by Lisa Yee
“This image isn’t of something unusual,” Ms. Garcia continued. “It’s a simple portrait of a girl from Afghanistan. What makes it distinctive is how the photographer captures her intense expression. Looking at her face, you see the world through her eyes for a moment.”
I silently agreed. I wonder if I’ll be able to take a picture that good someday, I mused.
“So now, it’s your turn,” Ms. Garcia said. Again, it seemed like she was talking right to me, until I realized she was looking at the whole class. “I want each of you to go out there and take a photograph of something that you think is unusual or memorable. You have ten minutes to go anywhere on this floor, starting…now!”
We all looked at one another. Ms. Garcia waved us along, grinning. “Go on. Time’s running out!”
I jumped up. I knew exactly what I wanted to photograph.
I headed straight to the mosaic of St. Louis at night, in the lobby. Up close, the starry sky was made up of tiny tiles in a hundred different shades of blue dappled with silver. They fit together like shimmering puzzle pieces. I had an urge to take a close-up of a patch of tiles, but then I got worried—what if no one could tell what I had photographed? I didn’t want that. So I stepped backward. Keeping the mosaic perfectly centered in my frame, I took several shots, then looked at the photos in the viewer. They were all in focus, but the second shot was my favorite. I deleted all the other ones.
When everyone got back to class, Ms. Garcia downloaded our photographs onto her computer. We gathered around and looked at the pictures one by one.
“Don’t say which one you took,” she told us. “Let’s just talk about what we think of each.”
There were pictures of the sky, and the lobby, and the main COCA sign. One boy had taken a photograph of himself in a mirror. It was blurry but still nice. “I like the angle,” said Ms. Garcia.
Finally, my photograph of the mosaic popped up. Ms. Garcia looked at it for a long moment, considering. “This photograph is very nicely composed.”
“What does that mean?” someone asked.
“It means the photographer is thinking about the position of the camera to the subject, and where objects are in the frame,” Ms. Garcia said. I blushed, pleased. “If I had to identify one aspect of it to be improved,” she continued, “it’s that it could be more…surprising.”
I felt myself turn red again—and this time, it wasn’t with pride. What did she mean, surprising?
“Still, it’s a very pretty picture,” said Ms. Garcia, but I barely heard her. My cheeks were on fire as we made our way back to our seats. What did Ms. Garcia mean? Was she saying that my picture was…boring?!
Ms. Garcia’s voice broke into my thoughts. “Don’t worry,” she said. “You’re all going to have plenty of chances this week to take photos and improve your skills. Every morning, we will become ‘urban explorers.’ We’ll be visiting different neighborhoods to take photographs. Some areas you may know and some you may not, but hopefully you’ll all discover and photograph parts of St. Louis that you didn’t know existed. After all, this city’s been around for two hundred and fifty years. There’s a lot more here than frozen custard and Cardinals baseball games,” she said, grinning. “Not that those things aren’t great.”
“They are,” Abby whispered to Camila, who giggled.
“Your goal will be to learn to see things in a new way,” said Ms. Garcia. “On the last day of camp, you’ll select and frame your best work, and it will be part of a camp-wide evening art show so your family and friends can see what you’ve created. Some of the images will also be selected for publishing in the fall issue of COCA’s magazine.”
Abby nudged me. “I bet they’ll pick one of your pictures, Lea,” she said. “You’re a great photographer!”
My stomach sank. It was nice that Abby had confidence in me, but after everything Ms. Garcia had said, I knew that if I was going to take a photograph that was really great, I had a lot of work to do.
fter camp, my dad picked Camila and me up in the station wagon. Normally he would be busy teaching history and grading papers, but since he was on sabbatical this semester, this week he was our driver.
“How was photography class?” Dad asked.
“All right,” I said, thinking back to Ms. Garcia’s comment that good photographers push themselves to “see in a new way.” I had no idea what she meant, so how was I ever going to become a better photographer?
“It was very good, Mr. Clark,” Camila volunteered from the backseat. “I think I’ll learn a lot. And Lea and I will both take some good pictures for the art show.”
