The Art Project

The Art Project

 

 

            Mr. Barfkus turned to face the first-grade class. “Poster Board is in the back of the room. Paint: on my desk. Alright, kids, get to work.” He clapped his hands together, displaying an unusual amount of enthusiasm. His voice was slightly less monotone than was the norm. He almost sounded like he wasn’t one step away from falling asleep.

            The classroom erupted into dozens of sounds as the kids rushed to form groups. Some kids scurried to gather supplies before they were claimed. Others turned desks around so their team members could sit facing each other.

One boy knocked over a chair in his haste. His face drained of color as he righted it. He glanced nervously at Barfkus, but the teacher didn’t seem to care. Very unusual indeed.

“You can work individually,” Barfkus called over the clamor. The chair-tipper froze at the sound of Barfkus's voice. “No more than four per group.”

I remained right where I was; I didn’t have any friends to team up with. In Mrs. Lamar's homeroom class, I either worked alone or ended with the other rejects whenever we had to come up with our own groups. The cliques weren't quite formed yet, but this class was composed mostly of what would become the preps. As a result, pretty much everyone was friends with everyone, leaving no one left to work with that weird Asian kid.

Having resigned myself to wait to gather materials until the uproar had calmed, I scanned the room. Just as I had expected, everyone I saw was in a group already. When my eyes fell upon Veronica sitting by herself, I was surprised; she was never alone. But then again, the little blonde girl, Sienna, wasn’t in our art class. Maybe all of her friends were in other classes.

I felt a little bubble of pity rise up in my chest. She normally seemed so vibrant, so able to fill up the entire room. But sitting there by herself, she looked so small and alone.

Before I realized what I was doing, I found myself walking over to her. I froze when I was just a couple feet away. She didn’t seem to notice me; she was watching another group spread out a piece of poster board. If I wanted to back out, now was the time. I swallowed to get rid of the lump in my throat.

“Hello,” I said in a shaky voice. She looked up at me. Her brown eyes, normally so piercing, seemed startlingly mundane. I swallowed again before continuing. “Do you want to work together?”

She regarded me for a few seconds before answering. “Okay,” she said with a nod of her head.

I stood there and looked at her, my jaw slack. Was it really that easy? Realizing I’d been staring, I averted my gaze and sat down. A few seconds of awkward silence passed between us - or maybe it was just awkward for me.

“So,” I prompted, “what do you want to do?” When she didn’t respond, I clarified. “For the painting, I mean.”

She shrugged, seemingly indifferent. Then, her face lit up in the classic I-have-an-idea sort of way. I could almost imagine there was a lightbulb over her head.“A farm,” she said.

“A farm?”

She nodded. “My uncle lives on a farm. I’ve been to it before. We can paint that.”

Not having any better ideas, I simply nodded. “How do we start?” I asked.

Veronica furrowed her eyebrows as she thought it over. Without saying a word, she stood, grabbed a piece of poster board, and came back. “We can put the barn here,” she said, using her fingers to indicate where she wanted it to go. “There can be a little window here for the chickens. And then a cow downstairs. And a . . .” She rattled off a list of farm animals faster than I could keep up. When she was done, my head was buzzing. She looked at me, as if for confirmation. I nodded and attempted to smile.

Without missing a beat, she started tracing the outline of rest of the farm with her fingers. She spoke too quickly for me to follow half of what she said, but I got the general gist of what she wanted. I was glad to have someone with imagination in my group. If I had to work alone, I would have spent the entire class period just coming up with an idea. I was contented just to sit back and let her do all the heavy thinking.

When she had a good idea of what all was going to be on the paper, she stood up, still talking a mile a minute. She walked over to the paints, grabbed a few colors, and walked back. All the while, I could hear her rambling on. The air seemed to be a good listener.

Just as Veronica was popping the lid off the first paint, Mrs. Lamar’s voice rang out across the classroom. “Alright, class! Let’s get things wrapped up here and back to the homeroom.” Veronica frowned and puffed her cheeks. We had all week to complete the project, and I was in no hurry to finish it, but she was clearly anxious to get going. I wondered how good of an artist she was. If she was half as skilled as she was passionate, we would be getting an A on our project.

A couple hours later, I was staring out the window near the front of the school, waiting for my babysitter Max to pick me up. I heard footsteps approaching me. I turned around to see Veronica walking towards me. Without a word, she sat down in the chair right next to me. There was a short, charged pause.

