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Catherine.

At home I line Jason’s blank cards on my desk, ready to draw. But choosing words is harder than I thought.
    Seven white squares, full of possibility. I look around my bedroom for ideas: from the checkered rug on my floor to the calendar of Georgia O’Keeffe flower paintings Dad bought me at the art museum he took me to last summer. That’s my dream — to be an artist and have people gasp when they see my paintings, like I do on the first day of each new month. I have a tiny clothespin at the bottom of the calendar pages, so I don’t cheat and peek ahead — I want each month’s flower to be a surprise.
    On my door is a long mirror surrounded with colored sticky-note reminders: my library books are due (Bring fine money!), August 8th is Melissa’s birthday (Remember it takes seven to nine business days for mail to get to California! Plan ahead!), and even a few reminders left over from school (Find lunch card!) (Project due Tuesday!). I kept those up because it’s nice to see them and know they don’t matter anymore.
    On my desk is the little bamboo plant in the blue-swirly dish Melissa gave me for my last birthday, and my computer with the longest, hardest-to-spell password I could think of: “anthropological.” That’s so David won’t figure it out. Across one bookshelf is a row of art supplies in cans: pencils, markers, and paint-brushes. On the next shelf are paint bottles and stacks of paper, everything from thick watercolor paper to filmy sheets of jewel-colored tissue paper. And lots of things I’ve collected: shells, rocks, a tiny glass elephant, a blackened old skeleton key my grandmother found in a chest but which unlocks nothing. I kept it because I like how it feels in my hand, the heart shape of the top and the jagged teeth at the bottom, and because —
    Not everything worth keeping has to be useful.
    Between my desk and my bed is a long window with gauzy purple curtains that let daylight through, even when the curtains are closed, and on the windowsill is a row of tiny colored bottles I bought one day at Elliot’s Antiques: sunlit purple, green, and gold.
    On the other side of my desk hangs my bulletin board, covered with drawings and little paintings: a pencil-gray castle I started but never finished, a monkey painted on an emerald tissue-paper rain forest, a colored-pencil cartoon from three years ago of my guinea pigs dancing — I still like it, even if it’s old and I can do better now.
    Well, there’s something. I pick up my pencil and write on the first cards:
    Drawing.
    Guinea pig.
    Under my window, Nutmeg and Cinnamon purr happily, shuffling through the shavings in their cage. Nutmeg lifts her head, and I look away quick.
    Anytime they catch me watching them, my guinea pigs think I should feed them.
    Picking up the next card, I decide I shouldn’t do just “me” words. That day with the guitar, Jason could’ve used something fiery to say. Something juicier than “sad” or “mad.” A string of words pop to mind, but I don’t want to get in trouble with his mother. So I choose:
    Gross!
    Awesome!
    Stinks a big one!!!
    I’m not going to show these to Mom — especially the last one. I don’t remember seeing exclamation points on any of Jason’s other cards, but “awesome” with a period doesn’t seem right. And if “gross” has one exclamation point, “stinks a big one” needs at least three.
    My pen hovers over the sixth card. I could do another favorite: “raspberry sherbet” or “ice-skating” or “goldfish.” I look past my messy closet —
    Open closet doors carefully. Sometimes things fall out.
    — to the CDs, cassettes, and books lining the shelves near my bed. But Jason already has “book” and “music,” and who knows if he even likes raspberry sherbet.
    I could pick words about the clinic: “hallway” or “bookshelf” or “magazine.” Or I could do funny words like “hoity-toity” or angry ones like “Oh, YEAH?” or hurt