A particularly intriguing smell that made juice come to her lips was coming from the cooking room in the house. She walked slowly to the back door taking deep breaths with her mouth open, taking in as much of the smell as she could.
Standing at the bottom of the steps, hand on the railing, she said to herself, "How wonderful. I want to know what that wonderful smell is." She found herself in the cooking room next to a pot which was hot and bubbling. The smell was much stronger this close. She looked into the pot and saw long stalks of green, long orange cones, and pale white slivers with brown edges. She was so enthralled with the sight, sound and smell that she didn't hear one of the little slaves enter the room. "I'm making dinner. Would you like to help?"
Share-All spun around to face her. "I'm sorry," she said. "I shouldn't be here. Please do not cause me to be punished. I will leave very quickly and no one will know. Please!" she implored. The child, who looked so much like NotEnough from Share-All's home, said, "No one will punish you for being here."
"Oh please, please! Are you sure? I was not told that I must come in here; I wasn't even told that I might come in here. It just smelled so good to me that I wanted to know…" she broke off. To herself she said, "'Wanted to know', that's how it is that I came to be here." She didn't remember climbing the steps. In fact, she did remember thinking that she shouldn't go into the house again. Then suddenly she was in the cooking room.
"It does smell good, doesn't it?" asked the one who looked like NotEnough. "I've just started but the combination of celery and carrot and onion smells are irresistible. Are you hungry?"
"I've never smelled anything like it before. It surely smells good enough to eat but I'm sure I won't like it."
The one who looked like NotEnough said, "Why wouldn't you like it? How will you know until you try?"
"Because I don't like anything I have to chew."
"So you don't eat apples or oranges? No nuts, breads, meat? What do you eat?"
Share-All thought about it a bit. She did eat apples. She also ate oranges. Both involved chewing. She ate nuts and they certainly involved chewing. She ate some kinds of meat but had been told that she didn't like others. That's what it was. She had simply given the wrong answer. No, that wasn't true either. She had been told, emphatically, that she didn't like chewing. Is that she could chew but didn't like it? That was probably it. To the little slave she said, "I eat lots of things, well, maybe not lots of things. But I do eat the things you mentioned. I just don't like lots of chewing." She was pleased with this lie because it sort of straightened things out.
The young slave ladled the vegetables into a bowl. Into another bowl she placed some cooked meat and broth. "Would you like to try some? I'm sure that none of them will take a lot of chewing."
"No, I don't think I better. I really don't think I will like it."
"But you said that it smelled good, and... ."
"No! really, I think that it would be better if I didn't. I don't like to try new things," said Share-All.
"That's not true. I think that it would be better if you did not lie while you are here," said the young one.
Share-All was shocked. This young slave, the one who looked like a friend from home, had just called her a liar. Who is she to call me a liar? The more she thought about it, the angrier she got. Lying was punishable. Lying meant your tongue would be twisted in your throat. For days it would be impossible to speak, let alone lie.
"I don't know what you're talking about and I don't think it's very funny to accuse me of something so serious. What if someone hears you say that? That will take your word for truth because I am a stranger and I will be punished. Is that what you're trying to do?"
The little slave looked thoughtful. She hesitated, then replied, "JeSuis told us that it would be hard for you to understand. But you look so much like us that it is hard to remember. I mean you no harm. I spoke the truth. You are lying when you say that you do not like to try new things." Share-All began to sputter in protest but the child went on.
"When we were in the yard and you rolled, did you like it?"
"Well, I, I guess so."
The child slave made her mouth twist up at the corners. She hummed a bit to herself. "I saw you. The second time you made a noise with your mouth. And your face which never moves, moved. I think you liked trying a new thing."
Share-All thought to herself, the child is right. There was a something which moved within just at remembering the rolling. And though the child was kind enough not to mention the bath which was also new, Share-All remembered the water dribbling on her stomach and the noise escaped her mouth. "Oh!" she said, startled by her own sound. The child watched her, saying nothing. "Yes, yes, you are right. I told you a lie. I did like trying new things." Share-All's body slumped and she hung her head saying, "And now I must be punished."
"Now, I think that you should eat. Will you try some of what is here? I will get the plates."