“I’ve been thinking,” she said philosophically. “We should have a goat.”

“What?” I said, more so out of surprise than of not understanding.

She nodded. “Every farm has to have a goat,” she said firmly.

I thought for a moment. "Won’t it get lonely?” I asked, wanting to contribute something to the conversation.

“She,” Veronica corrected. “A mama goat. She’s going to have a bunch of baby goat kids.”

Why not? “The dad?” I asked.

“France,” she answered.

I paused. “The dad is in France?”

“Yep.”

 “Why is he in France?”

“That’s where my daddy is.” I frowned. Before I had a chance to ask, Veronica stormed straight ahead. “They can have a little pen all to themselves. And the pigs can live next to them. . .” My ears started ringing again.

Before I knew it, the door opened and Max was coming through, smiling and raising her eyebrows at us. She glanced at Veronica, then looked back at me. “Hello,” Max said. She extended her hand to me. “Ready to go?” I took her hand and let her lead me out. As we were walking through the door, I looked back at Veronica and waved. She waved back, appearing bored.

Max glanced down at me as we approached her car. “So, who was that?” There was an edge to her voice that I couldn’t quite place.

“Veronica,” I responded.

She ran her tongue over her teeth. “She your friend?” She opened the car door for me.

I wasn't sure how to answer that. Before today, we had never said more than a few words to each other. “I guess so,” I answered as I crawled into the car.

Max smiled mischievously at me as she got into the driver's side. “Yeah, I bet she is.”

I frowned and looked up at her. Max playfully bumped my shoulder. She slowly put the key in the ignition and turned it, leaving me in suspense. “I bet you’re pretty good friends.” She winked at me.

I shook my head. “I don’t know her very well.”

“Uh-huh,” Max said, clearly unconvinced. “What were you two talking about?”

“An art project we’re working on.”

“Oh sure,” Max laughed. “Art. That’s classic.” I stared at her with a blank expression. Max sighed, still smiling. “Oh, I'm just teasing ya. Don’t worry about it.” Then, almost as an afterthought, “You’ll have plenty of time for that in high school.”

 

            As soon as Barfkus allowed to move around, Veronica rushed towards the paint, grabbing a half dozen colors before hurrying back over to me. Barfkus gave her a disapproving look, but she didn’t notice and I was conveniently looking everywhere else. He let out an annoyed breath before striding over. He put his hand on Veronica’s shoulder just as she was about to touch the brush to the paper. She jumped slightly at the contact.

            “Young lady,” he began slowly, his voice dry and taught, “do you really think you need all of those colors right now?”

            She nodded vigorously. “Oh yes. A farm has a lot of colors. We -”

            “I asked you if you needed them all now. Leave some for the other kids to use, then go back later and get the other colors you need.” Wordlessly, he scooped up the red, blue, purple, and black cans and carried them back to his desk.

            Veronica puffed out her cheeks. Her face turned pink, then red, then purple. She held her breath for so long I was afraid she would pass out. Finally, with a loud fwoosh, she exhaled. When she remained motionless, I realized she was content to pout and not do anything.

            “What should we start on?” I asked.

            She stayed still for a few seconds before sighing and tapping a spot on the paper. “We can start on the barn,” she said.

            I looked at the two remaining color we had: brown and green. “You want a brown barn?” I guessed. She nodded. “Why not a red barn?”

            She frowned like the suggestion offended her. “My uncle’s barn isn’t red.” As if that settled everything, she picked up a brush, dipped it in the brown paint, and, at long last, touched it to the paper.

            I watched on in horror as she made a giant, wet, shapeless smear near the bottom left corner of the page. She made as if to spread the paint on the rest of the bottom, but I grabbed her wrist, acting mostly out of instinct. Her eyes widened and she gaped at me.

            “What are you doing?” she asked.

            “What are you doing? Barns don’t look like blobs,” I pointed out.

            She scrunched her face up. “That’s not a blob!” she said louder than was necessary. I heard a few kids snicker and felt Barfkus’s Doom Stare boring a hole into the back of my head.

            “Well,” I stammered, not sure of what to say. Then I ripped out a piece of notebook paper and put it in front of her. “Show me what you want the barn to look like on this paper.”

            She looked back and forth between me and the paper like she was deciding which one of us disgusted her the most. Then she gave a defeated sigh and moved the brush towards the paper.

