Maxwell Cooper and the Legend of Inini-Makwa

By Simon Hargreaves

FINALIST - 2023 MINNESOTA BOOK AWARDS

Art doesn't always imitate life. Sometimes it creates it.

"Only draw what is real."

This is the rule given to fourteen-year-old art prodigy Maxwell Cooper by his father, and is the only way Max's father will allow

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ahr Publishing
• Release date: May 3, 2022
• ISBN: 9798985121322

Simon Hargreaves

Simon Hargreaves lives in northern Minnesota with his wife and two cats. When he isn't writing, he is riding his bicycle, scuba diving in the lakes of the north woods, and managing his family's vacation resort.

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by Simon Hargreaves

Copyright © 2021 by Simon Hargreaves

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by reviewers, who may quote brief passages in a review.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Published 2021

Cover design by Casey Gerber

Interior design by Karina Granda

For information:

simonhargreavesauthor.com

[e-mail]

Hardcover: 979-8-9851213-1-5

Paperback: 979-8-9851213-0-8

eBook: 979-8-9851213-2-2

Audiobook: 979-8-9851213-3-9

To Brooks and all the kids at the resort.

Friday

Chapter One

Anything That Can Go Wrong . . .

The first time it happened was two weeks before the end of seventh grade. Third period. Life Sciences. Mr. Dobberke was droning on about cumulonimbus clouds and it just popped up, a rigid tent in the crotch of Max’s Levi’s. At least then the denim was stiff enough to press everything flat. At least then he had textbooks to use as a shield when the bell rang and everyone filed out of class. At least then it happened for no real reason—just another in the long line of puberty-related catastrophes like pimples and squeaky voices and hair growing in places it shouldn’t.

The second time, three months later, Max was somewhere outside Blue Harbor, Michigan, asleep on a lumpy bed in a single-story motel called Rest Inn. He was dreaming, strolling across a solar-paneled walkway that looped around force field enclosures—cages meant to contain the samples of life collected by some ancient alien race.

To his right, one of these cages housed a palm tree with purple fronds and green bark. Clinging to it, glaring at Max from around the trunk, was a creature no larger than a squirrel. It had six legs and a tail twice as long as its body. It bounced forward and chirped a high-pitched bark before scampering back around the tree and out of sight.

In the next cage over, snow fell from impenetrable blackness and was being trampled, packed into a surface as hard as concrete, by a white behemoth. The creature could have been a bear but was so thin Max could count each of its ribs. It stalked back and forth on hind legs, huffing, panting, snorting as though it had raced a great distance after some wily prey only to be skunked at the last moment.

Farther down, a bridge hovered over a paddock where blue and pink unicorns cantered around each other and scraped their horns along rough, flat rocks, sharpening them to fine points before facing off one another in combat.

The cell to Max’s left, however—the one with the sign in front that read Human, the one with the deep shadows under giant fir and spruce trees, the one with the naked woman sitting in the dirt and pine needles half hidden by those shadows, her legs crossed, her arms at her sides, her black hair hanging low across her breasts—that cell held Max’s full attention.

The woman’s skin was the rich brown of Coca-Cola, and Max had to squint into the darkness to separate her from the shadow. Beads of sweat glistened on her top lip, down her neck, into her cleavage, the way a cold glass of Coke condensed on a hot afternoon.

Maybe it was the way her eyes glinted like marbles shining in the sun, pupils big as dimes following his every move. Maybe it was the sneer that pulled up one corner of her lips and offered Max a glimpse of crooked, jagged teeth stuffed to the gums with gray, rotting, undigested flesh. Maybe it was the low growl rumbling deep in her chest—the animal kingdom’s universal sign to stay away, to keep on walking.

Max’s legs trembled.

His fingers were icicles.

His lungs compressed as if a belt had wrapped around him and pulled itself tight.

With a mind of their own, his feet pushed a step backward.

Then another.

