Her Special Picture

A guest asked for a one-shot of how Henry and Hanna met. I touched base on this a bit in Chapter 4 of The Other Daughter, so I just went into more detail with that. Hanna and Henry are in kindergarten. :)

"It's finally done," Hanna said with a smile as she held up her drawing. She had been working on this picture for the past three days during free play. Hanna's teacher tried to get her to go play with the other kids, but Hanna just told her she did't want to. She was determined to finish this picture.

"Wow, you're a really good drawer!"

Hanna looked over and saw a little boy sitting next to her. He had a container of red paint, a paint brush, and a blue piece of construction paper. She wondered what he was going to make. Hanna couldn't remember his name, but she did know that he was the mayor's son.

"Thank you," Hanna told him with a small smile.

"Is that the princess?" he asked.

"Yeah, and this is her castle," Hanna said, pointing to the majestic castle she drew. "She lives in there with her mommy and daddy. She has a sister too. They're inside though, so you can't see them."

"What's the princess's name?"

"Hanna."

"Just like your name," he told her with a smile.

"Yeah," Hanna said with a nod. Now she felt a little guilty that she couldn't remember his name when he remembered hers.

"My names Henry."

Oh Henry, that's right. "What are you making, Henry?" Hanna asked.

"I don't know," Henry said with a shrug of his shoulders. He dipped his paint brush into the red paint and just started smearing it all over the paper.

Hanna just laughed. "I'm going to go get crayons to color my picture. I'll be right back."

Hanna went to get a box of crayons. She couldn't wait to color her picture. She couldn't decide what color to make the princess's dress. Maybe purple? Or blue? Hanna thought yellow might be pretty too. She couldn't decide. Maybe she could just color the castle first and…

"My picture!" Hanna shouted. She got back to the table and there was red paint all over her beautiful castle and the princess. Hanna turned to Henry with tears in her eyes. "What did you do?"

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to," Henry said as he shook his head. "I…I just bumped my paint with my elbow and…" Henry burst into tears. He felt awful for ruining her picture.

Hanna sat down in her seat and started crying as well. All that time she spent on her special picture and now it was just a giant red blob.

The teacher quickly rushed over to see what all of the commotion was about. She spent several minutes trying to calm down the crying five year olds. Once the tears had finally subsided, she got the paint all cleaned up and was grateful that it was time for lunch.

Hanna didn't eat a bite of her lunch that day. Henry kept trying to tell her he was sorry, but she just put her head down and wouldn't listen. She wasn't really mad at him. She was just sad that her picture was all gone. She knew he didn't spill the paint on purpose.

The next day, Hanna came into the classroom, still sullen about her picture. She walked over to her desk and found a picture waiting there for her. Hanna smiled when she saw the drawing of a castle and a princess. Sure, the drawing wasn't as good as the one she drew, but she still thought it was beautiful.

"I…I made you a new one," Henry said with a small smile as he came over and stood beside Hanna.

"I love it, Henry!" Hanna said as she turned and gave him a hug. This picture really meant so much to her. No one had ever done something this nice for her before. "Do you want to help me color it?"

"Yeah, I'll go get the crayons!" Henry said as he ran off. He was so happy that she wasn't upset anymore.

A new friendship blossomed as Henry and Hanna worked together to color the picture. After that day, these two kids would become inseparable and do just about everything together.