The Painting

Chapter Five

Never had I cried harder in my life. When we got home, instead of mourning with my family, I ran straight up to my room, only carrying the painting. I unwrapped it, placed it down in the middle of the floor and stared at it. I wanted to destroy that stupid picture. What stopped me was that Randi, Mrs.Randall, and I had worked put a lot of effort into it. If I teared it to shreds, then it would be ruining everything we had worked so hard on. There was a knock on my door. It was Mom telling me to come downstairs so that the family could be together.

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The painting lay untouched the whole winter break. We didn't celebrate Christmas this year. Nobody, not even Joey or Markie, was in the mood. The funeral was ginormous. Many of Grandma's friends showed up. My family and I were in the front row, closest to the coffin. It was hard to believe that my grandmother was going to be buried in the cold ground, and that we would never see her again. Oh, how I wished that I could show her the painting! Slowly, the start of school crept back up on us. Randi came back from her cousin's house in Jerusalem. She brought me back delicious chocolate coins, but I decided not to eat them.

On the first day back to school, I tugged myself towards the art room to return the painting. "Hello Cassandra!" Mrs. Randall yelled, when I entered the room. "Hi, Mrs.Randall." I croaked. I placed the painting on the shelf and started to exit. " Is everything alright?" Mrs. Randall asked confused. I nodded.

"Everything's fine, Mrs.Randall " I attempted to smile, but it turned out more like a grimace.

" Do you feel okay?" Mrs. Randall demanded worriedly, feeling my forehead, as if to check for a fever. "You look awfully thin and sickly."

I shrugged her hands off of me, and replied quietly "Well, My grandma died two weeks ago."

"Oh my dear, I'm so sorry!" Mrs. Randall cried out mourningfully, before hugging me really tight. I squeezed her back. The hug felt good. It was exactly what I needed.

Later that week, we submitted the painting to the art contest. It was days till the results came out. Finally, one day as I was getting off the bus, I saw Randi running up to me. Mrs. Randall wasn't far behind. " We won the art contest!" Randi squealed, still gasping for breath from running. "What?" I asked, wondering if I had heard it right. "It's true, deary." Mrs. Randall said as she approached us. "The painting was so good, that I heard that when the judges heard that two 12 year old girls painted it, one of them fainted!" I laughed, not believing my luck.

When we finally received the prize money, the first thing we did with it was fix up the art room. We got new tables, easels, and art supplies, basically anything an artist could possibly need. By the end of all that, we had more than $1,000 left. After a lot of consideration, Randi, and I decided to donate it to dementia research. I felt like I was doing my grandma a favor when I did that. I hoped that she was looking down at me and smiling...