The woman rose, floating to her feet. Her legs unfolded like the crossbeams on a scissor lift—a single fluid motion. She stepped forward, her chin lifted away from her chest, her shoulders pulled back, her nostrils wide as if she’d caught a whiff of fresh meat, her next meal.

With each step she touched down onto the balls of her feet, her calves bunched into tight knots, her hair whispering against her flesh.

With each step, Max’s own feet betrayed him. Their cowardice pushed him back until his shoulders pressed against something smooth and hard behind him.

There was a tinny beep, a soft hiss, a gentle pop, and the force field over the woman’s cell flashed white before it disappeared.

She leapt from the shadows and landed on all fours six feet from Max.

In half a breath she was on him. Her arms wrapped around his shoulders. Her legs coiled around his waist. Calloused fingers wove through his hair and pushed the back of his head—pushed until his face rested between the soft flesh of her breasts. The acrid tang of her sweat filled his nostrils. The growl rattling from deep within her chest vibrated through his brain, filled his ears, drowned away every sound until she spoke.

Max.

Fast as a gasp, the zoo disappeared. The six-legged squirrel, the scrawny white bear creature, the unicorns, gone with a single word. Even the dark-skinned woman.

Her arms and legs wrapped around his body became a tangle of sheets from the lumpy motel bed.

Her breasts once cradling his head were now nothing but two rough pillows sandwiching his face.

The reek of her sweat was little more than the stench of his own morning breath collected between those pillows and recycling through his nostrils with each breath.

Her voice—the husky, rasping growl—was now his mother’s mellifluous exasperation hovering over him, demanding he get out of bed.

His skull was numb, as though it was crammed full of cotton, as if his mind couldn’t reconcile the sudden shift in reality. As if it believed the zoo had been the real world, and this cheap motel was the dream.

What time is it? mumbled Max.

Quarter to ten, said Mrs. Cooper. We’re gonna be late.

Max’s heart clenched into a tight fist before exploding against his lungs, his ribs, his spine. Not fast but hard. A prize fighter throwing left crosses against the mattress.

The Coopers were in Blue Harbor so Max could visit the Apogee Art Academy, a private boarding school for kids with artistic talent. Prodigies. Max had an appointment with the school’s portfolio review board at ten o’clock; it was the final stage in his admission process and his last chance to attend the school of his dreams.

I’ve been calling you for an hour, said Mrs. Cooper.

Max went to roll over, went to untangle himself from his sheets, and froze. There it was again, that same tent from Mr. Dobberke’s class, standing at full attention, pressing against the pebble-hard lumps inside the mattress, screaming to be released. This time there was no denim to keep it in check. Instead, loose cotton pajamas seemed to give way to every rise and fall of his body. There was nothing to hold it back—no denim, no tighty-whiteys, no textbooks—and this time everything around him was soaked.

Drenched.

The sheets. His pajamas. It was like lying crotch first in a puddle.

I’m getting up, he said, twisting his head to look at her but keeping that furtive part of his body—which seemed to have a mind of its own—pressed into the bed. Hidden. Just give me a second.

Maybe if he waited long enough, she’d turn around. Maybe, after a minute or two, the thing would go away on its own. Maybe if he inch-wormed himself to the edge of the bed he could roll off like a bug, grab his pile of clothes on the floor there, and use them for cover.

Would you help me? asked Mrs. Cooper.

Max craned his neck, thinking his mother was still speaking to him. She wasn’t. She had one hand planted against her hip. The other she held out, palm up, toward Max, and she was glaring across the room at his father.

Why? said Mr. Cooper. If he can’t get his lazy ass out of bed, I’d say he doesn’t really want to go to this school.

Max’s father was part of the reason Max had pushed to attend the Apogee Art Academy. The school was eight hours from home, in a different state. Max wouldn’t have to spend every waking minute hearing his father lecture about the importance of living in the real world, of being responsible, of being accountable for himself.

Please, David, said Mrs. Cooper, her breath little more than a whisper. She pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and index finger. Just. Don’t start.