My dad perked up. “There’s a show, huh?”
Camila told Dad all about the final exhibition at the end of camp.
He looked impressed. “Sounds exciting. I can’t wait to see what develops!”
My father had a doctor’s appointment to see how his broken leg was healing, so he was dropping us off with Mom at her work site. As we turned onto the street where her building was, I noticed that the houses here were much bigger than the ones on Hickory Street. Some had boarded-up windows. A few even looked like they were about to fall down.
“This is Old North St. Louis,” Dad said as he turned a corner. “It’s one of the city’s most historic neighborhoods. Many of these houses were built around the same time as ours was.” Our car rolled to a stop. “Here we are!”
Before us stretched a dark stone building as wide as three regular houses put together. It had huge curved front windows and a front door that seemed tall enough for a giraffe to walk through, with polished green stone columns on either side. As I looked up, I saw why the house needed my mother. The upper levels were sagging, and parts seemed to be missing. Plywood covered most of the windows on the third floor, and the slate roof had large bald patches. Crumbling turrets crowned each of the house’s corners. It reminded me of a ruined castle.
“It’s so beautiful,” Camila said reverently as we walked up the front steps. I agreed.
A rusty knocker hung on the front door, but Dad just reached forward and turned the doorknob. Camila and I followed him through a wood-paneled entry hall, past a dark double staircase sailing up beneath a dusty chandelier.
Dad waved us through a side archway into one of the biggest rooms I’d ever seen. It was easily the size of my school cafeteria, with carved stone fireplaces at either end big enough for me and Camila to stand in. The fireplace close to us had been restored to a clean, blue-gray marble, but the far one was still blackened with dirt and soot. In between, the room was buzzing with activity. Workers moved around different tables, sawing, sanding, and nailing. When I spotted my mom at a wide table looking over some blueprints with a man in a hard hat, I felt a burst of pride. I’d always imagined she had a cool job, but actually seeing what she was doing suddenly made everything so real.
Mom smiled when she saw us. “Welcome to Coventry House,” she said as she headed toward us.
Once Dad left for his appointment, my mother gave me and Camila the grand tour. “The mansion was built in 1894 by a candy-maker named Francis Coventry, for his wife and three daughters,” she began. “This hall is known as the Great Room. For the moment, it’s our main work area.” She led us through the space, weaving around two men moving lumber and a woman chipping rust off an old metal window frame, until we reached an archway that opened onto a long hallway. We followed her down the hall past different rooms. As we came to each one, Mom pointed out details I hadn’t noticed, such as a cluster of carved violins crowning the doorway to the music room, and baskets of fruit and a roast goose over the mantel in the dining room. “Coventry wanted his home to be special, so he employed master carvers to decorate each room in a unique way,” she said.
The more I looked, the more there was to see. It felt sort of like when I was on the Amazon River, realizing how much there was to see all around me. I thought of what Ms. Garcia had said about looking at things in new ways.
We were about to leave the dining
room when Camila stopped at a door. She peered at a brass knob stamped with a curving design that looked familiar. “What is this?” Camila asked Mom, pointing to it.
“That is a fleur-de-lis, the symbol of St. Louis,” my mom replied. “It was originally a symbol for the King of France, who once owned this whole area.”
“It’s a flower, right?” I said, remembering what she had once told me.
Mom nodded. “Yes—‘fleur’ means flower. It’s a stylized drawing of a lily or iris. Mr. Coventry wanted them in all the rooms, to remind him of how much wealth the city had given him. Of course, they also represent royalty,” she said, winking, “so he also might have wanted to feel like a king.”
We walked out of the dining room, past a sunlit porch. “After the last of Coventry’s daughters died, the house was sold,” Mom continued. “It was turned into an orphanage, then a girls’ school, and finally a boardinghouse, before it was abandoned. Since then, it’s been vandalized, flooded, and part of it even burned down in a fire. No one wanted it, and the city was thinking about tearing it down.”
“I can’t believe that!” I said, indignant.
