The Picture That Wouldn’t Sit Still

Scribble had been looking at the portraits for quite some time.

Quill sat inside his wooden frame with his spectacles straight and his clipboard secure.

Bam sat inside his with a biscuit.

Neither of them moved.

Scribble tried this.

For almost three seconds.

Then one blue line curled around an orange one, and the whole arrangement came undone.

Bam glanced up.

“Difficult, isn’t it?”

Scribble made a small questioning loop.

“Sitting still while there’s a biscuit in front of you.”

“That is not what Scribble is attempting,” Quill said.

“Oh.”

Bam considered the portraits again.

“Well, it’s what I was attempting.”

Jillian laid a fresh sheet of paper on the table.

“We could make a picture together,” she suggested.

Scribble rose so quickly that a loose corner of paper fluttered.

“A portrait?” Ziggy asked.

“If Scribble likes.”

Scribble swept into an enormous blue circle.

Then an orange one.

Then something that might have been an enthusiastic yes.

Jillian smiled and set down her pencil.

“All right. Where shall we begin?”

Scribble settled above the page.

Very carefully, one blue line touched the paper.

It travelled straight across.

Nearly.

At the end, it curled.

Scribble paused.

An orange line hurried after it, apparently intending to help.

That one curled too.

Quill leaned closer.

“An interesting beginning.”

The blue line developed three loops.

The orange one went underneath them.

Then both shot toward the edge of the page.

Bam lifted his biscuit just in time.

Scribble pulled back.

The paper held a lively collection of curves, corners, and one particularly determined zigzag.

It did not hold a portrait.

Ziggy turned his head sideways.

“I like that bit.”

He pointed to a little orange spiral.

Scribble folded inward.

The spiral disappeared beneath a blue tangle.

“Oh,” Ziggy said softly.

Jillian put down her pencil.

“We don’t have to get it right the first time.”

Scribble drifted toward the portraits.

Quill’s painted feathers were beautifully arranged.

Bam’s painted bill looked exactly like Bam’s actual bill.

Even the biscuit was behaving.

Scribble looked back at the paper.

One small orange line curled beneath the rest.

“Perhaps,” Quill began, “we should consider—”

Something blue caught the edge of his clipboard.

Scribble darted forward.

Quill held still.

A blue line travelled around the board, turned at its corner, and swept upward.

An orange line followed the curve of his spectacles.

On the paper appeared a rectangle.

Above it sat two rather large circles.

Ziggy grinned.

“Quill!”

Quill inspected the drawing.

“My spectacles are not quite that large.”

Bam leaned over.

“They are when you’re looking for crumbs.”

Quill looked at him through his spectacles.

Bam nodded at the paper.

“There. Exactly.”

Scribble gave a little flutter.

Jillian slid the sheet farther into the middle of the table.

“What else do you see?”

Scribble hovered.

Ziggy sat beside Quill, his paws resting on the table.

A blue curve dipped.

Two orange loops appeared above it.

Then came a small round shape between two bigger ones.

“My ears,” Ziggy said.

Scribble added a crooked little smile.

Ziggy’s own smile grew to match.

From the kitchen, Remy arrived carrying a tray.

“I brought tea.”

An orange line swept across the paper.

A blue curl rose above a newly drawn cup.

“Is that the steam?” Remy asked.

Scribble bobbed.

“Oh, I like that.”

They placed the tray down carefully, leaving plenty of room.

Lumina came to see what had gathered everyone around the table. Her golden light fell across the paper.

Scribble answered with a bright burst of orange lines.

Lumina studied it.

“You’ve made me look rather cheerful.”

She stayed beside Remy to watch.

The picture spread.

There were Jillian’s glasses and the pencil tucked beside her hand.

Quill’s clipboard.

Ziggy’s round ears.

Remy’s tea tray.

Lumina’s warm glow, made from orange lines that seemed almost to shimmer against the white paper.

Some lines crossed.

Some wandered.

One blue loop travelled through three different parts of the picture before finding somewhere to stop.

Scribble no longer tried to straighten it.

Then Bam leaned over the table.

“Have you forgotten anyone?”

Scribble paused.

Bam tilted his head.

A blue line curved into a familiar bill.

Two orange strokes became feet.

And beneath them appeared a very generous plate.

Bam examined it closely.

“Excellent likeness.”

“You are mostly biscuit,” Quill observed.

“I contain multitudes.”

By the time the tea had cooled enough to drink, the page was full.

Jillian lifted it.

Everyone went quiet.

The picture looked nothing like Quill’s portrait.

It looked nothing like Bam’s, either.

But there they all were.

Quill leaned toward Ziggy. Remy stood beside Lumina. Jillian’s pencil pointed toward a blue curl that had escaped the edge of the gathering.

And Bam, who had insisted he wasn’t posing, occupied rather a lot of the foreground.

In between everyone ran Scribble’s blue and orange lines.

They looped around chairs.

They brushed against wings and paws.

They left little spaces where the white paper shone through.

Ziggy followed one with his eyes.

“Where are you?”

Scribble became very still.

Jillian looked at the page again.

Then she pointed gently.

“Here.”

A blue loop beside Quill.

“And here.”

An orange curl above Ziggy.

“And all through the middle.”

Scribble drifted closer.

Bam swallowed the last of his biscuit.

“Of course. Who else could get all of us into one picture?”

They hung it beside the table.

Quill measured the space.

Jillian held the picture.

Remy checked that it was straight.

Lumina suggested moving it slightly away from Bam’s chair.

“Jam,” she explained.

“A reasonable precaution,” Bam admitted.

Finally, everyone stepped back.

Scribble hovered beneath the picture, blue and orange lines turning slowly in the afternoon light.

“Would you like to sign it?” Jillian asked.

She offered her pencil.

Scribble considered it.

Then a tiny blue loop appeared in the bottom corner of the page.

An orange line curled neatly through it.

“There,” said Quill.

Scribble gave one delighted spin.

Above the table, the picture stayed perfectly still.

It had taken Scribble all morning to make it do that.

Fortunately, nobody expected the same of Scribble.