            “Ah!” I said. She stopped and looked at me. “With a pencil. Paint will leak through.”

            Her eyebrow twitched, and for a second, looking into her eyes, I felt like I was staring into the pits of Hell. Wordlessly, she set the brush down, picked up her pencil, and started scribbling on the notebook paper. She kept her arm over her work, preventing me from seeing it. After about a minute, she lifted her arm.

            I looked at it for a few seconds, my face blank.

            “I thought you wanted a barn,” I said at last.

            Her face went red. She opened her mouth, but I held a finger in front of my mouth. Quiet. “That is a barn!” she half whispered, half yelled at me. She pointed to it, as if I wasn’t looking in the right spot before.

            I swallowed. “That isn’t a tree?” I asked hesitantly.

            She stared at me like I was the dumbest person she had ever met. “No!” This time, her voice contained more yell than whisper. Barfkus loudly cleared his throat.

            Racking my brain, I rotated the paper around. An idea hit me. “Look!” I said. “This brown can be the sun. If we turn the paper around, it looks like it's in the sky.”

            Her face fell. “But my barn!” she protested.

            “We can make another barn.” I tried to sound reassuring. I tapped the “barn” she had sketched. “It looks like a tree because it’s brown," I lied. "If we make the barn red, it will look better.”

            She crossed her arms and sunk down in her chair. “My uncle’s barn isn’t red,” she muttered, almost to herself. “We don’t even have red paint right now! He took it away.”

            “That’s okay; we can just use red later, like Mr. Barfkus said. Today, we can draw a brown road, and make the . . . barn look more like a sun. And make some grass.”

            Her eyes narrowed into slits. “Fine.” She pulled the paper towards her, but before she could do anything, I put my hand on the paper.

            “You can work on the sun, since you already started it. I’ll do the grass.” I felt uncomfortable telling her what to do, but I didn’t want to fail the assignment.

            Veronica glared at me as she picked up the brown brush. Then she turned her attention to making the mousey brown blob look more like her vision of a sun. I didn’t watch her do it, too afraid of what I might see.

            Using a pencil, I drew the faint outline of a square, intending for it to represent what would be the barn. From there, I used the green paint to fill in the grassy fields in front of the barn, leaving a space open for the road to go.

            I glanced up at Veronica periodically, trying to think of something to say to her to make up for upsetting her. As usual, my feeble mind failed in its attempts to think up any small talk.

            Finally, an idea came to me. “Have you been painting for long?” I asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

            Without looking up at me, she nodded. “Yes.” I waited, but when no information was forthcoming, I decided to just let the idea of conversation drop.

            The hour seemed to stretch on endlessly, making the art project seem horribly tedious. I found myself glancing at the clock frequently.

            Veronica finished making the sun and wanted to start painting the barn, but other kids were using the red paint, so she instead sat and watched me as I worked, making me feel endlessly uncomfortable. I wanted to suggest that she start working on the road, but didn’t. If I’m being honest, I was too afraid to see what she would do with it.

            When the time finally came to head back to the homeroom, I sighed in relief. It was much louder than I had intended, coming out as a great whoosh of air, and several kids gave me strange looks.

            During recess the next day, I found myself sitting on my usual swing, waiting for the bell to signal the end of recess. I really didn’t mind doing nothing; it gave me a chance to let my run-down brain recover from a morning of grueling first-grade class.

            I didn’t even notice the two girls walking over to me until they were right in front of me. Looking up, I saw Veronica and Sienna a few feet away. I thought they were just going to the swings, but they came right up to me.

            Veronica spoke up first. “Do you want to play tag with us?” she asked. Her face was completely unassuming, but the invitation caught me off guard. So far, I had gone most of the school year with minimal interaction with anyone else. I wasn’t sure I even knew how to play with other kids.

            Before I had a chance to answer, Sienna started talking. “I told her boys aren’t good at tag, but she said we should ask you anyway.” Her tone was insulting, but she said it with such a straight face I wasn’t sure if I had misinterpreted it.

            They looked at me expectantly. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to play with them or not, and my hesitation seemed to stretch on. My face grew warm.

            Sienna frowned, but I answered before she could say anything more. “Okay.” The word surprised me as soon as it left my mouth. Up until that moment, I was pretty sure I was going to say no.