Whatever. Mr. Cooper sighed. The bed next to Max’s squeaked, and a dozen footsteps padded across the olive-colored carpet. In a handful of heartbeats Mr. Cooper towered over Max, grabbed the sheet twisted around Max’s body, said, You heard your mother. Then he pulled.

At first the sheet tightened around Max. Then it moved, slid out from beneath his body, twisting him with it. No! he shouted. I’m getting up. He went to roll away, but it was too late.

Mr. Cooper pulled. Yanked on the sheet. It unraveled, untwisted from around Max’s body, flew through the air. The sheet slapped Mr. Cooper in the face. Stuck to his forehead. His left cheek. A wet smack filled the motel room.

Max’s eyes were silver dollars. They volleyed between his mother and his father. Mr. Cooper’s face stuck inside a wet sheet. Mrs. Cooper’s eyes, as wide as Max’s, locked onto her son’s crotch for a single heartbeat. OhmyGod, she whispered and spun to turn away, to look anywhere else, everywhere else but at Max. OhmyGod, she repeated, louder. Her hands flew to her mouth, her shoulders hunched over her ears, and a wheezing giggle passed through the muffle of her fingertips.

Mr. Cooper pulled the sheet from his face and stared down at Max, his cheeks flushed red. He threw the sheet on top of Max, his eyes narrow. Just. Hurry up, he said through clenched teeth.

Max pushed to his feet, grabbed his clothes from the floor, reached for the bathroom door.

The knob twisted, and the door opened before he touched it. Max’s younger brother, Ben, stepped out of the bathroom followed by a puffed cloud of steam. Ben’s hair—the rich yellow of the heartwood from a birch tree—was wet and slicked back over his ears. His shirt and pants were wrinkle-free—smooth as granite counter tops—and didn’t so much hang on his body as hover over it as if made of cardboard or plastic. Ben paused, took in the other three members of his family frozen like apprehended thieves, and asked, What?

Max pushed past him. Nothing.

And throw me a towel! shouted Mr. Cooper.

Max snagged a washcloth from the sink and hurled it at his father before slamming the door.

He kicked off his pajamas, yanked on his underwear, his Levi’s. They could have stayed at the bed-and-breakfast next to the school, but Mr. Cooper’s need to save a buck had them drive all the way out to no-man’s-land, miles from where they should have been. Max tugged his shirt over his head. His father had refused to pay extra for the convenience of being close, and now they would be late.

When he was dressed, Max tore open the bathroom door. The room door hung open, and the gentle groan of his family’s Cadillac drifted into the room. Hurry up, his father’s voice sounded over the engine noise.

Max rushed to the desk pressed against the wall opposite the beds. It tripled as a TV stand and dresser. He hadn’t been able to sleep the night before, too many nerves flitting across his body, through his stomach, over his skin like maggots gnawing on his flesh. He’d spent most of the night drawing. Now his pencils and charcoals were scattered across the desk, his sketchbook open to a half finished image of a Conan-like barbarian standing over a mountain of corpses.

He grabbed his backpack from under the desk, shoved pencils and erasers into the bottom, closed the tin of charcoals and dropped them in on top of the pencils. He slapped closed the sketchbook and slid it, too, into the backpack.

What are you doing with that?

Max jumped. He hadn’t heard his father come back inside.

Mr. Cooper stabbed a finger at the spiral-bound pad.

Taking it with, Max said.

Mr. Cooper shook his head. We talked about this. It stays here.

But—

No. Mr. Cooper held out his right palm. His lips were pressed tight, the corners pointed down. If you think I’m going to let you go to this school to draw fairies and goblins, you’ve clearly been hit over the head with the stupid stick. He stepped closer to Max, pulled the pad from his backpack, and dropped it on the desk. Portraits. Landscapes. Things that are real. That’s what you’ll show them. Work you can live on. He flung a hand over the discarded sketchbook. Not this nonsense.

