The Ingenious Mr. Baron

Chapter 3

“Wait, but-” started Harris, but Mr. Baron decided it was his turn to interrupt.

“You just have them jump out and start helping them! It doesn’t need to be very complicated! Or they could be on a bus going to school, flying in a plane, anywhere really!” said Mr. Baron impatiently. Harris was having a hard time bringing new characters into his story.

“Fine. I’ll make Greg go to London or something with his family, and he’ll run into her on the way there.” Said Harris quickly and intolerantly, violently erasing a paragraph that had been erased far too many times. Mr. Baron sighed of exhaustion.

 Eli was very near to finishing his painting. He had been working on it for about two weeks now. He was mainly worried about the dog. He was worried that the fur didn’t look realistic enough. He had dabbed it with a cotton ball, and thrown a few streaks off with a toothpick to make its fur seem uneven. It was really good for his age, but Eli himself was unsure of it even though Harris and Mr. Baron had told him it was amazing various times.

 “Ah, man! I messed it up!” said Eli wearily.

 “No, look. You can simply brush it over with blue.” Said Mr. Baron politely, doing the motion with an invisible paint brush.

“Sorry, Mr. Baron. I’m kind of freaking out. It’s a five days until school starts, and I’m just overwhelmed. First off, I’m a new kid, and that’s really scary just by itself.” Eli said anxiously. “Second of all, I’m afraid I won’t enter my Art Contest paper in time. Thirdly, I don’t want this painting to look messed up. So I’m losing my mind. I’m sorry.”

“That’s alright, Eli. I understand. Harris is worrying about school too. He is afraid he won’t have any friends.” Said Mr. Baron, making sure Harris couldn’t hear.

“But he’s wrong. He would have me.” Said Eli, reaching Mr. Baron’s volume.

“Yes, he would. So both of you guys just need to cool down, and think about it.” Said Mr. Baron sympathetically.

“Alright. We’ll pull it together. Thanks.” Said Eli hesitantly.

“Good. I know you two will have a great time at school.” Said Mr. Baron faithfully.

        The boys continued working until about six o’clock. Eli said he had to go because his dad had told him to help make dinner that night, so Harris could only suppose he had to go too.

“Alright. Good bye, boys. Have a good night!” called Mr. Baron and he heard the boys cries of departure, and then the door shut and the house was silent. Mr. Baron sighed. He looked over to his still unfinished painting. He had only gotten the fence painted, so he decided to take this time to paint it. He walked over and opened the green bottle of paint. He picked up a large brush, dipped into the paint and spread it across where the meadow would be. He mixed it with another shade of green and it turned out to have a very interesting product. Mr. Baron also mixed some neon green and a little bit of orange and yellow into his newly discovered shade of paint and found that it looked very eye popping.

 After the meadow had been painted, he had to let it dry before he added the cows, tree and farmer, all including shadows. He sat around and looked through the papers on his cluttered tables. He then found a picture underneath many other pictures. It was a picture of a tall man and a little girl. It looked like the artist had been no older than seven. The man was originally a stick figure, and so was the girl, but the maker had drawn brown pants and a green coat on the man and a purple and pink dress on the little girl. Mr. Baron then noticed the best part of all. She and the man were holding hands. Mr. Baron suddenly realized who the artist was and decided to call her immediately.