“There are a lot of great old buildings that no one wants anymore,” said Mom. “Luckily, people are trying to save them. A few years ago, the Old North St. Louis Preservation Society started raising money to fix Coventry House. They’ve rebuilt many homes in this area, which is great for the neighborhood. The preservation society has teamed up with a private donor to raise enough money to restore Coventry House, so it can become a community center. When the center opens, it will serve the residents already here, and hopefully also make more people want to move to the neighborhood and bring even more houses back to life.”
“Mom,” I said proudly, “you are bringing Coventry House back to life!”
“Not just me,” she said, smiling. “A lot of people are working to save this place. Although I do feel I have a personal connection to the house through Ama. This was one of her favorite buildings in St. Louis.”
“Really?” I asked.
Mom nodded. “Ama lived in this neighborhood until she was 14, before they moved to West County.”
I’d never known Ama had lived nearby. It made me wonder what else I didn’t know about her.
As we peeked into another room, I couldn’t help picturing my grandmother here, her compass necklace gleaming around her neck. Ama loved exploring—she would have wanted to explore every nook of this strange, beautiful house.
We passed through an archway and Mom stopped. “Here we are!”
I realized we’d gone all the way around and returned to the front entry hall. The double staircase curved gracefully behind us, but I could see now that rusty metal gates were locked at the top of each set of steps.
“Can we go upstairs?” I asked.
“The second and third floors are still off-limits except to the construction crew,” she said. “But come on, I’ll show you one more thing.”
Mom turned around and moved to a corner of the wood-paneled foyer wall. When she pressed it in, it sprang back, opening like a door!
“Whoa,” I exclaimed as my mother led us into a semicircular room with curved windows. “Coventry’s daughters asked their father for a special room away from servants and guests, where they could relax and read,” she told us. “So he built them this morning room.”
I looked around. Opposite us, a young woman in painter’s overalls stood on a ladder by a strip of wall.
“Camila and Lea, this is Sarah,” Mom said. Sarah pulled her earbuds out and grinned at us. “Sarah studies art restoration at Wash U. She volunteered to help uncover one of Coventry House’s hidden treasures—this mural.” I looked at the wall. Most of the top plaster had been chipped away. Under the cloudy layers that remained, I could see faint, shadowy outlines.
“What is a mural?” asked Camila.
“A wall painting,” answered Mom. “Coventry wrote that he was going to have a mural painted for his daughters. It’s noted in the blueprints. Unfortunately, we have no photographs of it, so we won’t know exactly what it is until Sarah’s finished.”
Just then, the door behind us opened. The man in the hard hat popped his head in.
“There you are,” he said to Mom. “The bank’s on the phone,” he told her. “The donor’s payment is late.”
My mother sighed. “Again?” she said, sounding upset, and then she stopped herself. She turned to us. “I’m sorry, girls. I need to go take this call.”
“Can we stay and watch Sarah work on the mural?” I asked.
Mom nodded. “Just don’t wander off. Come back to the Great Room when you’re done watching.”
After Mom left, we watched Sarah work. She’d pry off bits of plaster with a tiny knife, then use a fan-shaped brush to skim away dust. After a moment, I thought I could see the outline of a girl’s face emerging, with wide eyes and a bow-shaped mouth.
As I strained to look at it, a faint, high-pitched sound came from nearby. A ghost? Big old houses are often haunted. I glanced at Camila. From her face, I could tell she’d heard it too. The sound came again, more insistent. It seemed to be coming from behind a nearby door. Camila moved to open the door, but I stopped her.
“Wait.” I bent down, putting my eye to the old-fashioned keyhole. All I could see was a drab, dusty back hallway—until a small cat with black fur and white paws whisked across it! I gasped. The cat paused. With its skinny legs and giant eyes, it was more of an older kitten than a grown-up cat.
“It’s a kitten,” I whispered to Camila, but before I could say maybe we should try not to scare it, Camila pushed open the door. In a flash, the kitten bolted down the hall, zipping around a corner.
