"Ok," Mr. Maysworth said, standing from his computer and holding his coffee mug carefully between his hands, "Welcome, children, to my lair. I'm sorry you'll have to waste and hour of your life here for the rest of the school year, I know you'll enjoy it as little as I will." Everyone laughed and Mr. Maysworth set down his mug next to a stack of pastel drawings. He walked around to the front of his desk and hoisted himself onto it. "Now that we've got out there how much we all don't like each other, I'd like to get some stuff done in here, anyway. I don't like you, and don't care about your welfare, of course, but I do care about my class having an impressive grade average, and I do care about the display my class puts up annually in the gallery at the end of the year." He grabbed his mug and took a sip before continuing, "Because, you know, if your art is terrible, it makes me look like a bad teacher, and I'm a wonderful teacher, so that won't do." Everyone was grinning and laughing, and Mr. Maysworth jumped down from his desk and walked toward the whiteboard. "So," he said, "for starters, I want to see what you can do purely from imagination, without a single prompt, with only a pencil and paper. So everyone please get out your sketch pads." The students who hadn't already done so obeyed the command and Mr. Maysworth glanced at his watch once the room was silent again. "Alright," he said, "Three minutes. Draw." Immediately, everyone slumped over there pads. I took a few seconds to brainstorm as I stared at my pencil. I knew what I wanted to do, what I always did, and that was draw a tree, but I knew that was the easy way out, so I sat and tried to think of something else. All I could think of was trees and flowers and waterfalls, and those were all prime candidates for someone else, but drawn by me Mr. Maysworth would not be impressed. He always told us to expand our horizons, exit our comfort zones. And nature was definitely my comfort zone. The way wind whistled through trees, leaves crunched and animals scurried and creeks flowed- that sound of water rushing... everything about nature welcomed me, drew me in. Trees, animals, and water made beautiful sounds...but they never spoke. I stabbed my pencil into the corner of my page, telling myself to focus. Something else. I needed to draw something that wasn't nature. I glanced at the front of the room and noticed a picture tacked to the wall, of Mr. Maysworth's seven-year-old daughter. And I immediately looked back at my paper and started drawing. When Mr. Maysworth came around a couple minutes later, I was just finishing the shading on a sketch of an empty frame. He picked up my sketchpad and stared at it for a moment, and then nodded and put it back on my desk. "What does this mean to you?" he asked. I bit my lip for a moment and then winged it. I think, I motioned, it's supposed to be an image of what's going on in someone's mind. I think this person loved someone, and it's been a long time since they lost them, so now they're finally letting go...taking the picture out of the frame. Val translated for me, and Mr. Maysworth grinned, "You know why I like you, Melissa?" He waved a finger at me, "Because you spin lies like that. I wish every high school student knew how to spin lies like that." Val and I laughed, and Ames grinned. "Ok, Val. Show me what you got." Val smiled widely and sat up straighter as she handed Mr. Maysworth her sketchpad, which contained a picture of what looked like...what looked a dead animal with a car driving away from it in the distance. "Is this..." Mr. Maysworth started, "Road kill," Val finished for him. She pressed her hand to her chest and said, "Can't you see, Mr. Maysworth." She batted her eyelashes dramatically, "It's a metaphor for our society." Mr. Maysworth shook his head, "Right. Leaving me in awe, Val, as usual." Val grinned as he handed her sketchpad back to her, "Never expect any less, Mr. M." He shook his head again and held his hand out toward Ames, "Welcome, new person, let's see what you got." Ames handed him his sketchpad and Mr. Maysworth nodded. "Very nice. Tell me, what do you think this was caused by? What is this person reacting to?" He set the pad back down on the desk and I looked over and saw that Ames had drawn a mouth, wide open, screaming. "I don't know," Ames said, narrowing his eyes at the picture, "I know that she's scared." Mr. Maysworth nods, "You also know that this person is a girl. So what's she scared of?"
"She's scared..." Ames trailed off. He shook his head, ran his hand through his hair. "I don't know," he said, looking back up at Mr. Maysworth and grinning. Mr. Maysworth nodded, "That's Ok. Good start. You're new, so we'll cut you some slack. Besides, it's better than Miss Valerie's, here." Val slapped her chest, mocking offended, "Excuse me, Mr. Maysworth, but this piece of art here is very personal to me." She shook her head and flipped her hair off her shoulder with her hand, "That's alright, Mr. M, I understand. You're not intellectual enough to truly understand the depth of my masterpiece." Mr. Maysworth took a deep breath, "Lord help me the day I reach that level of intellectuality." Ames and I laughed as Val smiled widely and Mr. Maysworth moved onto the next desk.
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