Art Deco ▷ Ned Leeds | ✓

4 - FAMILY GAME NIGHT

Brooke groaned and glanced at the clock, tapping her finger against her temple. A minute had passed since the start of the class and she wished it would move faster. They were discussing the scientific probability of certain aspects of sci-fi movies and someone had suggested they watch original Star Wars trilogy.

She wasn't an immense fan of Star Wars, if she was completely honest.

She enjoyed it as any other person did, she looked forward to all the new movies as any casual fan did, she did love the newest movie with the very diverse cast, but she didn't see the appeal of knit-picking.

So she decided to draw.

She decided to try and do storyboards, something that she would never do otherwise. She wasn't a comic artist or an animator—while she loved movies, she couldn't see herself working in the animation industry in any way, it just wasn't her thing—but she did appreciate learning different techniques and learning.

So she did quick sketches of the scenes in her sketchbook, making small rectangles for all of them. She filled up two front and back pages before giving up, having to close her eyes for a few moments, her head hurting from the rapid glancing.

She decided to just draw the characters after that, paying idle attention to the movie. She was in the middle of drawing stars around a pink Darth Vader helmet when she heard a short gasp to her right.

Across the short distance between the edge of her table and the edge of another, a boy was looking at her sketches with wide eyes.

"Those look great."

She didn't quite look at him, humming, preparing herself for the inevitable set of questions she always received once people learned that she could draw, or saw that she was drawing something at all. "Thanks."

"Do you just look at the picture for a second and just draw it out perfectly, or what?" he asked, still leaned over to look at her work.

That was a question she never received. She stammered out a response, taken aback, "Um...I guess so? I mean, he shows up a bit and I've seen his helmet a lot...I do reference things, though."

"Cool," he said, sitting back correctly in his seat, the boy next to him raising an eyebrow at him. "You're really good at that."

She smiled slightly, surprised. "Thanks."

She continued to draw as the movie progressed, continuing to check the clock, eagerly anticipating the arrival of lunch. Towards the end of the class period, she opened up a fresh page and did a quick permanent marker sketch of the Darth Vader helmet surrounded by textbooks, the same ones on the boy's desk.

When the teacher paused the movie, turning on the lights, two minutes left in the period, she ripped it out, placing it on his desk. Most people asked her to draw them something or other various questions that bothered her to no end.

He hadn't asked her any of the dumb questions, so she drew him a picture. She heard him whispering some of the dialogue to the boy next to him, so she figured he'd enjoy it.

She meant to catch his name as she went—they had a large class and there was no set seating chart, making learning names difficult—but forgot in favor of rushing down to the art studio, packed lunch in her bag, hoping to make it there before River.

Little did she know, the boy she had given the picture to had stared at it long after the bell had rung, too awestruck to touch it. It wasn't until it his impatient friend had tugged him away, mumbling about not wanting his ex-girlfriend's godbrother to bother them again.

º º º

"—he gets really into Monopoly, though. I beat him last time and he made everyone pancakes but me."