When the table was set, she gestured for Share-All to sit. Her plate was filled with carrots, celery, onions, and meat. She speared the long pieces of celery with her fork and ate first from one end and then the other. She did the same with the carrots. Both were tender and soft in her mouth. The one filled with just a bit of "bite", the other with incredible sweetness. "I don't know what these are but I like them. I like them a lot," she said.
"The long orange ones are carrots. They grow deep into the ground like the roots of a tree. They have just one very big root and tiny little hairs that feed the big root. Above the ground they are green and fernlike. The other grows in tall stalks but not alone. They grow in a clump, clustered tight and tall. At the very top there are leaves which are very fragrant and tasty. The roots of this plant are very shallow."
Share-All attempted to pierce the slivers of onions with her fork but couldn't. They were too soft. She gave up ans scooped them with her spoon. Ends dangled off the sides but she sucked at each one until they were gone. They were sweet but sharp, more like the celery.
"The onions," said the child, "also grow from very shallow roots. Unlike the celery, they send up a single stalk. At the base of the stalk is a swelling. The swelling or bulb grows until it is the size of a small ball. Then the stalk bends over and dies. We are eating the bulb which it produced."
Although enjoying the new tastes, and the colors, and the smells, Share-All was sure the child was talking about more than just the vegetables. This made her uncomfortable. She also noticed that the child did not eat the way she did. Instead of eating the ends of the long stalks from the fork held in the air, the child used a knife and cut them into small pieces. It was the small pieces that were carried by the fork to her mouth.
Before she had time to do more than think the thought, she became aware of her surroundings. Oblivious to the room during the whole time meal, she felt suddenly that she was being assaulted by the colors of the room. The turquoise trim at the windows danced menacingly; the purple counter rippled and thumped. Cupboards opened and shut by themselves, waving their salmon-colored arms and banging insistently. Share-All gripped the edges of the table. She looked at the little slave who appeared to notice nothing. Couldn't she hear? Didn't she see? The lime green ceiling lowered itself as if to press her under its weight, to smother her. She opened her mouth to speak, to cry out but found she could not make a sound. Her throat was closing. She was having difficulty breathing. She tried to stand, to get away, to get outside. She was unable to move. Terror rolled over her in waves. She feared if the blackness came again that this time she would not awaken.
The slave stood and moved beside Share-All's chair. She was humming something. Through the roar of the room, the slave could hear it. The little one came closer, put her arm around Share-All and hummed. She leaned her small head against the head of the slave. "Listen to the music! Listen carefully." Share-All could barely breathe, the meal she had eaten was in her throat, muscles rigid with fear. "Listen to the music!" All she heard was a low hum. It became rhythmic, although never changing pitch. She anticipated the rhythm, her breathing began to match the rhythm. She let herself feel the arm about her, the small body next to her. She felt the little slave's breath on her face. "Too close!" she thought. "Too close!" The humming continued. Hum. Hum. Pause. Hum. Hum. Pause.
"I want to get out of here! Now!" Outside, she vomited. Her face flushed, chills running all over. She was gasping for air and still she retched. The little slave stood beside her waiting.
The initial agony had passed. Her hands and knees hurt, her stomach ached, her throat burned. She laid down exhausted. The one who looked like NotEnough spoke, "I will find JeSuis and return." She padded away.
Share-All lay as still as she could, panting and wishing the cramping in her stomach would stop. A bird came and sat near her. It seemed curious, hopping a little closer, then backing away. Its head swiveled to see first from one eye and then the other. Finally, it came close to Share-All's head. It began to sing, quietly, not at all like most birds. It was a sort of cooing. Coo. Coo. Pause. Coo. Coo. Pause. It was sweet and lovely. It was soothing. Coo. Coo. Pause. Coo. Coo. Pause. Share-All's breathing evened out. Her face no longer felt hot and the rest of her body was no longer chilled. Coo. Coo. Her stomach stopped cramping. She sat up.
When she moved, the bird jumped back with a flutter. She cooed one more time and flew away. "I see you've made a new friend!" called JeSuis.
Painting
Share-All rubbed her eyes and looked around her. A light breeze and sunshine were coming in the window. She could hear also hear the voices of the little slaves talking to each other. They must be quite close.
