By Maanvi Singh (age 10)
“Aaah!” I say, as a huge mural spreads the ground under my feet. I look closely at the mural. It has all the secrets I hold, with friends, with family, even things I don’t even know! Everything is drawn perfectly, and everything is exact. My grandmother came to our house one day, to “talk” to me. I thought I knew what this was about, all the cousin drama. Ellie doesn’t like Joseph, but Joseph’s whole family hates everyone else, Hannah thinks she doesn’t belong and everyone’s annoyed with her, everyone(including me) HATES Barrett, and worst of all, Terry broke up with Harry. Harry was the best! Anyway, that was most definitely not what this was about. It was about her giving me her power. It’s passed down, and skips a generation, so Mom doesn’t have it. This was quite a boring power to me. Grandma made me feel like it would be so cool, like controlling water, or talking to animals or something! But it was that I could make art. Boring. But I didn’t know it would lead up to this! I couldn’t hone the power at all! Which was basically all Grandma talked about.
‘Blah, blah, blah –hone your power–blah, blah, blah–hone it well!’ Grandma would say. I have to call her. I have to see what she would say.
Grandma is the worst at pep talks. But she seems right because she’s old and wise. Like Moana’s grandma! But Moana’s grandma is normally good at the talking part too. I call her on Mom’s phone, pressing ‘Momma’, because that’s what Mom calls her.
“Hello?” Grandma says.
“Hi Grandma,” I say in a wobbly voice, “You know how you were telling me to control my power?”
“Mm-hmm,” she says.
“I can’t,” I say, my eyebrows partly going up, showing I was worried.
“Fear not!” Grandma says, “I am here!” She becomes louder and I give a sigh of relief. “Um, I dunno what to do,” she says in a small voice.
“What?!” I say.
“Well, I guess it’s never happened to anyone,” she says, “You’re the weird one in the family.” She hangs up.
I don’t know what to do! I think. I go outside to my thinking tree. Grandma’s no help, and Mom doesn’t even know how it works, and I dunno what to do. Well, the thinking tree didn’t help at all! I hop off the tree. Suddenly I remembered the mural! It has things, even I don’t know! I sprint as fast as I can past all the houses. At the Square, I find a big thumb that signifies my power and it has a picture of Harry and a bunch of splotches of paint next to him. Harry knows about this! I have to find him! I think.
I call Terry and try to find out where Harry is.
“Where’s Harry?” I ask.
“I’m not telling you,” he sasses me, “We don’t speak of him.” He uses a few words I dare not mention, and says, “If you like him so much, find him yourself!”
Before he hangs up the phone, I say, “What if I draw a mural for you?” He doesn’t hang up, but he doesn’t speak immediately.
“Okay—of me, right?….He lives at his parents house on 1539 Meadow Avenue.” He hangs up. Meadow Avenue? I think, That’s not that far from me! I run two blocks to the right, then cross the road, and find myself on Meadow Avenue. Now, I have to find 1539. 1539…1539 I think, trying to find the house, Aha! 1539! I walk up their cobblestone path to the entrance of their house, and knock on their scarlet red door. Harry opens the door, looking like he just woke up. You should know that it’s 5:30 p.m! He is wearing pajama pants and a sweatshirt, with messy hair, and his clean shave is now a stubble. I guess he didn’t recover from the breakup. Yeah—he is not handling it well.
“Hey, Harry,” I say, “How’s it going?”
“Fine,” he says, “Come in, Olive, what’s going on?” he adds, suddenly realizing that I’m at his house and I have only been here if something really bad happened.
“Um…nothing,” I say, unconvincingly, “Actually, something bad did happen, um, so, um, I got my gift of art, you know, and I don’t know how to control it, and neither does anyone else, and my mural said to come to you so here I am!” I say really quickly.
“Wait, wait, wait,—so you got your power, —yay—and you don’t know how to control your power—boo—so your mural you made in Meadowfair Square told you to come to my house?”
“Yeah—wait, how do you know about Meadowfair Square? I just said mural,” I ask.
“Oh, umm…” He hesitates, “It’s all over the internet.”
“Great,” I mutter under my breath. “So, that’s why I need your help!” I say to him, pretending to be cheery.
“Okay, so, all we have to do is train, and I’ll be coaching you!” he says excitedly, “Then you’ll be able to make murals out in the open!
The next day, I got to his house again, to see a huge tarp, and a table with many different paint materials and a white suit.
“Welcome to the first day of training! Here, you will call me Coach Harry, and right now you will wear this suit!” He points to the white suit on the table.
“Coach Harry?” I smirk, as I walk to the table to pick up the suit.
“Yes!” he says excitedly. He seems to have lost his seriousness.
“Okay,” I say sarcastically.
“We will start with some work out and then move on to painting without using your powers, then with your powers and work on controlling,” he says.
“In one day?” I ask.
“Oh surely not! This will be our basic plan everyday for the next two months!”
“What?!” I say, surprised.
“Mm-hmm!” he says, “At the least.”
My jaw drops as I put on the suit. “You’re crazy!” He smiles.
“Okay!” he yells, “Drop down, gimme 25 push ups! 1…2..3…4…”
“Harry!” His mom comes into the room. “Too loud!” Her tone changes when she talks to me. “Hi, Olive! Would you like anything to drink or eat?” Mrs. Harper is a plump woman with rosy cheeks. She owns a baking company at home, and is always wearing an apron.
“No…thaaaanks,” I struggle out while I’m doing push ups.
“Good!” Harry eyes my push ups, “Faster! 20! 21! 22! 23! 24! 25! Okay! Get up!” He gives me high fives.
The day continues on, and so does the next month, and by mid-July, I improve a lot. I can control when I want to use my powers and when not to, I can create murals of what I want, not what the mural wants, it was perfect!
“This is great! You’re ready to go out in the open. Be freeeeeeeeeeee!” He sings. I look at him with a weird look on my face. “You don’t know that song? Be freeee? No?” I shake my head at him with the same weird look on my face.
“Okay,” he says, “anyway, we need to go to the Square and try some stuff out!”
“Mm-mm!” I say shaking my head, and holding my arm back.
“Why?” Harry asked me with a concerned face.
“Because I’m scared,” I said embarrassed.
“Oh, don’t be scared,” he said, his smile softening, “You worked so hard, and I saw you improve, and that’s how I think you’re ready. I know you’re ready! Trust me.”
“All my cousins don’t trust you,” I say, smiling.
“Are you actually bringing this up now?” He said. I giggle. “C’mon, let’s go,” he says, pulling my arm again. This time I gave in, after the pep talk he gave me.
When I got to the Square, everyone stared at me. They probably remembered me from the last time.
“Don’t worry about them,” Harry whispers into my ear, “Just focus on what you are doing.” I follow his instructions he gave me just now and what he has given me for the past two months. Using that, I figure out what mural I want to make—Terry, because I have to—and stomp on the ground keeping his face in my mind. It unravels like a circular carpet under my foot, creating his face and different things we love doing together. It looked amazing!
“You made Terry?” Harry said in disgust, “Please tell me that was just the first thing that popped in your head.”
“Well, this is what he wanted for him telling me where I could find you.” I said matter-of-factly, “Here let me call him to come here!”
When Terry arrived, he looked amazed by my mural and laughed as he pointed out the different things we did together. But when he saw Harry standing there, his face turned to pure revulsion. Until it dawned on him that he helped me through the entire thing—or that is until I told him that. He walked over to Harry and gave him a hug.