I arrived home a bit late and Amelia was already in her office on her computer. "Hi," I greeted. Amelia looked up from her computer to me.
"Oh hey! I was just about to call to see where you were," she said.
"Yeah sorry about that, I was helping Tom home," I replied. Amelia looked puzzled.
"What do you mean? Did something happen?" she asked.
"Kind of yeah, Luke and Jake got into a fight and then Tom ran in to defend Luke," I replied.
"Oh my god, is he okay?" she asked, her voice filled with concern for her students.
"Yeah he's just fine. The worst is a couple of cuts. Harriet's making him chicken soup but I doubt that'll help," I replied. Amelia stood up from her chair and went into the kitchen; I followed her.
"I'm just going to get dinner started. While I do that, would you like to explain to me what caused this fuss?" she asked.
"I think I should show you instead," I replied.
"What?" she asked confused. I reached into my bag and pulled out the folded picture. Amelia took it from me and unfolded it, and then she shrieked, just like we did earlier.
"Oh dear god I'm calling Jessica Welton," she said and started for the phone.
"No it's fine Amelia, principal's already taken care of it," I replied.
"What would drive Jake to create something like this? Not only is it disgusting, but also it's humiliating. If Luke wants to apply for a job one day and this comes up in his profile than he might as well become a street beggar!" she exclaimed.
"Well...that was quite a distinct look into the future now, wasn’t it?" I asked. Amelia sighed.
"Sorry, but this school doesn't tolerate violence," she said.
"What school does?" I asked. Amelia huffed and leaned against the island.
"I have been so, so stressed out these past few days. I mean I'm grading exams and I'm still waiting for a response from the school board for the provincial exams for the juniors. (Sigh) Sometimes I really hate being a teacher," she said.
"I think I have an idea to make you feel better," I said. She perked her up.
"What's that?" she asked.
"First of all you might want to find an old t-shirt you don't mind getting dirty,”
-
I found a large canvas and set it up against a wall at the back of the house. Amelia and I wore old t-shirts. Buckets of paint sat at our feet and we had large paintbrushes.
"This is splatter art, just dip you brush in the paint, and throw it," I explained.
"Uh...okay," Amelia dipped her brush into the orange paint, and then threw her paintbrush at the canvas. Okay then...not quite.
"Um...actually you just throw the paint at the canvas. Just pull your arm back and flick your wrist forward," I dipped my paintbrush in the red paint, and then I flicked my wrist and threw paint at the canvas. A large red splat of paint covered the center.
"Oh wow, that's so cool!" Amelia said.
"Whenever I'm stressed or angry I just do this. Splatter art is great to release tension. Try," I replied. Amelia dipped her brush in green paint and splattered it into the top right corner.
"This is fun!" she exclaimed.
"Come keep going," I replied and splattered yellow paint. We kept this up for a good hour and a half until the canvas was covered in paint. There were mixes of blues, greens, oranges, reds, yellows, and so many others. Paint ricocheted off the canvas and landed on us, I felt my face turn sticky and dry. Amelia had blue and red on her face, she didn’t seem to mind though.
"Thank you so much Courtney," she said when we finished.
"For what?" I asked.
"For showing me how to distress in a very…interesting way. Splattering random paint on something," she replied. I grinned.
"You're very welcome, we should keep a few around just incase," I replied.
"Well listen, this has been fun but I need to get back to work," she said and took off her ratty t-shirt.
"Well maybe we can do this again sometime. I mean I always do splatter art when I'm upset," I said. Amelia sighed and hugged me.
"I'm so, so, so thankful to have you here with me," she said.
"Me too, we should’ve gotten the order to last a year." I replied.
"Well it all depends on you. You have another three months, take all the time you need."
I don't know if she knew, but three months wasn't a long time.