And both were young

by Madeleine L'Engle

Flip blushed with pleasure, partly at the praise, and partly because Madame was calling her Flip. Several of the girls looked up at the name and Gloria actually winked at her.

"You have time to start something else," Madame was saying. "Here's a clean sheet of paper and a piece of charcoal. Just draw anything you like. Either from something in the room or from your imagination."

For the past two days Flip had been thinking of three things, Paul, skiing, and Madame's daughter. She had not had another opportunity to ask Paul about Denise, how old she was, or whether she was alive or dead. Somehow Flip felt that she must be dead and that perhaps that accounted for the sadness in Madame Perceval's eyes. She wondered what Madame's daughter would look like and, almost without volition, her hand holding the charcoal moved across the paper and she began to draw a girl, a girl about her own age sitting on a rock and looking out across the valley to the mountains.

The likeness was stronger than she could possibly have guessed. She was trying, more or less, to draw a girl who looked like Madame and who had short hair like hers. But the girl who appeared on the paper did not look like Madame and Flip felt discouraged because she knew the perspective was wrong again and the mountains were too small and far away and the girl's feet weren't right. She sighed and tried to erase the mountains and the feet and correct them.

Madame Perceval stood behind her and looked over her shoulder down at the paper. Flip almost jumped as the art teacher's strong fingers dug into her arm.

"What are you doing?" Madame Perceval's voice was calm and low, but Flip felt the strain in it.

"Just—just a girl looking at the mountains," she stammered. "The—the feet aren't right."

"I'll show you," Madame Perceval said; but instead of explaining what was wrong, and then telling Flip what to do to correct it, as she usually did, she took the charcoal and swiftly put the feet in again herself; and then she took the thumbtacks out of Flip's board and took the paper and walked over to the cupboard with it and Flip saw that her hands were trembling.

In a moment she came back with a fresh piece of paper. "Why don't you try drawing one of the girls in the class?" Madame suggested, and her voice was natural again. "Erna, you've finished, haven't you? Will you sit still and let Flip sketch you?"

"Yes, Madame. How do you want me to sit, Pi—Philippa—uh—Flip?"