            Sienna smiled “You’re it!” she yelled. She took off, leaving a trail of dust in her wake. Veronica seemed just as surprised as I was but recovered more quickly. She ran, following her friend.

            Sighing, I stood and chased after them. Though it pained me, I quickly realized that I really was no good at tag; I couldn't run fast enough to even come close to catching them. Despite that, I tried my best to reach them, but their little bodies moved much too quickly. After a few minutes, I was panting like a dog while the two of them were giggling up a storm.

            Finally, I let my legs go out from under me and I hit the ground. Veronica and Sienna stood over me, gloating.

            “Told you,” Sienna said. “Boys are no good.”

            When I continued to lie there, Sienna prodded me with her foot. I had to hold my breath to keep from cracking up. The girls looked at each other and frowned. “Did we break him?” Sienna said after a pause.

            Unable to keep up the act any longer, I reached out and wrapped my hand around Sienna's ankle, startling them both. Before they understood what had happened, I was off and running. “You’re it!” I shouted over my shoulder. I wasn’t able to see their reactions, but I had a pretty good idea as to what they were.

            Despite my clever maneuver granting me a significant head start, they had caught up to me in about ten seconds. Instead of a friendly pat on the shoulder, the two competitive little she-devils tackled me from behind, sending me to the ground and knocking the wind out of me. I tried to get back to my feet, but my arms were held down with such an unmoving force that I figured each of them must have been holding one down. I tried to get my legs beneath me and failed.

            “Let me go!” I demanded after struggling feebly for twenty seconds or so. I looked over my shoulder. Veronica stood a few feet away, her face bright red, holding her hands over my mouth. I couldn’t see Sienna very well, but she had one hand wrapped around my right arm, and I could imagine she was doing the same to my left.

            I felt Sienna’s arms shake and her grip slackened. I would like to say that the brute strength of my arms was too much for her to hold down, but the truth is that she was laughing too hard. Finally, I felt the pressure around my wrists lift. I rolled over and jumped to my feet.

            Both of the girls fell to the ground. I felt my face grow hotter than I thought was possible. At the time, I didn’t know what pride was, but mine was certainly wounded.

I stood idly by as I waited for them to calm down. After an embarrassing eternity, they rose shakily to their feet. I kept my eyes glued to the ground between my feet. Their shadows move closer. One of them got so close that I could feel her breath. I looked up. Sienna stood a few inches away, looking down on me, her face deadly serious.

She stared at me solemnly for a moment before saying anything. “You’re a wimp,” she stated simply, the same way one might say that a tree has leaves.

I mind was too numb to think of anything witty to respond with, so I stood there as still as a statue, my face growing ever brighter.

The bell began tolling, saving me from any further embarrassment. As we walked back into the building, I realized what class I had next and groaned. There was no way Veronica would ever let me live this down.

As soon as Barfkus released us to our own devices, Veronica grabbed the red paint and sat down next to me, a smug look plastered onto her face. I tensed when she opened her mouth to speak.

“I got the red paint today.”

I looked at her for a few seconds, waiting for some snide remark to come. Finally, I nodded and looked at the partially completed farm. With a certain amount of pride, I saw that the paper was mostly filled. The sky needed some blue shading and the road and barn weren’t really started, but it was coming along nicely. Sure, the sun looked like a rather large, unwieldy t**d, but, hey, what can you do?

Veronica eagerly dipped her brush in the paint. Going against my better judgment, I left her unattended as I went to grab the brown and black paints. It only took me a few seconds, but I knew better than to look at what had happened to the paper during that time. Keeping my eyes focused away from Veronica’s side, I began to fill in the road. Thinking myself clever, I mixed bits of black in the road to add more of a textured look to it. It didn’t look great, but I was sure the effort had to be worth something.

It was only after I had spent a copious amount of time on the road that I dared to look over at the barn. The muscles in my face went slack.

Feeling my gaze, Veronica looked up at me, beaming. Seeing as how the project was too far gone to salvage, I simply smiled and nodded.

“While you do that,” I said numbly, “I’ll make the animal pens.” Wordlessly, she returned to smearing paint over any and all remaining white spaces.

While we worked, a way to start a conversation came to me. “What kind of animals does your uncle have?” I asked.

Veronica stopped as she thought. “He has chickens, a -”

“The chickens go in the barn, don’t they?”

