Mrs. Lori made her rounds once more through the classroom, commenting on projects and paintings of other students as Rae watched from the corner of her eyes. Her face was pushed up against her desk, her cheek stuck to a piece of canvas paper like glue as her eyes roved up and down the white paper. When her art teacher neared her, Rae didn’t even think to act like she was working as she passed by.

“Rachel come on, the project is due on Thursday and you’ll be no exceptions.” Mrs. Lori raised her nose at Rae’s sullen expression and she kept walking, all the way back to her brown desk at the front of the room.

Rae sighed as her eyes roved over her blank canvas and Mrs. Lori’s words echoed in her head. Inspiration would come to her, she knew that for sure; as soon as she put pencil to paper the creations would surely flow. Of course, the project is due on Thursday which is only two days away, but she could make something up in no time.

As Rae sighed once again and glanced at the plain clock on the wall she noted that art class still had at least half an hour until lunch. She sighed even louder now and slammed her head back down onto the desk. Her hand nonchalantly came up onto her desk to find a pencil. She started to sketch, scratching dark lines over the canvas all over, curved lines and edges everywhere. Soon it started to look like a miniature version of herself so she went with it-she even gave it orange hair to match her own. It had a rectangular body and a circle for a head and it looked just like Rae; the same big eyes, a small nose, and a thin mouth.

She gazed at her beautiful piece of work and cleaned up the extra liens with an eraser, then decided to color it in. She peeked around at other desks before straightening her hair, then got up to get some colored pencils. She started with Mini Rae’s hair, then chose a light baby blue to shade in the eyes with. As she finished coloring Mini Rae’s right eye she tried to move on to the next one, but the lines weren’t on the paper anymore.

The thick black graphite lines were peeling off the canvas paper and when Rae saw what was happening she started to sneer: it wasn’t finished yet! Mini Rae literally jumped off the paper and stood before Rae on her desk. Onlookers saw Rae’s drawing and smiled at the cuteness they saw there. Some girl’s face lit up and she rushed over to Rae, who seemed very upset with her drawing.

“Get back on the paper! You aren’t finished yet, I need to shade in the rest of your body!” Rae’s creation looked at her with sad eyes then back down at the paper and shook her head. Rae’s eyes narrowed and she grumbled something under her breath.

Rae’s head perked up; the bell rang for lunch and students passed by her desk with jealous looks. They wish they could scribble something as amazing as Mini Rae.

Rae’s stomach screamed for food as soon as the classroom cleared and Mrs. Lori came over to Rae’s desk.

“She’s cute, but I think she lacks depth.” As she said this Mini Rae stood tall and twisted around to glance at herself from the side. Clearly she couldn’t see the problem with being this thin.


“Well, I would fix it but it won’t get back on the paper, this stupid drawing is all wrong, it‘s not even finished yet!” Rae stared down angrily at her drawing and started to poke her in the face. Mini Rae’s pale visage contorted and she started to weep aloud; soft squeaking sounds coming from the lines used as her mouth. Mrs. Lori looked at Rae’s drawing and smirked from behind her glasses.

“Maybe you should show your drawings a little more love and affection. Perhaps then she would respond better to you.” With a last smile and glance Mrs. Lori left the class.

“Fin then!” Rae said to her back. She looked down at her life drawing and smiled awkwardly. “Hello?” Mini Rae blinked up at Rae and tried to mock Rae’s actions, but sadly only looked like a toddler with no teeth. For some reason this made Rae very happy; it was like her creation was a part of her, not just some unfinished drawing.

“I think I’ll have to give you a good name.” She took the pencil off her desk and twirled it around her fingers in a very thoughtful way. “Something artistic, yeah?”

Mini Rae looked up with her toothless smile and nodded, cheerful and encouraging. She ran over and took the pencil from Rae’s hand and started to scratch something onto the paper. Rae smiled down at her miniature self and saw the words ‘Allie’ strewn across the paper. Rae nodded sincerely and then a thought popped into her head.

She gasped at her own brilliance and started on another drawing. Allie watched on as she sat on the pink eraser and jumped when the bell rang once more. Rae’s eyes widened and she rushed to finish her drawing. She finished it quickly then proceeded to color it in with some pencils she already had.

It started to pop off the page and she smiled as she saw Allie’s eyes light up. She smiled a toothless smile and jumped onto Rae’s arm, squeaking with profound joy. Up from the paper came a cute little boy, a little bit bigger than Allie, but just as adorable.

Right under Allie’s name on the paper Rae wrote ‘Noah’ and pt a heart around them both. The little drawn couple took each others hand jumped off the desk then ran towards the window. As students drew back into the room Rae’s creations climbed up to a windowsill and jumped into the summer breeze. Light tears formed in Rae’s eyes as she knew she would have to make a whole other project, now that her previous one just jumped out a window, leaving her grade in the mud.