Andy

    “Are you sure you don’t want to step on the other foot, too?” Martha asked impatiently as her four year old looked up with a grin. It was hard to be mad in the face of his sunny smile.

     “You’re so funny, mommy.” His big blue eyes in the sunlight were stunning, and his perfect tiny white teeth shone back at her with only a slight remnant of the chocolate cone he had just finished on his face.

     “Let’s get a move on, bud…places to go and people to see!” She reached down to take his hand in hers as they crossed the street, rustling around in her purse for a tissue to wipe his face with. Andy waved at others as they crossed toward them, and said hello in his warmest voice as they passed each one. Several people smiled back at him, others rushed by without so much as a nod. They reached the other side and the bench for the bus stop. Martha pulled Andy onto her lap. The elderly lady looked up from her terribly crouched position to offer Andy a toothy smile of her own.

     “Hello, there!” She turned her head slightly so she could see his face better. He smiled at her without reservation and put his hand out to touch her brightly colored cane.

     “I like your cane,” he said. “It has so many colors.”

     “I painted it myself, several years ago.” She patted the cane with a spotted, wrinkled hand. “I used to be an artist, you know.”

     “I’m an artist, too.” Andy’s face looked intense with concentration. “What’s several?”

“Oh, that means more years than I can keep track of with this old brain.” Her hand flew to her graying head and tapped it. “So tell me, little one…what kind of art do you like to do?”

His grin stretched from ear to ear. He wrested his hand free from his mom’s grasp so he could use both hands. He just couldn’t talk properly without using his hands. “Let’s see…I like to color with crayons, and make statues with clay, and color on my wall with paints or markers. But mom says I shouldn’t do that because then she has to pay to fix it. It doesn’t need to be fixed…I make good pictures!”  He made a slightly reproachful face at his mom, as the old lady giggled toward her lap, but continued on. “I really like gluing things to paper, too.