nall | trying to draw

Not that he misliked books, he very much did, especially the ones with sketches in them so he could colour them. Anthony had once said he'd ruined picturebooks forever, because they were supposed to be black and white, but what was the harm in introducing a bit of colour? His older brother could use some of it anyway, with how saltless he was. Saltless . Nan used it so often it had lodged itself in his head. Salt gave food its flavour, she used to say, much like how colour gave pictures their meaning. Anthony was saltless and dreary, always dressed in black. So when he saw a girl, all dressed in baby blue — his colour — he knew he had to know her. He knew she would not be so saltless.

The girl looked up from her book and stared at him with her mesmerizing brown eyes. Her strange aversion to him took Benedict by surprise. Everyone was always happy to see him. Everyone wanted to be his friend, for he brought in such a vibrant personality that people had begun to wonder if he really was Edmund Bridgerton's son.

"What are you rea-a-ding?" he repeated, making his voice as endearing as possible.

"Fables." she answered.

"Does it have pictures?" came his next question. Utterly important. No book of fables would be without its pictures.

"Yes…" Her voice trailed off; her eyes back on the pages.

"Does it have colours?"

She looked up at him again, confused.

"Yes."

"But it doesn't look so colourful." Benedict stole a glance at the page she was in. "It is all words."

"They have pictures after the words." The girl turned the page and pointed it to him. A drawing of a princess limping carefully over some forest floor, without a shoe. He did not recognise the story all that much, but he knew a thing or two about princesses. That they wore colourful rainbow-coloured frocks with precious gemstones attached to their bodice. The sketch only had a small lick of colour to it — pink for her skin, blue for her shoes and a shade of green where her shoes kissed the forest.

"What is the story about?"

"I don't know. I'm reading it."

"Is it interesting?"

"Maybe. I wouldn't know until I have finished reading it."

"I can make the pictures more colourful." he offered, drawing closer to her. "My Nan says a picture is worth a thousand words. I can draw your fables. My Nan says I am very good at art. That I have a real gift for it, but I don't believe her because she says all sorts of things and my Mamma says her memory is fickle as it is. But a fickle memory doesn't mean she is wrong. My Nan is never wrong. She says I can make anything look interesting."

"Really? No. I do not believe you. You are just ostentatious."

"What's that?"

"It means you are being boastful." the girl grinned. Was she making fun of him already?

"But I am not osten- whatever that is! I really can draw!"

"Prove it then," she crossed her arms.

"I will." he answered, and produced three colours from his pocket, the remnants of a set of colours his Great Uncle had brought back from his adventures in Paris. A magenta one that smelled of raspberries, a yellow one that turned his fingertips bright and a blue pencil that matched his socks. He could paint a whole world with just those three colours.

The girl, amused, handed him her book of fables and he got to working. He coloured the curve of the princess's skin a shade of yellow, framing her face in the sunlight. He made her dress sparkle by cleverly weaving strokes of blue against the crisp white paper. The magenta he used with the yellow, and the yellow he used with the blue to turn the forest into a more vibrant shade of green than it was originally painted as.

"There. Perfect."

The girl looked curiously at the picture. "It is too excessive. It is too colourful."

"There is no such thing as something too colourful." He gave her a playful little nudge against her shoulder.

"Tu as les yeux plus gros que le ventre."

"What does that mean?"

"It means, you have eyes bigger than your stomach. It means you are doing too much." She hugged her book tightly, waiting for him to figure out why she said something so cryptically. She sent Benedict's head spinning the way she drew circles around him with her words. He liked her immediately. It was quite appalling how easy he fell in love with her that day.

"I would love for my eyes to be bigger than my stomach. My mamma says my table manners can be improved. I wouldn't want to eat if I can just eat with my eyes and eat these pretty colours and pretty drawings and pretty everything."

The girl stared at him, letting the silence prolong. She was in no rush to respond, under no obligation to speak with him specifically. She must have a dozen friends already, Benedict thought and felt envious that he wasn't already part of her cohort. He wanted to be her friend. He loved her. He wanted to draw her a thousand colourful pictures until she was convinced that there was no such thing as "ostentatious". He liked her hair, he liked to see her smile and he would draw her, if she let him but maybe that would be a strange thing to offer upon their first meeting. The silence was long and drawn out and it made Benedict nauseous. What was she thinking? Did she like him too?

"I know French too. Un ange passe. It means an angel passes. It is so silent today in the park, so in the silence, my Nan says angels pass by."

She kept looking at him, not saying a word. Then,

"Ange." she corrected him gently.

"That is what I said."

"No you did not."

"Yes I did."

"Well your Nan taught you wrong."

"My Nan is the best, thank you very much!"

She cracked a smile. She had the prettiest smile ever. Her, and her jests and her snort before she managed a soft chuckle got him laughing so much his belly ached. She was the most intriguing person he'd ever met and intriguing people usually came with wit, the sort of wit that made him laugh.

"I'm Benedict. I live over there." He pointed vaguely somewhere, a gesture entirely unhelpful. "I know lots of fables and I can tell you that. I can also play the pianoforte."

"What else can you do," She raised a brow at him, "besides speaking French badly, among others?"

"I'll be off to Eton soon, just you wait. Mamma says it will take years, but I know they will pass by quickly."

"Like the angels?"

"Like the angels! And when I return, I will be as fluent as a Parisian. Even more than that."

"Well, I wish you luck with your colours, or should I say, vos couleurs," The girl stood up, carrying an air of snark, her voice thick with sarcasm. "Benedict."

"You know, I will come to your house and prove it to you!" he yelled after her retreating back. "Once I get through these years until I get to Eton!"