Page 37 of Little Etheldreda Riding Hood

I shake my head and smile. “No, I’m impressed. So what are we painting?”

“What?”

“Yeah, you know. During those nights, there is a teacher who goes through the steps and shows you how to paint something.”

“Oh, fuck. I didn’t even think about that.”

I look around the room. It’s pretty bland. Zach isn’t much for wall art.

“You got any fruit? We could do a still life painting.”

He shakes his head. “I haven’t been to the grocery store this week.”

“Hmmm.” Dolly trills and prances in. How she opened the door on her own is beyond me. “Oh look. Ask and you shall receive. We can have a contest to paint Dolly.”

“A contest on a date? You know I have to win everything.”

I laugh. “Oh? So that’s why I’m one game ahead of you in Uno?”

“Fine, a contest.”

“Is this timed?” I ask.

“Timed?”

“Yeah. Like I have to take a nap at some point. I can’t wait for you to spend five hours on your masterpiece.”

He laughs, then looks at his phone. “How about thirty minutes?”

“Thirty minutes sounds good.”

Zach gets us solo cups of water, sets the timer on his phone, and we get started on our paintings. Dolly is in the way the entire time. A good ten of the thirty minutes is spent keeping her paws out of the paint and her nose out of the brush water.

Finally, the timer goes off and we both look up.

“So how should we do the reveal?” Zach asks.

“Count of three,” I tell him.

He wiggles a bit. “I cannot wait for you to see this masterpiece.”

I laugh. “Alright then, 1, 2, 3.”

On three, we turn our paintings around. For a long moment there is silence.

His Dolly painting is absolutely, breathtakingly…horrible. I bite my lip to keep from laughing out loud.

“What do you think?” he grins.

“It’s…lovely,” I tell him, forcing my lips into a long thin line.

He’s painted a black cat–well the outline of one, but the face–the face is almost human. It looks like a cat straight out of a medieval painting. I cover my mouth, still clutching my basic, just a few steps above a stick figure cat, and hiccup as I try to hold the giggles back.

“Red?”

“Mmmhmm?”

“You okay?”

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