Page 119 of Leave a Mark
“Here, we have to sign in,” Lee was saying.
He handed her a clipboard, and Wren signed blindly, handing it back and pretending interest in her surroundings. She slapped on the sticker that saidVolunteerwhile a coordinator gave them instructions and outlined the different stations where they could help out. Wren watched her speak, but nothing she said penetrated the shield.
“C’mon. Let’s go to the arts-and-crafts table,” Cherise said, grabbing her by the wrist and leaving the others behind. She pulled her past the entrance into the open space of the museum and toward a cordoned-off section where a handful of children sat at a table. The surface was covered with bins of construction paper, pipe cleaners, glitter, glue, crayons, and markers.
“I want a dinosaur mask.”
Wren looked down to find a little boy struggling with a pair of blunt-tipped scissors and a green sheet of construction paper. She saw then that each piece of paper bore a stamp. Dinosaur. Butterfly. Tiger. Each stamp was centered over two slits for eyes and an upside-downVfor the bridge of a nose. One little girl had already cut out the shape of a butterfly and was securing pipe cleaners to the sides to serve as ties.
“I can’t cut good,” the little boy said, the paper dinosaur crumpling under his efforts.
Wren scanned the area for his mother, and she spotted a woman a few feet away with an infant in her arms. She was trying to drape a blanket over her shoulder one-handed as the baby fussed at her breast.
Wren held out her hand for the scissors. “Can I help?” she asked the boy.
With barely a glance at her, the boy gave her the scissors and paper and waited as she cut around the dinosaur outline.
It was a relief to concentrate on the craft project and not on why her friends and family had set her up.
She glanced over at the girl with the butterfly and saw that she was drawing lines over its wings with Elmer’s glue. Wren wasn’t surprised when she picked up a shaker of glitter and sprinkled it over the glue lines.
“Do you want to decorate it?” she asked the boy.
He nodded.
“What do you want it to look like?”
The boy’s eyes grew with excitement. “I want scary scales.”
Wren allowed herself a small smile. A mask with scary scales was right up her alley. She wouldn’t mind one herself. She reached across the table for a bin of sequins and grabbed a baggie full of green discs.
“How about green?”
The boy nodded again. “And red,” he said, decisively.
Wren grabbed the red baggie and another bottle of Elmer’s. “I’ll spread the glue, and you press the scales on top, okay?”
This plan won her a smile.
“Okay.”
Wren placed dots of glue onto the paper, and the boy pressed red and green sequins into place.
“What’s your name?” Cherise asked the boy.
Wren scowled at her. Her secretive, conspiring best friend didn’t need to weasel in on her moment of triumph.
“Daniel.” Daniel didn’t take his eyes off the dinosaur to look at Cherise, and this gave Wren a smug satisfaction.
“How old are you?” Cherise asked, grabbing a tiger sheet and a pair of scissors.
“Four-and-a-half,” Daniel said, pressing scales with unbroken focus.
“Oh.” Cherise looked disappointed at this, and Wren found herself frowning at her friend.
“What is your problem?” she hissed.
Cherise gave her a startled look and shook her head, plunging back into the task of cutting out the tiger.