The balls in the corner of Max’s jaw tightened. The blood in his temples pounded. It was the same argument they’d had all summer, ever since Max applied to the academy. He didn’t want the school to see his portraits, stupid smiling faces of the kids at school. They were boring. Plain. Dull. Not like the battle scenes from his fantasy portfolio: wizards calling down fire and lightning upon their enemies, dragons gobbling entire hosts of warriors, imps playing practical jokes on dwarves and elves. Max wanted to show the work he was most proud of, the work he wanted to create for a living, not the drivel anyone could draw.

Come on guys, Mrs. Cooper called from outside. Clock’s ticking.

Mr. Cooper jerked his head at the door. Get your ass in gear.

The moment his father’s back was turned, Max snatched the sketchbook from the desk and slipped it into his backpack before following him out the door.

In the car, Mr. Cooper drove like a pensioner transplant from Florida giving a tour of the city on a Sunday morning. Buildings and streetlights crawled by. It seemed to Max that Mr. Cooper was taking the longest route possible.

Are you sure you know where you’re going? asked Mrs. Cooper.

Don’t side-seat drive, Maureen, said Mr. Cooper, but the engine growl grew louder, and the car pushed ahead a bit faster.

Max scowled at the clock built into the dash, the minutes clicking by.

Nine fifty-three.

Nine fifty-four.

Nine fifty-five.

Ben sat next to Max in the back seat, his nose buried in a book. It was his way of dealing with his family any time they fought. Hiding. Disappearing from the world inside the pages of a story.

They were on a four-lane divided highway, and, in the distance to the left, the school peered at Max above a grove of maples and oak. It couldn’t have been more than five hundred yards away, but it might as well have been a million miles, and the clock was still counting.

Nine fifty-six.

This is the wrong road, said Mrs. Cooper.

What?!

Calm down, Max, said Mr. Cooper. We’ll get there.

But they weren’t getting anywhere. The car was slowing. Stopping. In front of them, dozens of pairs of red lights flashed. Horns honked. They were parallel with the school then, parallel with the grove of tree. The building was playing peek-a-boo between trunks and branches.

Why’d you take the wrong road? asked Max.

Mr. Cooper glared at him through the rearview mirror. Excuse me?

You’re trying to make me late on purpose.

Who do you think you’re talking to, Mister?

His father was yelling now. Shouting about how Max should be grateful he had a chance to go to this school in the first place, about how he’d taken extra time off work so Max could show his portfolio, about how he ought to grow up, be more responsible.

Max had heard it all before. It was a speech he could have recited from memory. He stared out across the traffic and gazed at the school through the trees. He hadn’t realized he’d brought his hand up to rest on the door handle until his fingers curled around it. It wasn’t until Ben jabbed Max’s thigh, shook his head, and mouthed the word, "No" that Max became aware of the way his body was moving.

The clock on the dash clicked.

Nine fifty-seven.

Max yanked on the handle. The door flew open, and he tumbled out of the car. He whipped his backpack across his shoulders and was jumping over the median by the time Mr. Cooper rolled his window down and shouted, Get your ass back here!

Max was halfway through the grove before the honking from the highway disappeared. Branches grabbed at his clothes, burs stuck to his socks and poked into his ankles, and leaves wet from last night’s rain slipped under his feet, but Max kept running.

He was out of breath when he reached the parking lot. Black spots floated in front of his eyes, mottled the front doors and the concrete steps to the building. When he mounted the first of those steps, a horn blasted behind him, long and low.

It was his father pulling up to the school, and even through the glare of the windshield his face was scarlet, and Max could tell he was screaming.

Max’s smart watch vibrated with a text from his mother: YOU’RE IN BIG TROUBLE MISTER. The time stamp read four minutes after ten. Four minutes past his appointment. Four minutes tardy for the most important meeting of his life.

The weight of his sketchbooks, his pencils, charcoals, and pens slapped against him from inside his backpack. Kept time with his heart. Slammed against him with each set of steps he climbed inside the building. Two at a time, Max pulled himself up by the handrail and leapt from one to the next, the stairs squeaking wet against the half dry no-skid rubber of his shoes.