Share-All slid from beneath the covers. She found the pants, shirt and hat and put them on. She tucked the gloves into a pocket. Stepping to the window, she took care that no one from the outside see her. She heard mention of "the stranger" and other words like "bizarre" and "queer". Then the voices grew indistinct. She watched them move off.
So they thought that she was bizarre and queer! No less did she of them. Or this place. She began to think about returning to Somewhereland.
She looked toward the door of the room. It opened on a hall and there was a room directly across. There was no bed, no comfortable chairs. Instead there was a high table pushed under the windows. On the walls she saw colorful pictures. She stepped into the hall, looked both ways and listened. No one. She crossed into the other room.
Once inside she realized that there were pictures on all three walls that didn't have windows. One was mostly bright reds like the inside of flowers with dark centers. Another had a dark night-time sky with the willow tree lit up in moonlight and tiny people dancing, it seemed, around it. The others were pictures of NotMuch (oh, she thought, that's wrong! Her name is Gifted) feeding the birds, NotEnough, Merciful and several others. Some of the pictures were just colorful shapes.
She went over to the table. On it was a large sheet of heavy paper. Beside it was an orange jug, a small blue dish, a metal plate of some sort with indentations, and a white box with little squares of color. There was also a wooden box with a lid. Glancing behind her to make sure no one was there, she leaned forward and picked up the box. As she did so, it rattled. "How curious", she thought, "what could be in here?" She lifted the lid. An assortment of brushes with different colored handles and shapes met her eyes. Some were large and round, some very thin with the tiniest of bristles. Others were medium size and came to a point, some were very wide and flat on the end. "I wonder what you do with these? Surely, they're too small for cleaning with."
She heard the soft pad of barefeet coming down the hall. She closed the lid and replaced the box. Stepping quickly to the door, she met the little slave who had taught her how cut the brambles. The slave spoke first, "JeSuis thought that you might be awake by now. I've come to see if there is anything you want."
To herself Share-All said, "Anything I want? I want so many things I can't begin to tell you. You've no idea what you're asking!" But instead of saying this, Share-All gestured toward the room behind her. "Could tell me what this room is? And what the table is for? And who uses this room? And where did these pictures come from?"
The little slave came into the room and stood before the wall with the pictures of herself and the others. She appeared to be lost in remembering something. Then she turned to Share-All and said, "Desire painted these a long time ago. I had forgotten them." She sighed loudly. Moving to the table, she reached for the box which Share-All had been examining. She took out several brushes and laid them next to the paper. "Desire would sit on this chair and look out the window. As you can see there's not much to see except grass and the fence. But she would look out the window and see all sorts of things that we couldn't see. Then she would fill the jug with water and begin to paint the pictures that are now hanging on the walls. She painted every day. JeSuis kept all her pictures but these were the favorites."
There was something in the way the slave was speaking that made Share-All hesitate to ask where Desire was now and why it was that she was no longer painting. "Do you know how to paint?" she asked.
"Me, no! Gifted may know how; I've never seen her do it but my guess is that she probably could. Why?"
"I don't know. I was thinking that it might be, well, I don't know. I'm a little afraid to go back into the garden after what happened and... ."
The slave said softly, "It wasn't your fault. We make mistakes, that's why none of us is named Perfect." She made that strange happy noise as if pleased with herself. "Why don't I go get Gifted and bring her back? Stay here and wait for us." Off she went, leaving Share-All to herself.
Alone again, she picked up the brushes that the little one had said were for painting. Somehow then, the brushes were used to make pictures. Holding the brushes by the handles she let her fingers rub over the bristles. Some were as soft as JeSuis's coat!
She lifted her eyes to the window. As the little slave had said, there was nothing but grass and the fence to see. How is then that Desire had been able to make these other pictures? Especially the one of the red flowers? There was nothing at all red out there, not anywhere.
Voices floated to her down the hall. Gifted followed the other young one into the room. "Bright tells me that you want to try painting. Good for you! It will be nice to have new pictures to look at.'
Share-All protested, "Oh I'm sure that I won't be able to do anything like these! I just thought that it might be, well, interesting, I guess."
