Out of the Blue by Sarah Ellis Read Free Book Online

was just ordinary boring stuff. When she hung up she would sit and sigh. It was revolting.
    Megan nearly turned over and went back to sleep when she remembered Art Experience. Today was the first day of the latest class that Mum and Aunt Marie had cooked up for her and John. Well, mostly Aunt Marie. Mum and Dad weren’t that big on classes and lessons. But Aunt Marie wanted John to widen his horizons, explore new areas and be well-rounded. Aunt Marie wanted John to be exposed to the many facets of our rich world. That’s the way Aunt Marie talked. Trouble was, John refused to go to anything by himself. So Megan usually got roped in.
    She didn’t really mind expanding her horizons. Some of the classes had been good, like group guitar and Slugs and Bugs. And if Art Experience would get her out of the house for the morning, she was grateful.
    She met John in the lobby of the art school. They were early. There was a whiteboard sign with all the classes listed. John found their listing: “Art Experience, Rm. 210, J. Evans.”
    â€œI wonder what J. Evans is like?”
    â€œProbably wears a beret,” said Megan, “and a big beard.”
    â€œAnd a long shirt not tucked in,” said John.
    â€œAs long as he’s not like Mr. Daynard.”
    â€œAagh,” said John strangling. “Remember ‘Deeper! Richer! Wider’!”
    â€œHe was a nut,” said Megan. Mr. Daynard had taught Creative Drama, and he always wanted them to be deeper, richer, and wider when they were just trying to remember their lines.
    John looked at his watch. “I think we can go now.”
    J. Evans turned out to be a she, with plain brown hair and a regular dress. She looked like somebody’s mother. She told them they should just wander around and look at things for a few minutes. The room was like a treasure house. There was so much of everything — rolls of paper and big tins of paint, jars of colored pencils, blocks of clay, rolls of wire, big brushes. Megan took a deep whiff of the dusty smell of paper and the sharp smell of paint.
    The project for the day was to create an imaginary garden, with flowers and animals and insects that you just made up. Megan started with a pencil and drew a huge flower with every petal different. Then she switched to pencil crayons. They were the good kind that spread their colors like butter. As she concentrated on filling the shapes with scarlet lake and burnt umber, her fingers remembered the pleasure of coloring in the pictures of her second grade workbook. She wasn’t like Betsy. She liked staying inside the lines.
    The rhythm and concentration of coloring made Megan feel as though she were living inside her space-alien flower and as though everything else had disappeared. She was startled when J. Evans came around to collect the pictures.
    â€œLook at this wonderful variety of styles.” J. Evans tacked the pictures to the corkboard. Two girls called Anna and Su-Lin had worked in pastels and their gardens were beautiful. They were obviously going to be the stars of Art Experience.
    John had concentrated on a pencil drawing of one insect. He had erased so many times that his paper had holes in it.
    â€œTell us about this,” said J. Evans.
    â€œIt’s a Venus peopletrap,” said John. “It traps people and then digests them with its special human-dissolving saliva.”
    Anna and Su-Lin broke into “eeeeoooo” noises and “Oh, gross.” But J. Evans just smiled. “I like the way you’ve made the mechanics very clear.”
    Then, oddly enough, it was Megan’s picture that J. Evans decided to concentrate on. “See how Megan has outlined all her shapes, like a coloring book?”
    Megan started to get nervous. She knew you weren’t supposed to like coloring books, in case they stifled your creativity. But J. Evans didn’t seem to care about that. “Many artists have been fascinated with the