“Today”, said the teacher, “we will each draw pictures of our families”. The teacher passed out paper and the students went to work. Marie liked art class and here is what she did.

First, Marie drew the people in her family. In Marie’s family were her Mommy, her step-Daddy, and her baby brother. Mommy had brown, curly hair and she wore a pink dress. Daddy stood next to Mommy. He wore brown pants and an orange shirt. Mommy was holding Marie’s new baby brother. He was wrapped up in a yellow blanket. Marie stood proudly in front of her parents. She had black hair with bangs. She wore blue pants and a bright red shirt. Marie’s drawing showed her smiling family outside on a warm, sunny day.

Next, Marie took her black crayon and drew a line across the middle of the paper. Under the line she used her green crayon to make the grass.

Marie did not have a white crayon to make clouds, but she had a really neat idea. She used her imagination. Above the black line, she drew fluffy clouds. She did not colour inside the clouds.

Then, Marie used a blue crayon to colour the sky all around the outside of the clouds. The art paper was already white, so the inside of the clouds just turned out white.

Finally, Marie drew a circle and coloured it bright yellow. It was the sun shining in the sky.

Marie held her drawing out to admire it. She stared at her drawing and frowned.

“Hmmm”, she thought, “something is not quite right”. It looked like the people were not standing on anything. They were just kind of floating on the grass. “Oh dear, how can I make it right?” she wondered.

Suddenly, Marie had another idea and she used her imagination again.

Marie took her black crayon, and under the feet of each person, she drew a hump. She coloured the humps with her brown and black crayons. Can you guess what those humps were?

“Now, my drawing looks right”, said Marie to herself, and she could hardly wait to get home from school.

When Marie arrived home, she rushed in the door waving her picture in the air. “Look what I did in school today”, she exclaimed.

Mommy and Daddy were in the living room playing with Marie’s baby brother. Marie went to Mommy and handed her the drawing. Mommy and Daddy both looked at the drawing.

Suddenly, Daddy laughed and Mommy giggled. What could be so funny?

“What are those humps under our feet?” asked Daddy, pointing to the humps in the drawing.

“Those are rocks”, explained the puzzled little girl. “We are standing on rocks.”

“Oh my dear”, giggled Mommy, but when she looked at Marie she stopped.

Mommy looked hard at Daddy with one of those looks that grownups have when they don’t want to say something out loud.

Daddy stopped laughing too.

“Well, this is a fine drawing and those rocks are just right for us to stand on”, said Mommy.

Mommy handed baby brother to Daddy. She walked to the kitchen and put Marie’s drawing on the fridge.

“There”, Mommy declared to Marie who had followed her into the kitchen, “this lovely picture of our family can go right here on the front of the fridge.”

Mommy and Marie admired the drawing. Marie felt all warm and happy inside.

The End