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Behind the sloping hill, the one with sandy patches of grass and rabbit holes, yellow dandelions and light purple wildflowers, there was a village. The tiny village was a merry place with colors everywhere: on kites sailing through the sky, on little toys that bounced and made noise, on the doors of small houses built into the ground. A stream gurgled under a sturdy wooden bridge.

The people of this little town were very unusual. They wore strange hats: propeller hats, beach umbrella hats, bowling pins, chef hats, and other headwear. Some wore hydrangeas or bowling pins on their heads. They spent all day outside, inventing games and activities, and they went to school in the red schoolhouse on the other side of the creek.

“A lovely town,” said a resident wearing a Ferris wheel hat. “But that boy, Benjamin Potatohead…he’s no good.”

“I’ll live here forever!” said another. She was sporting a monkey hat with arms that Velcroed around the neck. “But with Benjamin causing so much trouble, I don’t enjoy it as much.”

“I try to play with Benjamin,” said a child, “but he only steals my toys and laughs at me.”

Mr. and Mrs. Potatohead had lots to deal with. They loved Benjamin, but he caused all the trouble he could muster in the village and in their house, which was a giant hollowed-out potato.

Benjamin was light-ish brown with little holes for his rubbery arms, eyes, and other body parts. His parents looked almost exactly like him, but they were larger. Mrs. Potatohead wore a white felt hat with a daisy, and Mr. Potatohead’s was a black top hat. Benjamin had an eraser hat and was so poorly behaved that you probably can’t imagine how misbehaved he was. He had a remarkable quality: when he lied, his nose popped off, and it only fit back on once he told the truth.

One sunny morning, Benjamin woke up ready to cause trouble. The moment he awoke on his mushy potato peel bed, his fingers tingled and his eyes sparkled, ready for a day of utmost madness.

His mother ushered him off to the schoolhouse and watched him enter, but Benjamin snuck out the back when no one was looking. He stole ice cream and went swimming, and he also peed in the stream. Then he went to the gingerbread house and ate every gumdrop and peanut butter cup. Satisfied, he burped loudly and proceeded to rip flowers out of the ground.

“Oh, kibbets!” cried Benjamin, dropping several uprooted daffodils as he looked in the direction of the giant potato. Mrs. Potatohead was fetching the mail. Darnit, thought Benjamin. I forgot to bury the mail.

Mrs. Doodropping was walking by the Potatohead house, carrying a basket of strawberries. She stopped to chat with Mrs. Potatohead. Benjamin rubbed his rubbery hands together, an unmistakable sign of trouble ahead.
Benjamin bounced from house to house, hiding behind mailboxes. Finally, he reached his own and snuck up behind Mrs. Potatohead.

“…ashamed of Benjamin?” Mrs. Doodropping was asking. “My poor Charlie never has good things to say about him.”

“Benjamin is a troublemaker,” Mrs. Potatohead agreed, “but he is a child. That’s what kids do.”

“But he wreaks havoc in the village,” protested Mrs. Doodropping. “That is not alright. Charlie, for instance, never causes an ounce of trouble—”

Benjamin made his move. Quick as lightning, he ripped his mother’s heavily lip-sticked mouth from its hole and tore down the path, her muffled voice attempting to scream at him.

“Well, I never!” huffed Mrs. Doodropping as she wheeled and rushed down the path in the opposite direction. “What nerve! Stealing somebody’s mouth!”

Benjamin chuckled as he stuffed Mrs. Potatohead’s lips into his pear-shaped body. They rattled around as he gobbled Mrs. Doodropping’s stolen strawberries.

Yes, Benjamin was naughty. Wherever he went, a surprising amount of trouble followed. Nothing would stop him.

One day, though, when Annie Fergusen’s house caught fire, people were glad Benjamin was there to help.

Annie was always a perfect girl. She did well in school and pleased everyone except Benjamin, who wasn’t fond of girls. Annie was cute, but like a little doll: she had rosy cheeks and lips, curly golden hair, and petite dresses with white stockings. She was too clean for Benjamin; he was the muddy type.

Benjamin was yanking a girl’s hair when smoke started to drift over the village. He knew the smell of smoke from the time he set a teacher’s dress on fire. He began to rub his dirty hands together and even let go of the girl’s ponytail to see what was happening.

The little people of the town were fetching buckets of water and hoses to put out the fire at the Fergusen’s house. Benjamin ran to his mother, who had recently shaken her mouth out of his potato body.

“Linda Fergusen was cooking eggs and forgot the pan was on the stove,” said Mrs. Potatohead.

“Awesome!” cried Benjamin.

Mrs. Potatohead gave him a stern look.

Out of the house stumbled a panting Linda Fergusen, followed by her husband. Annie did not appear.

Moments later, Benjamin heard weeping. The townspeople ceased tossing water.

“We can’t find Annie,” explained Mr. Potatohead gravely.

Benjamin rubbed his hands together. This, though, was not a gesture for trouble. Instead, it was an idea.

“WAIT!” he screamed. “I think I can save Annie.” All eyes turned to him doubtfully, expecting his nose to pop off. Benjamin, the major troublemaker? Benjamin, save Annie Fergusen?

But his nose stayed put. Benjamin grabbed his eye and ripped it off his head, which is perfectly fine for a potatohead to do. Then, he threw it through a window.

“Annie is in her room!” he yelled as the eye landed on Annie’s carpet and saw the girl unconscious. Her father climbed up and heaved her out the window, wheezing.
Benjamin Potatohead still remained a troublemaker of the worst kind, stealing and playing hooky. But, from that day on, nobody forgot his cleverness when he saved Annie Fergusen from what everyone thought was her finish.

