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“Come on, kids, let’s get your faces painted!” Grandma’s strong, powerful voice sliced through trees and spread over two exhibits at the Children’s Festival.
Her three, five, and seven-year-old grandchildren watched two clowns in baggy pants and polka-dot ties arrange paintbrushes on a table. The children gaped in bewilderment at the smaller clown’s spongy, mauve wig, her huge pink nose, and the turquoise stars surrounding her eyes.
“Hurry up,” Grandma urged, “or the other kids will get ahead of you.”
The children looked at her pensively.
“Too late.” Grandma watched a youngster run up to the table. “You’ll have to wait your turn now.” She turned to her grandchildren. “Well, aren’t you going to get in line?”
The boy glanced at her, then looked away as the clowns removed the lids from small pots of paint. While more people gathered, the five-year-old girl reached for her younger sister’s hand.
“Go on,” Grandma insisted. “The other children are having their faces painted. Don’t you want to have yours done too?”
“No,” the boy answered quietly; his sisters shook their heads.
Grandma’s blue eyelids lowered like shields while her pencilled brows rose into the powdered creases of her forehead.
“But it’s free and fun,” she argued. “You don’t want to be the only kids with bare faces, do you?”
The kids shuffled their feet, then stepped away from her. Ignoring the glances of curious parents, grandma scrutinized her children.
“You could at least try,” she stated. Suddenly, their father appeared, smiling. “How’s it going?”
“God, you’ve got bloody strange kids,” his mother remarked. “They don’t want to have their faces painted.”
The man stared at her, then sighed and turned away. His gaze filled with sympathy for his children who looked at the ground, oblivious to the fun and excitement around them. A small hand reached for his.
“Let’s go do something else,” he said gently.
Grandma’s teased and sprayed yellow hair didn’t budge in the breeze as she trailed after them.
