Half a Sorry

It happened in about one second.

There were six paint pots on the table and one of them was blue.

Nihal turned round with his elbow out. His elbow met the paint pot. The paint pot went over on its side, and all the blue went out across the table in one big slow river.

It went over the newspaper. It went over the edge of the table and made a blue spot on the floor. And it went right across Ila’s picture, which had been a house with a red roof and a very long garden path.

Now it was a house with a red roof and a blue lake where the path used to be.

“Sorry!” said Nihal, very fast. “Sorry, but it was already wobbly. Sorry, but you moved it over there. Sorry, but I said don’t put it near the edge. Sorry, but my elbow went by itself.”

He said all of it in one breath.

Ila did not say anything.

She picked up her brush. She turned her chair a little bit, so her shoulder was between Nihal and the picture. And she went on painting, into the blue.

Nihal stood there.

The classroom carried on around him. Somebody was singing the wrong words to the counting song. The jar of water had gone the colour of a puddle. The sun came through the window and put a bright square on the table. Outside, the big kids were doing something with a football and a wall.

He waited for Ila to turn round.

She did not turn round.

He looked at his hand. It was blue right up to the knuckle. It was going stiff and papery as it dried. That was quite interesting, but not now.

Then he went and stood on the other side of the table, where her face was.

“Ila.”

She kept painting.

“Ila. Sorry.”

That was all. He did not say the rest of it. The rest of it was still in there, wanting to come out. But and but and but. He shut his mouth on it and let it stay in.

Ila’s brush stopped.

She looked at the lake for a while. It had gone right through the paper in one place and made a soft grey hole.

“It’s a lake now,” she said.

“It’s a good lake,” said Nihal.

“There’s no boat, though.”

Nihal thought about that.

“I could do the boat,” he said.

Ila moved her elbow a little to the left. Now there was room at the page for one more brush.

So Nihal got one.

They did the boat together. Then a fish. Then a second fish that went wrong and had to become a duck, with a beak and two feet. The paper was so wet in the middle that they had to be careful, and they were, mostly.

At home time Miss Bhatia held the picture up by two corners to carry it to the drying rack, and asked whose it was.

“Ours,” said Ila.

Nihal’s hand stayed blue until Sunday.