She nodded. “And he has a cow, and three goats, and pigs. And a fat little baby pig!” She held her hand about a foot apart like she was saying she caught a fish. It took me a moment to realize what she meant.

“The baby pig is that fat?” I asked, not having to feign surprise.

She nodded. “She’s so fat she walks funny. Like, she just kinda waddles around.”

“Should we make pens for all those?” I asked after a moment.

She thought about it for a second, eyeing the space left on the paper, then shook her head. “That would be too many. But we should have the cow and the pigs.

With that said, I set off to work, using my pencil to trace what I wanted before I committed to using paint. While we worked, we made idle conversation. I would ask her about one of the animals, and she would tell a story about Geoffrey  the cow, or about Amy the fat pig.

When I made the pen for the cows, it just had one in it, as her uncle had just one cow, but it looked lonely. I drew a little dog, sitting outside the pen and looking playfully at the cow. At least, that’s what I tried to draw. It didn’t turn out so well, but I thought I managed to get the gist of it down.

Before what felt like no more than ten minutes had passed, Mrs. Lamar was there, telling us to pack things up. I felt a tinge of sadness. I had actually been enjoying myself.

The girls invited me to play tag with them the next day. I wasn’t particularly fond of the idea of being humiliated again, but I found myself accepting their offer. In terms of catching them, it didn’t go any better than the first day. I didn’t get knocked to the ground this time, though, so there’s that.

Whenever I was “it” for a  particularly long time, Veronica let me tag her. A couple times, when it was her turn to chase, she would make a show of chasing both of us, but not tagging me. I wasn’t fond of being pitied, but I appreciated the gesture.

            Sienna had no such restrictions. Whenever she was it, she would go for the easier target, often slewing a string of insults. But I had to admit, being humiliated at tag was a lot more fun than sitting on a swing.

            And then came art class. We had four days to work on it, and today was the fourth day. I wasn’t worried. We had done enough the day before that the time restraint wasn’t much of an issue. All we had left to do was finish the animal pens and add some finishing touches to the crude approximation of a barn. After a short discussion, we decided to draw a space for a chicken coop on the upper level of the barn. I hopefully suggested that Veronica let me draw that, saying she had drawn the rest of the barn. She agreed surprisingly easily. She seemed to be more accepting of my opinions than she had been the previous days. This whole communicating-with-other-humans thing wasn’t as hard as I’d always thought it to be.

            At the end of the day, we were both reasonably happy with what we had accomplished. It wasn’t fantastic, but it wasn’t altogether bad. The day after, we received our grades. We had managed to get a B-. Neither of us was thrilled, but we were content.

            I had half expected the girls to stop acknowledging my existence after the project, but they continued to find me and ask me to join them for tag the following week. I found myself enjoying the routine. I even started to (not exactly like) tolerate Sienna’s teasing. It was part of our bond.

            After school, Veronica would sit next to me as we waited to be picked up. We wouldn’t talk much, if at all. It was just more enjoyable to wait with someone you like than to wait alone. Whenever we did talk, it was normally for just a few seconds.

            As the school year came to a close, I was surprised to find myself dreading the Summer break. I was going to miss playing with the girls. I wondered if this was what it was like to have friends.

Author's Note

This story was originally written as (most of) a chapter in a novel my younger self never got around to completing. I believe it occured within chapter two or three. I think it functions as a stand-alone story quite well, so I figured I would post it here. I love hearing your thoughts/feedback.

Reviews

[.]

A nice story, Clifford.

It portrays a realistic innocence and also a lonely awkwardness that can be found in almost every junior school throughout the world. Friendships have forever been formed due to the timely class project. I am sure i made friends that way myself in my early schooling years.

Your story is well written as always; very descriptive and you have set the scene of the story very well. I am sure many readers could relate to this one.

Overall, an entertaining and realistic piece. Nice work.

[Jacob Clifford]

Many thanks, Doodley. Glad the realism came through.

[Hannah]

This story is so cute! I love the development between the characters, and their growing friendship. Everything felt so real, like it really could happen in schools everywhere.

[Jacob Clifford]

Thanks, Hannah. Somewhat ironically, I wrote this story without any intention of friendship lessons, or anything of that nature. I was just writing away, completely oblivious.

[Fahmida Mehreen]

Brought back memories from childhood. Rejuvenation. :)

[Jacob Clifford]

Hey, Fahmida. I'm glad you got something from the story. Thanks for stopping by.

