You're Far From Home

Chapter 4

We snacked on our McDonald's as Bandit drove to some place. I had no idea where we were even going. She went past the school, toward the place where I live.

"Bandit, where are you taking me?" I asked. I was a bit fearful that she was going to my house to talk to my parents or something, but I felt a huge wave of relief crash over me when we drove past my street.

"I'm taking you to a place that gives me great peace. I go here when I'm sad or I need to think or if I need inspiration. I go here for a lot of reasons," She said. Immediately, I knew where we were heading. She pulled up to the cemetery. I was right. We were having art lessons at the cemetery.

"Are you okay with this?" Bandit asked.

"Yeah. This is where I go for comfort, too. This is the cemetery I fell asleep in," I said.

"That's good," She smiled, "I just wanted to make sure you aren't uncomfortable."

"No, this is perfect, B. I'm looking forward to it," I said.

Bandit smiled. We finished up our food before getting out. Bandit reached in the back of her car for a bag that must've been filled with art stuff. She also pulled out a blanket.

"Could you carry this?" She asked me, holding the blanket out to me.

"Yeah," I said, taking the blanket.

We got out of the car and walked through the cemetery gates. We walked past all of the graves up to the hill I fell asleep on.

I spread the blanket out on the ground and I sat down. Bandit pulled out two sketch books. She handed one to me. She pulled out a crayon box filled with different shading pencils and a couple puddy erasers. She also had a few regular pencil inside.

She pulled out two of the regular pencils. One for me and one for her. Then she pulled two sheets of regular paper out. She handed one to me. She motioned for me to follow her. I stood up and ran a few steps to catch up with her and her long legs.

"What are we doing?" I asked eagerly.

"Find a tombstone that really stands out to you. One that really intrigues you," She said.

"Okay," I said. I looked around. I finally found a really neat looking one. It looked like she already found one.

"Come here!" Bandit called. I walked over toward her and the grave she was standing at. She bent down.

"Watch this," She said. She put the paper up to the tombstone and began scribbling on the paper with her pencil. It was all grey except for the words. They were white. It looked very cool.

It didn't take long for her to finish. She handed me the paper to look at. "Woah, this is crazy. I didn't know you could do this," I said. I was impressed.

"Yeah. It's called gravestone rubbing. Now you try it on one that you found," She said. I nodded and we walked over to the one I found.

It came out exceptionally good. I wasn't impressed or necessarily proud of it, but it was pretty cool. Bandit told me it takes a lot of practice and she comes here often, so she has a lot of it.

We walked back up to the hill that our blanket was sitting on. We carried our pictures up there, too. We stuffed them in the bag Bandit had brought so they didn't blow away.

"Okay grab your sketch book," Bandit said. I did and I opened it.

She started by teaching me how to use basic shapes to make a picture of whatever I wanted. Then, after drawing a couple pictures, she started to teach me how to turn those basic shapes into something more complicated, so we could make it more realistic looking.

After an hour or maybe longer, we took a break. The picture actually didn't look too bad. Maybe I do have a little bit of a talent when it comes to drawing. We just sat on the blanket and talked for a bit.

"Can I see your gravestone thingy again?" I asked, forgetting what it was called.

"Sure," She said and pulled it out of the bag. She handed it to me and I admired it.

"What stood out about this tombstone to you?" I asked, interested in what she had to say.

She nodded. "That's my great-grandmother, Elena Rush. My dad told me all about her. They were really close. She taught him how to sing and everything. He even wrote a song about her," Bandit said.

"Which song?" I asked, interested in what she had to say.

"Helena. He just put an H on Elena," She said.

"That's really cool, I didn't know that," I said.

We decided that Bandit would teach me more about art sometime this week. She drove me to my street and dropped me off there. She mentioned something about maybe hanging out together tomorrow, as well. I told her to text me tonight.

I walked home and entered the house. "I'm home!" I yelled.

"How did tutoring go?" My mom asked.

"It was pretty good. We're making some really great progress," I said, which wasn't entirely a lie. In a way I was talking about the art lesson with Bandit.

"That's good, I'm glad," My mom said.

I just hung out and practiced drawing for the rest of the day. Around 8:00, Bandit texted me to ask if I was busy. I said no, because I wasn't. She asked if I wanted to hang out and I accepted.

Once again, she didn't tell me where we were going or what we were doing, we just agreed to meet at the school about the same time. I just had to make up an excuse about why I had to leave again.