The Cloud That Wouldn’t Finish Its Picture

Mara Fen had made seven beginnings.

She had made no endings.

On her desk lay a dragon with no tail, a lighthouse with no sea, a cat with three paws, and a magnificent purple hat with nobody underneath it.

Beside the desk sat a wastebasket full of crumpled paper.

Tomorrow, Reading Lane was opening its children's art wall.

Mara had promised to bring a picture.

Not just any picture.

Something wonderful.

That was the problem.

Every time she began, a small voice in her head said, Not wonderful enough.

So Mara crumpled the page and started again.

At last, she pushed back her chair.

"I have run out of ideas," she announced.

Her little brother Finn looked into the wastebasket.

"You have lots of ideas."

"Those are mistakes."

Finn pulled out the three-pawed cat.

"I like this one."

"It only has three paws."

"Maybe the fourth one is behind it."

Mara took the drawing away from him.

"That is not the point."

Outside, a shadow moved across the window.

Mara looked up.

A single white cloud floated above the rooftops.

It was unusually low.

And unusually round.

As Mara watched, the cloud stretched.

One end curled upward.

Two bumps appeared on top.

Finn pressed his nose to the glass.

"Rabbit!"

It did look like a rabbit.

A perfect enormous rabbit made of cloud.

Then, just as its second ear began to form, the cloud stopped.

The ear remained a fluffy stump.

"It forgot the other ear," said Finn.

The cloud drifted onward.

Mara and Finn hurried outside.

Above the bakery, the cloud changed again.

It widened into the shape of a sailing ship.

A tall mast rose from the middle.

A sail puffed outward.

But there was no bow at the front.

"It didn't finish that one either," Mara said.

Over the fountain, the cloud became a castle.

Three towers appeared.

Then half a fourth.

Over the bookshop, it became a whale.

A huge cloudy tail curled through the blue.

But the whale had no head.

Children began following beneath it.

"What is it making?" someone asked.

"Bad pictures," Mara said.

Finn frowned at her.

"They're not bad."

"They're unfinished."

"Maybe it likes them that way."

Mara stared up at the headless whale.

That seemed ridiculous.

Pictures were supposed to be finished.

Weren't they?

The cloud floated toward Reading Lane.

By now, a small parade had formed beneath it.

Everyone saw something different in its half-made shapes.

"That castle isn't missing a tower," said one boy. "A giant sat on it."

"The whale's head is underwater," said a girl.

"The ship is sailing out of the fog," said someone else.

With every answer, the unfinished pictures became bigger stories.

Mara stopped walking.

The cloud hadn't failed to finish them.

It had left room.

Room for everyone else.

Then the cloud reached the little square beside Reading Lane.

It spread across the sky until it became one enormous blank shape.

Everyone waited.

A bump appeared.

Then a curl.

Then a long swoop.

"A bird!" shouted Finn.

"A teapot!" called someone.

"A dragon wearing boots!" yelled another child.

The cloud changed again.

Now it looked like all three.

Or none of them.

Then a breeze arrived and pulled the whole picture apart.

White pieces scattered across the blue.

"Oh," said Finn.

Mara expected to feel disappointed.

Instead, she laughed.

"It didn't even try to finish that one."

Finn laughed too.

When Mara returned home, the seven beginnings were still waiting.

She spread them across the floor.

The dragon with no tail.

The lighthouse with no sea.

The three-pawed cat.

The empty purple hat.

And three other pictures she had decided were wrong before giving them much of a chance.

Mara picked up the dragon.

She did not add a tail.

Instead, she drew a little girl beside it holding a giant paintbrush.

"She painted the dragon," Finn decided.

"Maybe," said Mara.

On the lighthouse page, Mara drew a flock of birds where the sea might have been.

On the cat picture, she added a tiny sign:

WHERE IS MY OTHER PAW?

Finn laughed so hard he hiccupped.

Finally, Mara chose a fresh sheet of paper.

She drew a wide blue sky.

Near the top, she painted one soft white cloud.

She gave it the beginning of a shape.

Then she stopped.

At the bottom of the page she wrote:

WHAT DO YOU SEE?

The next morning, Mara pinned the picture to the Reading Lane art wall.

At first, people simply looked.

Then someone said, "It's a fox."

"It's a mitten," said someone else.

"It's clearly a potato on roller skates," Finn announced.

By lunchtime, children were taking turns telling stories about the cloud.

Mara listened to every one.

Her picture had not become wonderful because she had finally made it perfect.

It had become wonderful because she had left enough space for somebody else to enter it.

That afternoon, Mara went home and rescued every crumpled page from the wastebasket.

Not all of them became finished pictures.

Some became new drawings.

Some became stories.

One became a paper hat for Finn.

And the three-pawed cat stayed exactly as it was.

After all, its fourth paw might simply have been behind it.