 

 

 

In the fading light of the setting sun, Luka Yeshevsky sketched a face.
Luka drew the model’s lips, so carefully pursed around a smoldering cigarette, aligned to the curves of his chin. His pencil marked the contours and peaks of the quaint little nose, which rested plainly above the philtrum. He even captured the sagging lines beneath his model’s eyes, no doubt a result of the weary journey from St. Petersburg to Petrushka.
But his hand was having difficulty with the eyes. They were a tempest, he noted, because the gray flecks in the brown mirrored a summer storm. Their shape was odd: cat-like, and squinted, with creases and folds in places there normally weren’t.
His model exhaled and watched the smoke drift up to the rafters.
“Eyes down, would you?” Luka reprimanded, reaching for his eraser. “I’m not finished yet.”
The boy smirked, his mouth molding into a lopsided grin. “Sorry.” He placed the cigarette back in his mouth and took a puff. “I’ve been sitting here for a while. It’s quite hard to keep myself from getting restless.” Another breath, except this time he thrust open the small side window and let the smoke escape into the August fog.
Luka took a moment to glance out the open window. It was the time of eternal twilight, the unsettling period in midsummer when the sun, much like an incorrigible child, refused to sleep until the fading hours of the night. It wouldn’t be black until eleven-thirty. This meant he had more light to work by, but it also meant another night wracked by insomnia.
Curse the impossible eyes! He wiped away his most recent attempt at an eyelash. If he weren’t a perpetual perfectionist, he would just leave them out. But he was. So the picture had to look perfect.
“I didn’t mean to complain,” the model apologized, crossing his right leg over his left. He seemed quite aware of Luka’s frustration. “I lied. I like this. It’s relaxing. Petrushka is a nice break from the city.”
Luka grunted a response, his fingers rubbing in the shading beneath the eyes.
“I hadn’t even heard of this place before,” the boy continued. “It’s quite different from St. Petersburg. I’d imagine the people here are very humble, yes?”
“Some.” Luka blinked and lifted his pencil to the finely-combed hair, which he intended to capture in wispy fragments as opposed to the cartoonish strands his instructor was so fond of mocking. Most of the people here were simple folk—fishermen, retired farmers, church men—but he’d never bothered to get to know them. “It’s not uncommon to dislike Petrushka. Why should you like a town named after a marionette, anyway?”
The model gestured for an ashtray in which he could dispose of his cigarette. “Any village seems comforting compared to where I grew up. Are you going to color in my face?”
Luka begrudgingly fetched the ashtray from the side desk and handed it over. Ordinarily, he didn’t speak more than a word to his creations, and when he did, it was a direct command: sit straight, eyes forward, for the love of God, stop slouching. “Only charcoal. Where did you grow up? Eyes up, please.”
The model obediently lifted his eyes but said hesitantly, “I’m not entirely sure of its name.”
“You said you were from Kiev.”
There was an awful pause. The youth shifted uncomfortably. “Perhaps…” Then he buried his face in his hands. “Oh, I lied, Sir. I’m an orphan.”
Luka set down his pencil. “Oh. How sad.”
“My parents died of typhus when I was young, so I was brought to the orphanage by a stranger.” He set the ashtray on the floor. “My mind caused me trouble, so I made trouble.”
Luka stopped for a moment. “Oh?”
“The fat old village doctor proclaimed that I thought frightful things. Overwhelming for a boy of my ‘tender age.’”
“What ideas did you think?”
He licked his lips. “Well…I’ve never confessed this before, because it’s odd. Marxist things, you know. I recited Engle before I’d memorized my Latin. One set of prospective parents asked me to sing them a beloved old Bible verse, and you know what I did? I said, ‘religion is the opiate of the masses.’”
Luka glared at him. “They must have been horrified.”
“Oh, yes,” the boy said, “The headmaster kicked me out onto the streets shortly after. And then I answered your advertisement, because I’m starving and should find a bride soon.”
“Ah, yes, my advertisement,” Luka echoed, hoping the conversation would shift back to something less blasphemous. The model seemed wholly unaware of the gilded crucifix nailed to Luka’s doorway. “The ‘Common Man.’ It’s a little project I’m going to submit to a gallery.”
“Where is the gallery?”
Luka hesitated. If the boy found out, he would probably rip the portrait to shreds and begin to spew Bolshevik banter. But another glance at the cross reminded Luka of his sin: he should not lie. “Peterhof.” He quickly coughed into his sleeve so the boy wouldn’t have time to process the location. Perhaps he was unaware of the czar’s summer residence. He was uneducated after all, wasn’t he?
Not a glimmer of recognition passed his eyes. “Oh. What a lovely town. Perhaps I’ll visit it when I have money for train fare. May I see the painting?”
Luka turned back to the infernal eyes. It was odd, he thought suddenly, how the two-dimensional portrait of this stranger had transformed into something much greater—much more real—than a boy on a page. He was proud of his creation.
“What did you say your name was?” he asked.
The model smiled. “I didn’t. It’s Tolya.”
“It’s funny,” he remarked, inscribing the name on the top. “Portraits often reveal what the ordinary face does not. They reveal truth and dispel lies.”
“Then it is not a sketch of a face,” Tolya responded. “It is a real face.” He smiled. “It is Tolya.”

Catherine Mosier-Mills is a senior at Radnor High School in Radnor, PA. She says, “In my spare time, I love playing jazz and classical piano, participating in Model United Nations, and taking pictures of my cats. My work has appeared locally in Apiary Magazine and I recently was awarded honorable mention in the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. This story was one of the winners of the Pinocchio Writing contest co-sponsored by PS Jr. and the Arden Theatre.