Flickering Hope Read Online Free Page B

draw if I opened to a blank page? The girl again, glaring at me because I’d broken my promise? Andrew frowning over the dishes? Or even worse, the girl’s dad visiting Patch’s den? Pips was right. I needed art books. I slung my backpack onto the floor and climbed onto one of threetall stools next to the catalog computers. The cursor flashed innocently, a silent question.
What would you like to find, Sadie?
    I wanted what I couldn’t have. Vivian. My ex-art teacher, ever present, yet completely missing from my life. Every once in a while, I’d turn a corner and wham—her face appeared in my mind. The disappointed expression on her face at the trial where I’d testified against her son, Peter. Her intense gaze when she asked me to speak to Peter first, listen to his story, before I turned him in for shooting Big Murphy outside of hunting season. Sometimes I envisioned her happier, the way she smiled over my sketchbook after I completed a drawing, or when she lifted freshly baked cookies from the oven.
    The cursor’s question became louder with each blink. What did I want? What book could possibly make up for not having a teacher?
    Vivian had shown me the painting
Starry Night,
and I’d liked the colors and the shapes, but mostly the feeling. Van Gogh. I typed his name, and the screen filled with titles.
    Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night
    Letters of Vincent Van Gogh
    Van Gogh: Sunflowers and Swirly Stars
    I scrolled back to the first title.
Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night. Starry Night
filled the cover. Sunflowers and landscapes in yellows and reds and greens on the other covers didn’t appeal to me. I wasn’t sure why,but the swirling blues and purples with the bright yellow starlight whispered of mystery.
    I jotted the book’s reference number on a slip of paper and wandered up and down rows of shelves. There were at least fifty art books. I pulled a few down,
The Art Book
and
50 Artists You Should Know,
and of course, the Van Gogh. I carried the pile to a nearby armchair.
    Landscape after landscape filled
The Art Book,
including some of Van Gogh’s paintings of flowers. Most, including Van Gogh’s flowers, were too yellow, too finished. Creepy, lifeless eyes stared back at me from many of the portraits. I opened
50 Artists You Should Know.
More paintings I didn’t love. I swallowed back guilt. Obviously someone smart thought these images were masterpieces. What was my problem? I flipped through the book again, more slowly now, trying to really look at the pictures. Picture after picture after picture. Frustrated, I closed the book and returned to
Starry Night.
The difference startled me. My eyes slipped along the curve of the blue toward the crescent moon and then tumbled from star to star down into the quiet town. Questions popped up, unexpected. Who slept here? What went on in the houses with lit windows? An idea flickered at the edge of my mind, but I couldn’t put it into words. I opened
The Art Book
again to one of the first images,
The Nubian Giraffe.
    In the picture, a giraffe stood near two Arab keepers and a gentleman in a suit. The giraffe’s head hovered above the three men who were deep in conversation. If I thought aboutit, I could list all sorts of questions about this painting. And yet, questions didn’t spring to mind naturally.
    Was this the difference?
Starry Night
invited me to wonder, but many of the other pictures did not. Paintings—captured still moments — couldn’t help but feel finished. And yet, the way my eyes moved around
Starry Night
made me feel as though time could pass, as though my own ideas and thoughts about the scene mattered, making the picture more than just a picture.
    Looking at books was nothing like going to Vivian’s house. Vivian would ask me questions, give me an assignment. What was my assignment now? Vivian would tell me to look carefully. To draw what I saw. Would drawing
Starry Night
teach me something?
    I slid my colored pencils out of my bag,