer door and holding up her sketch pad. “And tell the truth.”

  It’s a drawing of a heart. And I don’t mean a Valentine’s Day heart. Not the kind that looks like this: ♥. I mean the kind of heart that’s inside of you, with blood and veins and all kinds of creepy stuff like that. I stare at the heart but all I can see is the nose in Patsy’s drawing. “Very nice,” I say to Mom, just like Miss Stunkel said it, making a big deal out of the very.

  Mom eyeballs the drawing and then reaches for her eraser. “I think the left ventricle looks too big.” Mom is going to school to be an insides artist. She draws people’s insides for books that doctors read. I don’t know why doctors would want to see those kinds of pictures in books because I’m pretty sure they see a lot of that creepy stuff in real life.

  She blows the eraser bits from her drawing pad and asks, “Anything interesting happen at school today?” without looking up. This is one of her Regulars for when I get home. I usually answer with a Regular of my own: “Nope.” And then we will go on about our business. But today is no day for Regulars.

  “I died.”

  That gets her attention. Mom drops the eraser and it goes bouncing off behind the dryer/desk. She spins on her stool to face me and I know by the red blotches on her face that she is not happy about what I said. “Penelope Rae,” she says, in a way that makes my name sound like a gross body part. Large Intestine, for example.

  Mom doesn’t much like it when I talk about dead things. I think it’s on account of the fact that I have a dead father. Graveyard Dead. But for someone who draws people’s insides, you’d think dead things wouldn’t be such a big deal.

  I quick move off the subject of me dying and spill out the awful story about what happened today from beginning to end. I make sure I use the right words to describe the nose in Patsy’s drawing: gigantic, enormous, huge, extremely large…COLOSSAL!

  The blotches start to fade and her eyes get big when I say COLOSSAL like she’s impressed that I know such a word. But I haven’t even gotten to the worst part. That’s when I tell her how Angus Meeker laughed and how Miss Stunkel said that Patsy’s drawing was a remarkable resemblance of me.

  Mom twists her long hair on top of her head and sticks in a pencil to hold the knot. Then she puts her hand on my shoulder and gives me a face that says, You Probably Aren’t Going to Like What I’m about to Tell You.

  “What?”

  “What’s going on?” says Terrible, from behind me, making me jump.

  Oh brother. “Nothing.” I squeeze my eyes shut and make a wish that he would get on his spaceship already. Around the time he turned fourteen, my brother, Terrence, was snatched by aliens. When they brought him back, he was different. Alien different. Terrible.

  “Doesn’t sound like nothing, dorkus,” Terrible says.

  See what I mean? Ever since the snatching I’ve been keeping a list of all of his alien traits so that one day I can report him to NASA. Name-calling is Number 3.

  “Penelope,” Mom says, “I’m afraid you have a Crumb nose.”

  “What is that?” I say. “And why does that make you afraid?”

  “She means from Dad’s side of the family, jeez,” says Terrible, taking off his bomber jacket. His stinky cologne smells like fishing worms mixed with orange sherbet and furniture polish (Number 5). “Don’t you know anything?”

  I give him a look that says, I Hope the Aliens Come Back for You Soon. Then I say to Mom, “I have Dad’s nose?” Which wouldn’t really be a bad thing, on account of the fact that Dad died when I was just a baby, and I don’t have anything of his except for a shoehorn and that beat-up old toolbox with rusty corners that I take with me everywhere.

  “Well, not exactly,” she says, staring at my nos
e from different angles like it was a creepy inside she was about to draw. “I mean, a little bit, you do. But you have a more pronounced onion.”

  “Onion!” I say. Onions are the cruelest of all vegetables because they 1) smell awful, 2) make you cry for no reason, and 3) look like worms when you fry them up in a skillet. Onions are bad enough on your supper plate, but in your nose!

  Mom says rhinion—not onion!—and then points to the middle of her own nose. “The area right here. You have a little bump.”

  I run my finger along the top of my nose. “I don’t feel anything. What’s the bump there for?”

  Mom shrugs. “That’s just the way some noses are.”

  “Yours isn’t,” I say to her. Then I point at the alien. “Neither is his.”

  “Your grandpa Felix has one.” The blotches on her face are back.

  “How can you not know you have a big nose?” says Terrible, shaking his alien head. “It’s in the middle of your face.”

  I try to look at my nose, but my eyes go crossed. “A nose isn’t like elbows or knees that you can just look at anytime you want to and there they are, you know.” I show him both elbows and pull up my pant leg so he can see my knee.

  “There are these rectangular things around here, Penelope,” he says. “They’re called mirrors. You should look in one every once in a while.”

  Aliens think they are so smart. There aren’t any mirrors in the laundry room, so I run down the hall and into our living room to see myself. Terrible’s footsteps are right behind me.

  In front of the mirror, I tilt and turn my head every which way to try to see my nose from all directions. Straight on, it looks like it always has, not really that big or different. But it’s hard to get a good long look at the thing from the side.

  How long has my nose been big? If it’s an artist’s job to notice things, like red eyeballs on Friday Lizard, dirt on a shoestring, or a caterpillary eyebrow, then how did I miss this?

  Terrible says, “It’s pretty much always been big, in case you were wondering.” Alien mind reading (Number 6) really gets on my nerves. “Remember when we went swimming at that lake that time and you had to wear a snorkeling mask for grown-ups because the kid size was too tight?”