Chapter Two
“What are you drawing?”
A pair of pastel pink cowgirl boots with yellow stars appeared in the corner of my eye. Someone must have sent her over on a dare. I kept my head down and continued to scribble, gripping my sketch pad tighter in case she tried to steal it.
“Nothing,” I replied.
“Looks like something.” The girl leaned close and surveyed the page. “It’s cool.”
“Okay.”
“Can I sit?”
I glanced up, wary and prepared for a prank. I hadn’t seen this girl before. She wore her red hair in two braids, and she had freckles like dark dewdrops across the bridge of her nose.
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Who sent you?”
“Nobody.”
“It was Steven, wasn’t it?” He always picked on me.
“I don’t know Steven. It’s my first day.”
“Where’s your shadow?”
Every new student got a shadow—someone in their grade to follow them and help them adjust. Since I grew up in Harlow, I never had one.
“She left early ’cause her stomach hurt. So can I sit?”
This girl seemed harmless, and she wouldn’t stick around, anyway. New kids spent their first few recesses with me until they found other second graders they liked better. Kids who were cooler or more popular.
I shrugged and went back to my sketch. After a moment of silence, she asked, “What’s your favorite thing to draw?”
“Dragons.”
“Why?”
“’Cause.”
“Mmm. So you can only draw dragons.”
“That is not true.” I glowered at the girl, and her eyes sparkled in the sunlight.
To prove her wrong, I flipped through my sketchbook, the papers swishing with each turn.
“See?” I pointed to the drawings, one after the other, to make my case.
Horses. Airplanes. Made-up house pets with six legs and three tails.
“You’re good.”
Her compliment took me off guard. “Th-thanks.”
“Would you draw me?”
Most of the people drawings I did happened when the subjects didn’t know I was drawing them. I begged Mom and Dad to sit so I could try, but they always got distracted by work or something on their phones. My nanny let me do it once, but then the dryer finished, and she had to put away clothes.
“Here.” The girl reached out a hand, fingers extended. “I’ll draw you, you draw me.”
I tore a page from my sketchbook, slid it across the table, and placed my pencil bag between us.
Someone in homeroom would probably say something nasty about us sharing, I was sure—like the girl gave me cooties.
Our hands bumped against each other once while rummaging around for the right shades of green and pink, but hers didn’t feel sticky or gross. Cooties were unlikely.
While we drew, I met her dark brown eyes multiple times, but they didn’t make me wiggle in my seat with discomfort.
I relaxed under her gaze while the sounds of the playground faded into the background: shrieks from a game of tag, squeaks of rusty swing sets, thuds of basketballs against the pavement. And then the bell.
She held up her paper. A stick figure stared back at me.
“That’s me?” I asked.
“Never said I was any good.”
She was funny. I turned my sketch pad around, and a loud laugh burst out of her. Once she caught her breath, she looked at the drawing of her with wings and a tail and then crumpled over with laughter again.
“I knew you could only draw dragons!”
Teachers called out for stragglers, so we walked to the spot where the other kids were lining up.
“What’s your name?” she asked, using her hand to block the sun.
“I’m Max.”
“Daisy,” she said, handing me her drawing and pointing to where she’d signed it. She dotted her i with a flower. “See you ’round.”