Gifted said to Bright, "Bright, will you fill the jug with water while I explain these other things? Thank you." Bright took the jug from Gifted and went to fill it. Gifted then said to Share-All, "There really isn't much to tell you. So much of what Desire knew came from doing. Here are the brushes. They are used to make the marks on the paper. When Bright comes back with the water, we'll pour some into the small blue bowl. You dip the tip of the brush in the water to get it wet. You rub the wet brush on the square of the color you want to use this white box. Then you make your mark or marks on the paper. When you want to change colors, you simple rinse out the brush, and rub it on a different square. Sometimes the color you want isn't in the box or the color in the box is too red or too bright or something that you feel isn't quite what you want. Then you can make a new color by combining them."
Gifted moved the large piece of paper to the top of a chest against the wall. In its place she put a smaller sheet of paper. "We'll use this just to show you how to begin." Bright placed the jug on the table and Gifted poured out some water. She picked up a brush and got it wet. After rubbing it on the green square, she drew a line across the paper. "You can use different brushes to do different things. This one made a very narrow line." She picked up one of the large round brushes, got it wet, rubbed it on the green. This time when she drew the brush across the paper, she left a wide green line just below the narrow one. When the paint is still wet, you can connect the wet areas. She made another mark with the large brush and the narrow line disappeared.
Next she got the large brush very full of water and green paint. She began to fill one of the indentations on the metal dish. "This is for mixing. I'll mix the green and some yellow to make this green look more like the grass." She rinsed the brush and added yellow to the puddle in the indentation. She stirred the puddle and it became a lighter and brighter green.
She sighed. "I'm afraid that's all I can tell you. But it should be enough to get you started." She went to a large chest and opened a drawer. "There's all the paper you could ever want in here so paint as much as you want, for as long as you want." She took the small paper with the green lines on it and threw it in a basket next to the table. She brought back the large piece of paper that had been there when Share-All first came into the room. She also emptied the blue bowl into a pail below the table. "Be sure to change your water often!" Both Gifted and Bright wished the slave well and left the room.
For the longest time it seemed that Share-All just sat there, not painting at all. She looked at the colors in the squares. She picked up each of the brushes and moved them around on the paper to see what they felt like. She wasn't sure that she could even make the simple green lines that Gifted had made!
She poured fresh water from the jug into the blue bowl. Then picking up the large brush that Gifted had used last, she rubbed it on the purple square. She moved it to the paper and made a large irregular shape. She was surprised at the intensity of the color. She dipped her brush into the water and forgot to rub it on the square. She made another odd shape lower down to the right of the first one. It was much lighter in color than the first. "I've made a mistake already!" she whined to herself. She threw the brush down in disgust. It bounced on the paper leaving a trail of color behind. The slave was not so disgusted that she didn't notice. No, she did notice. And what she saw pleased her. The two different colors of purple with the small line of spots intrigued her. Maybe she hadn't done it wrong after all. Gifted had said that Share-All could make new colors. And she had; she just hadn't meant to do it.
She picked up the brush from the paper trying not to make any new marks. She rinsed the brush and rubbed it on the brown next. Instead of marking on the paper, she began to make a puddle next to the yellow-green one that Gifted had made. She kept it up until she had a fairly large amount, then she added just water. She began to draw on the paper with the light brown of the puddle. She worked over and around the two purple shapes. Next she made a red blotch, and two smaller yellow ones. Then accidentally she put her brush down on a spot that already had color. She watched in horror, then fascination as the yellow she thought she was putting down, mixed with the red that was already there. It created a strange orange swirl. "I really like this," Share-All said. "I really, really like this."
When she had no more white space of paper to cover, she picked up the paper carefully by the edges and laid it on top of the chest to finish drying. It didn't look like too much of anything but it had been fun. She had made many mistakes, more than just forgetting to pick up color on her brush or placing the color on top of another one! But each had taught her something. "I want to learn how to paint like Desire did," she let herself say. She took another piece of paper from the chest, emptied the dirty water into the bucket and began a new painting.
Much later the top of the chest and every inch of floor was covered with her "work". "And it was work," she told herself. Balancing colors and shapes, experimenting with the different brushes, making new colors, and trying to keep all the new information in her head had been both exhausting and exhilarating. She stepped carefully away from the chair, checking to see which paintings were dry enough to stack. Eventually she cleared a path to the door.
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