Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Dark Era 14

I woke up to the sound of my alarm clock. I sat up in bed and pulled the covers back. Then I remembered something- the Art Competition! I quickly got up and brushed my teeth. I walked down the stairs and met my mom who was smiling widely. I only then noticed the great breakfast she had prepared.

There were feash muffins with orange juice poured into two champegne glasses, with a vase of daisies in the middle. "Wow mom! This is great! But what's the occasion?" I asked in feign curiousity. Mom grinned and said jokingly, "I dunnno...I just felt like giving you a suprise..." I laughed, "Seriously mom. It must have taken you forever! I haven't even won it! If I'll even win...anyway, thanks!" "Faith, even if you loose or win, you'll still be the best artist in my eyes." Mom said quietly.

Suddenly we heard my parents' bedroom door close. My dad walked down the stairs. When he appeared into the kitchen, he froze at the door. He looked at the table, then at me and mom. "Phew." he said. "For a second I thought I'd walked in on the wrong house or something..." We all laughed loudly and sat down to eat breakfast.

When we walked into the school hall, I spotted Katie. Who was waiting impatiently for me by the door. She ran over to me and tugged me to my painting saying, "The judges are coming at 11. And it's only 10, so we can see all the other artwork." She paused, "Well unless you wanna stand around your piece to see what people say about it..." I considered, "How bout we walked around for the first half hour? Then we can stand around my work, and see what people think about it?" "Sure. Let's go!" Katie answered.

We'd looked around for about half an hour when we headed over to where my 3 painting hung. We stood around and pretented to look at other paintings while really eavesdropping on some of the conversations about my work. Several people called my work 'almost proffesional', while others had called it 'amazing, so full of soul and feeling', and one person even exclaimed my work 'complete genuis!'. Me and Katie struggled to control out laughter when the guy then told his wife, "These paintings are wonderful! They will win the top prize for sure!". Everyone had given my work only compliments so far and I'd heard no negetive critisism. My heart lifted, only slightly though. It was really what the judges thought about it.

At 11 I stood nervously by my painting. Katie told me they'd been standing at my classmates', Eddie, work for longer than the others. I fidgeted nervously, 'Were they going to like it? Would they think it ametuer? Or inexperinced?'
Katie reported to me 15 minutes later they were walking down the aisle. 'Obviously mine would be the last they'd see.' I thought. I saw the judges, and they stopped at the first 3 paintings. I'd seen them earlier, the collection was all oil colors, and all flowers. I stared stunned at first, the flowers almost looked like you could reach in and touch them!

The judges had finally finished the whole aisle and were walking to my stand of 3 paintings. I smiled nervously at them as they scanned my paintings and made notes on their clipboards. The tallest judge looked me in the eye and smiled. Whether it was good or bad I didn't know, but I smiled back shyly. Afterwards he said, "The winner will be announced on the Monday morning, during assembly." I nodded and wondered if he said that to everyone or just me. They examined my 3 paintings a little while longer, and they walked down the aisle.

I leaned against the wall, took a deep breath and watched them leave the hall.

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