Jean loved to draw. Michael always gave Jean his doodles, she kept them on the fridge. Once, when Jean was fourteen and trying her hand at painting, Michael decided that he was a painter too. He had been four at the time, but he was tall for his age, so it was no trouble for him to sneak into his sister's room and snag the paint she kept on the shelf.
It wasn't until later when Michael didn't show up to help make supper that they started looking for him. It wasn't until they had checked all of the rooms in the house Jean started to get worried. Ann's shriek from the backyard sent ice through Jean's veins.
Jean raced out of the house, Dorothy hot on her trail, and that's where they found Michael.
There were dozens of pieces of paper littering the yard and, in the middle of the mess, sat Michael, covered head to toe in a rainbow of paint. His hair was green, there were blue streaks smeared on his cheeks and the tip of his nose. His hands up to his elbows were orange and Jean nearly had a heart-attack when she saw his legs were red, until she saw the half-empty bottle of red paint at his feet.
And there was Ann, bent over, laughing like a fool, while Dorothy, sixteen with too much work to be dealing with this, glared silently from the doorway.
Dorothy stood up straight, bare feet padding lightly across the porch, smacking Ann lightly across the back of the head for laughing, then stood in front of Michael, close enough to look down at him, but far enough away so that his sticky hands wouldn't mess up her dress. "Michael."
Michael's blue eyes looked up, a smile on his face. "Hi, Dot."
"Michael. J. Caboose."
"Oh." He looked around, likely trying to find a way out. "I'm in trouble."
"Big time. What do you have to say for yourself?"
"Uh...Annie did it?"
Ann, who had still been snickering, squawked in indignation, glaring at her little brother.
Dorothy placed her hands on her hips, her lips pulled into an unimpressed frown. "Wrong answer." She then turned her attention away from Michael. "Jean, pick up this mess. Ann, take Michael inside and give him a bath. I think the paint has dried on his feet enough that he shouldn't mess up the floor. I'm going to go make supper. Mom and the girls should be back in an hour and I want it to look like this never happened, and for it to never happen again, am I clear?" Jean nodded her agreement while Ann did the same, mumbling about how it wasn't her fault, why did she have to clean him, before Jean elbowed her in the ribs to shut her up.
Dorothy, satisfied with the answers, turned to Michael, who was fiddling with a piece of paper in his hands. "Michael, do you understand?"
A sad little 'yes' was directed at the paper before Dorothy left, Ann going inside as well to draw up a bath.
Jean began gathering the supplies, a part of her mourning the loss of the paint, before a tug on her shirt got her attention.
"'m real sorry, Jeanie."
Jean sighed, bending down so she was on his level. He was looking at his bare feet, toes flexing in the grass. Truth be told, she was mad at him. She didn't have a lot of paint and they couldn't afford to buy her more right now, they had mouths to feed and, much as it hurt to admit, her hobby wasn't as important.
Michael looked away from his feet when she didn't answer, a small, guilty smile on his face when he said,"I made you a gift though," then thrust his hands out, the piece of paper he had been fiddling with earlier almost hitting her in the face.
It was a painting, that much was clear. There were blobs of color, each in a row next to each other, with names scribbled in what looked like purple crayon next to each.
Michael stuck and orange painted finger at the paper, pointing at each blob in turn. "It's us, see? The green one is mom, the yellow one is Dot, the red one is Annie, the orange one is you, and the blue one is me! I wrote the names beside them in case someone got confused."
Jean looked at each one as he pointed at them. They just looked like blobs to her, the names illegible and likely spelled wrong if she could read it, but Michael looked so proud, covered head to in paint.
So Jean gave him a small smile, thanking him for the gift. There was one brown looking blob in the corner that he hadn't named though.
"Mikey?
"Yeah?"
"Who's that?"
Michael looked to where she was pointing. "That's Freckles! Can't you see his spots?"
"Ah, of course, how silly of me."
Michael laughed, then started heading inside when Ann called, but Jean stopped him, calling out, "Hey, Mikey?"
"Hm?"
"Next time you want to paint, come ask me first, okay?"
Michael nodded his head furiously, rushing inside when Ann started to sound impatient.
Jean shook her head fondly, grabbing the supplies and heading inside.
That boy was going to be a handful.