[barleygirl]

This works fine as a standalone story. You've done a great job of using realistic dialogue to show us a great deal of the character development. There's an overall tone of sadness based on the narrator's seeming dissatisfaction with the developing friendship(s) yet he's going along, out of lack of any other sense of how friendship might be. It feels like he's "settling" for lack of the confidence to go for more satisfying interactions. These are complex messages to be conveying in an otherwise simple story of school interactions. I believe most kids would have a similar lack of confidence & would settle for whatever friendship(s) dropped into their world, rather than having a firm idea of what one wanted from life & going for it assertively. All the interactions seem realistically harsh & yet tentatively welcome, just as one would expect between new childhood "friends" in such a situation.

I didn't like the brief moment where the narrator speaks to the reader (felt out of context & jarred me from the narrative): "I know what you might be thinking: It’s an elementary school art project!"

Also, the teacher is Mr. Barfkus thru-out, but then near the ending, the teacher changes to be Mrs. Lamar (after he draws a dog to keep the cow company) . . . this seems to be an oversight.

[Jacob Clifford]

Thank you for reading. In regards to the Barfkus/Lamar situation ... The kids go to art class after recess, and after that class, they go back to their homeroom (Mrs. Lamar's class). As this story used to be part of a chapter, it may be not clear. It's probably my fault for not clarifying enough.

I get what you mean about the out-of-context-speaking-to-the-reader part. Looking back on it, it does feel kinda jarring and out of place.

[PhoenixDown]

You have a talent for description/describing the environment, as well as "action" taking place within a given environment. When words mesh together to form, not just images, but an event - happening right now, even more so than a movie,

then that speaks a great deal on the author, behind everything. May comment again. Carry on, Cliff.
"You have my keyboard," he said, kneeling below the Author's Note. LOL.

[PhoenixDown]

You are also able to write quite fluidly from obscure angles,
or angles/perspectives I think others may fall short seeing as clearly.

[PhoenixDown]

"At the time, I didn’t know what pride was, but mine was certainly wounded." A lot of great lines here, but I decided to highlight this one. Very solid sentence.

This piece overall leaves me very curious.

[Jacob Clifford]

Thanks a ton for your comment(s). I appreciate you saying the specifics of what you enjoyed. The points you highlighted are very high praise for a writer.

[Maria Prikhodko]

This is so wonderful! All of your characters are very unique. You perfectly described how people (not only kids) learn how to communicate and form friendship bonds. Your story can be relatable to lots of people :3

[Jacob Clifford]

Thank you very much, Maria. When I wrote this, I was completely oblivious to the friendships lessons. I didn't notice then until people started commenting about them. The things you can miss in your own writing!

[Maria Prikhodko]

You can miss a lot in your own writing 😂 always happenes to me :3

[Philip Muls]

Very down to earth and authentic with some wonderful lessons about true frienship in there.

Well done.

[Jacob Clifford]

Thank you very much, Philip.

[richieb]

Clifford,
This is a wonderfully written story about friendship. Learning to communicate, tolerate and grow with your peers can be painful and awkward. Your story was realistic and refreshing. You showed the emotions and mindset of your characters in a creative manner. Your story was paced well and flowed easily.
Hopefully you can build the story into full book form. I could see it being a moral teaching book for this age group without being preachy. Nice work.
Richie b

[Jacob Clifford]

That would actually be a really cool idea, turning this into a longer work. Thank you for the idea. I may do just that eventually.
And thank you for much for all the kind words about the story itself. Developing friendships can be "painful and awkward".

[Jacob Clifford]

By the way, when are you going to write something new? It feels like it's been a long while since I've read something of yours.

[Shannon]

Engaging story, especially for such a seemingly simple tale. I like your characters. You have told us a little about Veronica of we see some reasons for her behaviour.

[Jacob Clifford]

Thank you, S.

[Shabeeh Haider]

This is a wonderful write. The way you have described the personality of the narrator , Veronica and Sienna is commendable.
Mr. Barfkus is indeed a unique character. Everyone must have had a teacher like him at some time during school
The way they went about making the farm brought a smile.
I enjoyed reading this.

[Jacob Clifford]

I'm glad you enjoyed it. I remember having a great deal of fun writing this, especially the characters' personalities. Thank you for reading.