Genius

Chapter 1

If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.

Vincent Van Gogh

I brush a stray strand of hair out of my eyes and look up at the wall. My hands, shirt and jeans are all covered in the sticky paint. I smile to myself,

"Jenna's gonna love this..." I find an old towel and attempt to wipe off some of the pastel colors. Hopefully Mum can get these stains out, otherwise I'm screwed. These are my favorite pair of jeans and if I had known that I was going to be inspired to paint a mural at Jenna's flat I wouldn't have worn them. I move what little furniture she has back to its original position, then decide I don't like where it's at and rearrange the place. I make sure I put away the groceries that she sent me here for in the first place before I lock up the apartment. I wander back to the lobby where Otis the doorman gives me a nod as I walk out. I heave a happy sigh as I watch London swirl around me in a mixture of people and cars. If only I had my easel and some paint... sadly they're both at my townhouse miles away. Besides, by the time I grabbed them and rode back up town and painted it all, rush hour would be long over and my inspiration washed away. Kinda like when you wash your hands after you've gotten paint all over them and you can watch all the colors clump together in a mess of brown and gurgle down the drain. Jenna always tells me its okay to keep my head in the clouds as long as I remember the people standing next to me on the sidewalk. She's really artsy as well, but she prefers the stage over the canvas any day. She's level headed and keeps me well grounded... like a person flying a kite. I'm the kite, always wanting to ascend to new levels and flutter around freely. Jenna makes sure I'm always attached so I can soar as much as I want without flying away completely.

I climb onto the double-decker bus as it pulls into the station. I scan my bus pass and take a seat in the back against the window. Normally, I like to go up top and watch the buzz of traffic but it being a Friday night means tourists are sure to be hovering up there, fluttering like birds with their cameras and smart-phones and such. They'll be twittering and chirping and making noise, spotting all the things that make London unique. Our little red telephone boxes we only keep around for tourists, Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Cleopatra's Needle and who can forget about Big Ben? The bus drives towards my side of town and I get off a stop early, not wanting to be confined on the bus any longer. I finally make it back home and I can smell my mum's cooking.

Now, before I go any farther, you have to know a few things about me. First off, I'm American by birth. I'm not actually sure if I'm a legal citizen in the U.K. but I've been living here ever since I was a kid. I do have an accent but I don't really speak 'British' and we're not sure why. I mean, I know the lingo well enough but I guess after 10 years I didn't really get into it. My mum isn't my mother, I was adopted. I don't know how old I am or when my birthday is. We've had tons of tests done to see about how old I am, and they estimated I was about 7-8 when I was adopted. Foster care has tried to find my birth certificate time and time again but as far as they know my mother went crazy after they took me away and burned everything about me; my pictures and awards and birth certificates and little crayon pictures I made that used to decorate the fridge. It was decided that the best hope for me was to find a new life completely different from my old one so I was shoved onto a plane headed for London, off to live with strangers who were going to spoil me and love me and give me everything I could ever need. I met Ginny and Harold Stifers and fell instantly in love with them. Ginny was a housewife and Harry was an accountant for a business firm in the city. Ginny was pregnant but they wanted an older kid as well and the rest is history! I quickly found out that Mum was an AMAZING cook and Dad could always make us laugh, whether it was because of the milk mustache he never realized he had or how whenever he got frustrated, he stopped upstairs to take a nap or the jokes he told about his co-workers.

Now today as I walk home and I can smell mum's cooking it's like a warm blanket and a cup of co-co on a winter's day. I can just picture a painting of me right now in soothing blues and purples; just completely relaxed. I open the door and I hear the cries from my brother playing video games. He's got his headset on, so as I walk past I ruffle his bright red hair.

"Squirt." I tease, grabbing a cookie off the counter.

"Awwh! Whaddya do that for? I nearly had him!" Caleb exclaimed

"Sorry! How was I to know?" I reply. Caleb huffs and returns to his game.

"Whatcha cooking mum? Smells great." I compliment, propping myself against the counter.

"Shepard's pie." She says, pulling the tray out of the oven. She turns towards me and almost drops the pies on the tiled floor.

"Heather!!" She exclaims, dismayed, "Why you covered in paint??" I look down at myself, forgetting about painting at Jenna's. "Did you run into your canvas or something?"

"No Mum just did a little painting at Jen's, that's all." I explain as she sets the tray down.

"Well I won't be having any of that. Now go change and bring down your laundry so I can wash it up before the stains set in."

"Yes mum." I trudge up the stairs and into my room. My room is floor to ceiling COVERED in art. I have a whole art wall covered in spray paint, pastels, crayon, finger paints, charcoal and ink. It's what I splatter on when I wake up in the middle of the night with the sudden urge to do something. I have all of my school art work framed and hung up over my dresser and night stand. My bed is shoved against the wall in the far corner showing how little I care about sleep when there's so much work to be done. I have a whole bookshelf filled with completed coloring books from when I was a kid and the dates of when I finished them. Sometimes I still color, just to add to my collection. I have small, computer printed pictures of my favorite paintings taped on the ceiling over my bed so I can stare at them when I'm having artist's block.

I shrug out of my paint splattered clothes and slip into an old faded Doctor Who t-shirt and a pair of pajama pants. I start to walk back downstairs when the bathroom mirror catches my attention. I look and see that my hair is falling out of my sloppily assembled ponytail and I have paint on my forehead and cheek. I grab a soap bar and washcloth and I furiously attack my face, ridding it of rainbow streaks.

"Heather!!!! Supper!!!!!" Caleb calls. I can picture my mom scolding him. 'If I wanted you to yell for her I could have done it myself!' and Caleb protesting, 'You said to get her, you didn't say how.'

"Coming!" I say as I tromp down the stairs. I can already smell Mum's Shepard's pies and my stomach grumbles appreciatively. I bounce down the stairs and see the cat on the way to the kitchen.

"Hullo Socky-poo!!!" I say rubbing him appreciatively behind the ears. "Who's my favorite boy, huh?"

There's a knock at the door and I yell, "I've got it MUM!", over my shoulder. I open the door to find a prim and press business man standing there.

"Can I speak to Heather Stifers?"

A/N DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!

Sorry for the cliff hanger, didn't mean to go all RICK RIORDAN on ya, Oh and sorry it took like 3 months to update but its not like anyone reads my stories anyway. K, love ya see ya next year ;)

~Sierra xoxo