The door at the third-floor landing was propped open. Waiting. Inviting him to barrel through, to lunge across three feet of mud-stained carpet to a narrow counter with a narrow woman glaring at him from behind narrow horn-rimmed glasses. Her hair was the off-white of a snot-filled Kleenex, shoulder-length and curly. A narrow gold chain wove through her hair, the ends looped around each temple of her glasses as if she were afraid the corners of her mouth might droop even lower and pull them from her face.

Maxwell Cooper, he said through huffing, wheezing breath.

The woman, her narrow eyes glaring at Max over her narrow nose, said, You’re late.

Chapter Two

Compromises and Censures

I’m sorry, said Max. It isn’t my fault."

The woman shrugged. That isn’t my concern. One of the alternates took your place. They were here on time.

Maxwell Cooper! Mrs. Cooper’s shriek echoed through the stairwell. She stood in the doorway, her hands on her hips, her body trembling. How could you do something so stupid? The heat in her words could have melted flesh from bone. Max took a step back, closer to the narrow counter and the narrow woman behind it.

Is this your son? asked the woman.

The inferno spiraling within Mrs. Cooper’s eyes shifted to the woman. He is.

Well, the narrow woman tsked, he’s missed his appointment. You might as well go back home.

Mrs. Cooper crossed the mud-stained carpet and gripped Max’s shoulder. It was reckless, she said.

I know, but—

Something in Mrs. Cooper’s demeanor shifted. The anger that had been branded into her face softened. We’re late, she said before giving him a half smile and squeezing his shoulder. Then she lifted herself up and met the narrow woman eye to eye. You can’t fault us for getting stuck in traffic. There was an accident and—

And you can’t expect me to let you cut in line in front of other prospective students, said the woman behind the counter.

The anger Mrs. Cooper had aimed at Max just moments before had returned, but this time it was the narrow woman who faced his mother’s wrath. Max half expected smoke to billow from his mother’s flared nostrils.

From behind him, the angry, heavy-wet slap of Mr. Cooper’s feet clamored up the stairwell, drowning Ben’s Dad, be careful. It’s slippery. The rage in his father’s footsteps, the way they shouted, grow up, grow up, grow up each time they smacked a step, was a punch to the gut knocking the air from Max’s lungs.

Mrs. Cooper may have been able to set aside her anger, perhaps even transpose it to someone else, but his father … Mr. Cooper was like a pit bull. He’d grab hold of his anger, shake it back and forth, tear into it, and refuse to let go until he destroyed it and everyone around him in the process.

Max edged closer to his mother, put himself between her and the woman behind the counter. He ignored the pressure building behind his eyes, the pounding that shot through his brain from one side to the other with each wet slap of feet on rubber, like an electric current clamping his jaw tight and swelling his tongue against his teeth.

I’ve about had it with you, Mister, Mr. Cooper growled when he passed through the stairwell doorway.

To the narrow woman behind the counter he said, If you haven’t already, give his spot to someone else.

Mrs. Cooper spun on her heels, whispered Mr. Cooper’s name, hissed it like a warning, but he ignored her.

Mr. Cooper took two steps into the room, clamped his hand over the back of Max’s neck, and led him toward the stairwell. Are you on drugs? What would even possess you to … his hand squeezed tighter across Max’s neck. If you think I’m going to reward you by letting you go to this school after the stunt you just pulled—

Mrs. Cooper drove her palm into Mr. Cooper’s chest, said, David. Stop it. You’re making a scene.

The tightness in her voice came through in snippets over the clacking of Max’s teeth. They clattered in his skull, vibrating down every inch of his body. Through the shaking, Max could barely make out the uncomfortable and embarrassed faces of other kids—other hopefuls like him—turning away from him, pretending not to notice.

I don’t care. I’m done.