“Come on!” Camila said, bouncing with excitement.
I glanced back. Sarah had her earbuds in and was facing away from us, but I still felt nervous. “Hold on,” I cautioned, but Camila was already a few steps down the hall. “Mom said not to go too far.” Still, I was as excited as Camila. I love animals, and what if this kitten needed our help?
In the distance, I heard the tiny mew again. We crept down the dark hall, trying to be quiet. The wood floor was dirty and uneven, and the boards creaked with each step. The walls had rough, splintery holes where plaster had fallen off. Somewhere in front of us, I could hear tiny claws skittering. The kitten!
We kept moving. Ahead on the right was a door, slightly ajar. Using one finger, I swung the door open to reveal a pile of old wood planks in a roomy closet. Rusty nails stuck out from some of the boards. Camila leaned over the pile. My excitement turned to fear and I grabbed her arm. “Careful!”
Camila nodded. We eased around the wood, looking for the kitten. Through some gaps in the pile, we spotted the kitten hiding inside. It was black except for its white nose and feet and a pair of golden, terrified eyes. Seeing us, it froze in place and let out the tiniest, cutest hiss in the world.
“Shhh…” I told the kitten, trying to calm it, as Camila slowly crouched. But just as she reached her arms toward it, the kitten sprang to the top of the woodpile, leaped off it, and sprinted past us.
“Come on!” I urged, forgetting my fear.
We rushed after it. The black-and-white furball streaked down the hall past a side stairwell and closed doors. It jumped over some old paint cans and slowed, but as we caught up, it veered left, nudging a room door open. Camila and I reached the room, panting.
“There’s nowhere left to go,” I said. For a second I thought, I should go get Mom. But what if the kitten ran away before we came back? I didn’t want that. We edged inside. The room was crammed with old furniture and boxes stacked almost to the ceiling. I could hear the kitten scuffling around somewhere near the back.
“Let’s try to get on either side of it,” I whispered to Camila.
She nodded and we split up. I slipped between unsteady-looking towers of boxes, trying not to bump anything. The kitten sounded closer now. I peeked around a corner. Through the maze of boxes, I could
see the kitten washing its face with a paw as it perched on a grimy windowsill, A thrill ran through me. Maybe we could actually catch it!
Camila was edging in slow motion between two boxes. As she got close to the kitten, I realized I was too far away to get to the other side of it in time. I waved to get Camila’s attention, but as I did, the kitten saw Camila—and she lunged for it!
It screeched, jumping for the nearest stack of boxes, and caught the edge of a box, holding on for dear life with its claws.
“Oh NO!” I shrieked, as the kitten clawed its way up the stack of boxes. Camila and I screamed, scrambling to dodge boxes as the stack collapsed and dust and papers rained down. I looked up just in time to see the kitten land nimbly inside a hole at the top of the wall and disappear.
Camila and I stood dazed. Old dusty photographs and papers were everywhere, like piles of dirty snow. “We have to clean this up,” I said, surveying the mess.
Camila and I hurried to pick everything up, struggling to lift boxes and stuffing papers back into them. She could tell I was upset, because she said, “Don’t worry, it was just an accident.” She was right, but I knew it was also our fault.
I gathered some papers and photographs up off the floor and sighed, glancing down at a large black-and-white photo on top. In it, a girl a few years older than me posed by a window in a 1950s-style dress. Her face was heart-shaped, and her shoulder-length blonde hair was swept back in sleek waves. I was about to put the photo into a box with the other papers when I saw something that made me stop, stunned.
“What is it?” asked Camila, but I barely heard her.
Hanging around the girl’s neck in the picture was my grandmother Ama’s compass necklace.
squinted at the photograph of the blonde girl. Although it was faint, I could clearly see the delicate flower design on the compass hanging around her neck. It looked exactly like Ama’s compass. They were identical.
“What is it? What did you find?” said Camila.
I showed her the photo and explained why I was so surprised. Camila examined the girl’s picture. “Do you think this is really your grandmother’s necklace?” she asked.
