Blade Silver: Color Me Scarred by Melody Carlson Read Free Book Online Page A

cylinder, and
this impresses them even more. Really, I suppose it does look like
magic to them. To my surprise, it's actually kind of fun. I'm really
getting into this!
    "Looking good, Ruth," says Glen from behind me. "You sure
you want to give this up?"
    "Is it time?" I ask.

    "You've got about five more minutes." Then he leans down.
"Hey, you're getting your sleeves all messy"
    I look down and see that the cuffs of my nice white blouse are
totally splattered with the reddish-brown clay.
    "Here, let me help you."
    I take in a quick breath. "It's okay. Just leave it-"
    But it's too late, he's already reached down for my right hand,
like he's going to push up my sleeve for me. With pounding heart, I
jerk my hands off the pot so quickly that I accidentally knock it and
it warps-badly. Thrown off balance, it flops over and looks as if it's
been murdered. The spectators make disappointed noises.
    "Bummer!" says a middle-school boy.
    "Sorry," Glen tells me, moving away from me now. "I was just
trying to-"
    "It's okay," I say quickly, standing and grabbing for a rag to wipe
my hands. "You just startled me is all."
    "Sorry," he says again, looking uncomfortable.
    "It's fine," I say in a stiff voice. "Why don't you go ahead and
take over now?"
    "Hey, Ruth, I'm really-"
    But I'm already walking away. I cannot take this! I head straight for
the bathroom, holding back tears of humiliation. I rinse the remaining wet clay from my hands, washing and washing even after they
are clean. When I look up into the mirror, I can see that my face is
flushed and blotchy. And my shirt sleeves are a total mess. I'm a mess.
Why did I think I could do this? I am so stupid! So clueless. Such a
total loser. What makes me think I can pull off a normal life? I feel so
frustrated now that all I want to do is go get my backpack, find my
Altoids box, and escape all this. Escape this pathetic excuse of a life.

     

seven
    No, RUTH, I TELL MYSELF AS I STARE AT MY REFLECTION IN THE MIRROR. AND
then I imagine myself sliced up like I've been through a giant shredder, not just my arms, but my face and the rest of my body too. I
imagine myself bleeding all over the place. This has to stop. I can't
let a little thing like Glen trying to pull up my sleeve totally undo
me like this. I have to just shake this thing off and move on.
    So I try to rinse the splattered clay out of my shirt cuffs, but I
only make a worse mess. Instead of just being splattered, they're
soaking wet and a light shade of orange now. I blot them as dry as
I can with paper towels, then force myself to go back out to the art
fair. I can't give up.
    At least my pottery session is done. And despite the strong urge,
I didn't resort to cutting. That's something. So I go back to my easel,
congratulating myself for being strong, and start to paint. I've got
a postcard of a lighthouse draped in fog taped to the corner of my
canvas. It's mostly shades of gray and blue. So the only paint colors I
need seem to be black and white and blue. I squirt generous dollops
of those onto my palette. And I begin to paint. Something about the
sparseness of the colors pulls me in, and it's not long before I start
to lose myself as I move the paint across the canvas, blending and
shading to get the fog just right.

    "Sorry I messed you up," says Glen as he returns to his easel and
picks up a piece of charcoal.
    "I'm sorry I overreacted," I tell him, paintbrush poised in midair
as I study how the trail of light from the lighthouse penetrates the
fog.
    "I should know better than to sneak up on an artist at work."
    I want to say something more, to reassure him that it wasn't his
fault, that it was me and my own stupid hang-up. But what can I
really say without exposing what a loser I am? "Did T. J. take over
the wheel?" I ask absently
    "Yeah. But, between you and me, I think he could use some
practice."
    I laugh. "Just don't tell him that."
    "That's a pretty depressing scene,