Why don’t you let me handle it, then? said Mrs. Cooper, peeling each of Mr. Cooper’s fingers from the back of Max’s neck. She laid her hand on Max’s shoulder, turned him back to the woman behind the counter. She turned, too, putting her back to Mr. Cooper, shutting him out. To the woman behind the counter, she said, You must have contingencies in case of emergency.

The woman’s narrow eyes flitted from Mrs. Cooper to Mr. Cooper. She sniffed, said, "I suppose you could wait. There could be some other thoughtless boy who may not show up. If all else fails, the review board might finish early. They might see you at the end of the day, but there are no guarantees. You’d just have to wai—"

I’ll wait, Max said. Despite his trembling body, despite the heat from his father’s gaze burning a hole in the back of his head, Max stared the woman in the eye, nodding. I’ll wait.

This is ridiculous, said Mr. Cooper. You’re telling me we wasted an entire day driving out here, and now we have to waste another day because somebody wouldn’t get out of bed?

The woman behind the counter scowled. Car accident, huh?

"There was an accident, Mrs. Cooper said, her cheeks coloring slightly. Then, to Mr. Cooper, she said, We’re late. This is what they can offer us. Max wants to wait, so we’ll wait."

I don’t care what Max wants, Mr. Cooper said. A vein in the center of his forehead throbbed white against the near purple tint of his flesh. The balls in the corner of his jaw tightened into thick fists, and his chest puffed out. He has done nothing to prove he deserves this. In fact, just the opposite. There’s no reason we should waste another day—

You don’t have to, Mrs. Cooper said. I’ll wait with Max. Why don’t you and Ben go back to the motel? It might be a while.

Ben pushed his way between Mr. and Mrs. Cooper. He winked at Max and said, Maybe, if it’s going to be a while, we can see a movie or go to the zoo.

That’s a good idea, said Mrs. Cooper, her eyes never leaving Mr. Cooper’s face.

Max’s body was a magnitude four on the Richter scale, waiting for Mr. Cooper to make his point final, waiting for him to demand they all leave and forget they’d ever heard of the Apogee Art Academy. Before his father could utter those devastating words, Max threw his arms around Mrs. Cooper’s waist, said, Thank you. Thank you, and disappeared into the waiting room, leaving Mr. Cooper to stare after him in resigned anger.

Drawing portraits, Max began with the basics. He’d seen too many people start by trying to draw a perfect eye, a perfect nose, a perfect set of lips. Instead, he started with an oval, the shape of someone’s head. He filled in light strokes first. Got the placement down. Didn’t focus on the details. It was about simple shapes.

He focused on the girl across from him. Her head was an oval, but her jaw was sharp and pronounced, a rounded triangle. Her eyes were supposed to be in the middle of her head, top to bottom, but they were high, so the rest of her face seemed longer. Her eyes were almond-shaped, but the inside corners turned down like they were pointing out their own misplacement, saying we’re supposed to be down here.

Her nose ran down the center of her face, a near perfect isosceles triangle except for the right nostril. It tilted up at the corner, offering an unobstructed view up her nasal cavity. Her mouth was centered, too, her lips curving into the ideal taut bow. The corners of her mouth were supposed to line up with her pupils. Instead, they stretched too far, making her mouth too wide. It was there when she smiled, her mouth pulling wider than it should, showing as much of her gums as her teeth.

Sketching these rough shapes—the almonds, the isosceles, the bow—were how Max started, sitting in the waiting room with this girl, with nothing else to do for hours. He worked in the prohibited fantasy sketchbook Mr. Cooper hated, the one Mr. Cooper had demanded Max leave behind in the motel room, and penciled the shapes in at the top of the page behind a drawing of a dragon breathing fire through a boy’s bedroom window.

Sometimes, when Max focused on the details of those shapes—the rounded circle of an ear or the curved teardrop of a breast—the rest of the world faded away and it was just him and the drawing. Sometimes the rhythmic motions of his hand gliding over the page sent him into a trance. Sometimes his focus receded back into a fog within his mind, and his arm and hand moved on their own, drawing what they wanted.

The fog was there now, guiding his