“It’s what you didn’t do.”

“Huh?” He sounded unervingly like Ryan.

“You didn’t even call me while I was in the hospital, and it’s all your fault that I was there in the first place! At least Ryan and Jay had the decency to write, and they weren’t the one throwing chairs!” I threw my fuzzy bunny slipper at him and it bounced off his head.

“Owwww!”

“Hush Paige, I hate it when you whine.”

“You know what? I think you’re Satan! You’re the devil’s plaything! The MORNING STAR!”

“I don’ [t appreciate your disrespect and I don’t have to take it. C’mon Taylor.” I grabbed Taylor’s arm and dragged him out of the rec room. “Do you still wanna check out the art room?”

“Yeah, but what was that all about?”

“Oh, don’t worry about Paige and me. I enjoy aggravating him every once in a while and he knows it. I’m just pretending to be torked off by him.”

“Okay.” We walked to the end of the building where the art room was located. It was a small, bright room with lots of windows. There were only 3 people there so it was fairly quiet.

Zoë-chan was at a table making gundam wing pilots and fairies out of clay. Jeanie-sama was drawing chibi ronin warriors and talking to her imaginary friend Sagey-sama. Myrtle, the supervisor, was sitting in a chair by a window working on a crossword puzzle.

‘Hiya honey.” She said, sounding like a classic Jewish woman from New York.

“Taylor, I’d like you to meet Myrtle, Myrtle, this is Taylor.”

“Nice to meet you dear, now if you kids don’t mind, I’ve got to get back to a twelve letter word for false or phony.”

“Disingenuous.” I gave him a questioning look. “A twelve letter word for false or phony.” I patted his shoulder.

“You really don’t have a life, do you?”

“You learn these things when you’re homeschooled and traveling in non-English speaking countries. Foreign languages tend to bring out my mom’s arsenal of big words.”

“I see, okay, well let’s get started. What do you want to work with?”

“Is there any canvas and oils?”

“Yes, but very limited colors. We have no bright colors much to my dismay.”

“That’s fine for what I have in mind.”

“Okie dokey smokie.” I showed him to the cabinet where they kept the canvases. “Canvases are in here, paint is in the drawer below.” He opened up the cupboard and chose a large rectangular canvas. He then took several tubes of paint out of the drawer.

“Pencil?”

“Can on the counter.”

“Okay.” He got a pencil, set up his canvas on an easel, and began to sketch. I located the only easy chair in the room, which was located in a patch of sun and I flopped down into it.

Two and a half-hours later I felt someone shaking me awake. I opened my eyes and looked up. Taylor was standing over me.

“Mir? We’ve got 5 minutes before lunch. Time to get up.”

“Did you get far on your painting?”

“Sorta.”

“Can I see?”

“If you really want to, I guess.” He didn’t sound very enthusiastic, but I paid no attention. He led me over to the easel where his painting was. He hadn’t gotten very far, but that was expected since he was working in oils. He had gotten about half of the background done and he had the main figure penciled in. The whole thing was done in drab, miserable colors, and from what I saw, I guessed it was a little boy sitting in a corner with is knees drawn up to his chest.

“I definitely like it.” I informed him.

“Yeah, but I’m not so sure I do.” He replied. He sounded so gloomy.

“Regardless of whether or not you like it, it’s really good.”

“Whatever, we should go now, it’s time for lunch.

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