all lights turned off, can be turned on
Max is seven when he is handed a white paper by his teacher in mentor-class.
The paper is bigger than the ones they usually get. Thicker than the kind they usually use, so white it almost hurts to look at beneath the afternoon sun. It hangs over the edge of Max's desk by just enough that he has to keep smoothing the corners flat with the side of his hand while Mrs. Van de Berg walks between the rows, handing out boxes of crayons. A small cardboard box of crayons follows Max’s paper, each one worn down differently, the blue almost new, the green little more than a stub.
The classroom always smells funny after lunch.
Not bad, exactly. Just... warm. Like crayons left in the sun and glue sticks with their lids not put on properly. Someone has spilt orange juice near the sink again, and Max wrinkles his nose every time the smell drifts over when the wind comes through the open window.
Mrs. Van de Berg claps her hands twice.
"Eyes up here, everyone."
Emma is still whispering to Lotte.
Thomas is trying to balance a pencil on his lip.
Eventually, everyone looks up.
Mrs. Van de Berg smiles, the same smile she uses every Friday before story time.
"I thought we'd do something a little different this afternoon."
Max runs his fingers over his paper.
It's smoother than normal paper.
"I'd like everyone to draw their family."
Around him, children immediately start talking.
"My grandma lives with us now."
"My brother's going to look like an alien."
"Only if he really does."
Max doesn't pick up a crayon straight away.
His mama is easiest of all.
Even when she thinks Max doesn't notice.
Last weekend she'd stood in the paddock holding a hot chocolate that had gone cold hours before because she'd been too busy watching him to drink it. Afterwards she'd ruffled his hair through the balaclava and told him she'd nearly lost her voice from cheering.
Even when he doesn't win.
He'll make her smile really big.
He reaches for the blue crayon.
Or maybe she just has one blue jacket she likes.
She always steals things.
Once she'd tried to wear one of his racing boots and cried because it kept falling off.
He'd laughed so hard Mama had told him to stop teasing his sister.
It had just looked funny. He always does that, to keep her happy. Gives his window seat and his crayons to her. Mama calls him her ‘sweet gentle boy’ after that. Max likes to be called that.
He wonders if he should draw her with pigtails.
She had pigtails this morning.
Maybe just long hair. He colours carefully. Not too hard. If you press too hard the crayons snap.
Papa is harder. Not because he doesn't know what Papa looks like. He does. Of course he does. He just wants to get him right. Papa wouldn't smile in a drawing. Not a big smile anyway.
Max stares at the blank space where he's supposed to go.
Then at the space beside Papa.
Because this doesn't look like them at all. Not really.
He taps the black crayon against the desk once.
Then his whole face brightens.
He bends over the page and begins drawing the little kart exactly where it belongs.
He starts with the wheels because they're the easiest part. Two circles in the front and two in the back.
The steering wheel comes next, then the seat. He presses harder with the black crayon when he gets to the tyres until the wax begins to flake across the paper. Mrs. van de Berg always says not to press so hard. Max likes when the tyres look dark.
He adds a little yellow helmet.
He sits back in his chair, squinting at the page with one eye closed the way Dad does when he's looking at something on the kart.
Mama. Vic. Him. Papa. The kart.
That's his family. He smiles to himself.
Beside him, Emma has drawn six people, three cats and something that looks suspiciously like a dinosaur.
"That's not a dinosaur," she whispers before he can ask. "That's my grandad."
"Oh." He isn't really sure how she'd made that mistake.
Mrs. Van de Berg begins wandering between the desks, stopping every few steps to admire someone's drawing.
"Oh, I love your dog, Jasper."
"What beautiful flowers, Noor."
"My goodness, Lucas, that's a very tall house."
She reaches Max's desk a minute later.
He watches her shoes first. Brown. Shiny.
Then the hem of her green skirt.
Finally, she bends down beside him.
"What a lovely picture, Max."
"I like your mum's smile."
"I made it long because she likes it long."
She looks at the drawing a little longer.
Long enough that Max wonders if maybe one of the wheels is wonky after all.
Instead she points gently at the middle of the page.
"Can I ask you something?”
"Why did you draw the kart here?" He looks where she's pointing.
He blinks. The question doesn't make much sense.
He hesitates, not because he doesn't know the answer, but because he doesn't know how else it could be.
"...because that's where it goes."
Mrs. Van de Berg smiles softly.
"And why does it go there?"
Max looks back at his picture.
Then shrugs, completely matter-of-fact.
"Because it always is." Max thinks she is being weird. Where else would it go? On race weekends, Papa is in the big kart. After races, they're talking about the kart. At home, they're getting ready for the kart. When Papa isn't looking at Max... he's looking at the kart.
Mrs. Van de Berg is quiet.
She gives the picture one last look before smiling again, though somehow it looks different this time.
"I think," she says gently, "you've drawn your family exactly how you see them."
Of course he has. Why would he draw them any other way?
Max is thirteen when he visits Mama’s house for the first time after a long month of races.
He doesn't notice it at first.
Mama has moved since the last time he was here, the furniture arranged differently, the hallway painted a lighter colour than he remembers. Victoria is talking a mile a minute about school as she drags him towards her room, insisting she has to show him something she'd made, while Mama disappears into the kitchen with a laugh, asking if he still drinks hot chocolate or if racing drivers have moved on to coffee.
The house smells the same.
Something baking in the oven.
It doesn't smell like race fuel.
He pauses in the hallway to pull off his trainers.
Hanging just above the radiator.
He steps closer without really meaning to.
The paper has yellowed around the edges, the colours softer now than he remembers using them, but he recognizes it instantly.
Victoria, much smaller than she is now.
Still sitting exactly where seven-year-old Max had drawn it.
Sophie's voice drifts out from the kitchen.
He leans in a little closer.
"I think I got a sticker for it."
"I think you did." mama says squeezing his cheek, leaving the kitchen to call for Vic.
He studies it for another moment.
Victoria's hair is bright orange because apparently he'd decided they didn't have the right brown crayon.
He smiles anyway and leaves to follow his family’s voices.
Hours later his papa calls angrily talking about how Max forgot to put a part of the kart in the right place and Max has to leave his mama early to go and rectify his mistake.
The picture stays on the wall.
Max is twenty eight when Sebastian Vettel visits the Paddock during the Brazilain Grand Prix and asks him to draw a tree. He loads a video for it on youtube because he wants it to be good. He always wants to be good. GP walks by and gives Max a thumbs up after looking at his tree. It’s not very good. He brings it up again during debrief, telling Max that he loved his tree. Max gifts it to him, as a joke. GP sends back a picture of his daughter having drawn pink and purple coloured ornaments on the tree. Having written ‘Uncle Max’s tree’ on the top. He feels like crying but he doesn’t.
Max is twenty eight when GP asks him if he can leave Redbull and him, to go to McLaren.
He is twenty eight when, against every instinct in his heart, Max says yes.
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