Kenz Shares Her Crayons

On Friday, the whole family went for a picnic in the green park by the river. Teta brought stuffed vine leaves. Mama brought bread and cheese and cucumbers. Baba brought a big red-and-white checked blanket. And Kenz brought her very favorite things in the whole world: a brand-new box of twelve crayons and a little basket of strawberries.

The crayons were a present from her aunt. They were long and sharp and perfect, lying in a neat row like soldiers. Not one of them was broken. Not one of them was even a tiny bit short.

The strawberries were the first of the season, red and shiny and sweet.

Kenz sat on the corner of the blanket, opened her drawing book, and began to draw a garden.

Then her cousin Yousef arrived. Yousef was four, one year younger than Kenz. He had messy brown hair and a blue T-shirt, and he was always, always hungry.

"Kenz!" he shouted, running across the grass and flopping down on the blanket. "What are you drawing? Can I draw too? Ooh, strawberries! Can I have one?"

Kenz pulled her crayon box a little closer to her knees. She put her hand over the basket of strawberries.

"These are mine," she said. "Auntie gave the crayons to me. And I picked the strawberries at the shop myself."

Yousef's face fell. He sat back on his heels and looked at the shiny crayons.

"I'll be careful," he said in a small voice.

"You'll break them," said Kenz. "Little children always break crayons."

Yousef did not say anything else. He picked at a thread on the blanket. After a while, he wandered off to throw a ball against a tree by himself.

Kenz went back to her drawing. She used green for the grass, and pink for the flowers, and blue for the sky. She ate a strawberry. Then another. They were very sweet.

But somehow, drawing was not as fun as before. The strawberries were not as sweet as the first one. Every time she looked up, she saw Yousef throwing his ball, all alone, and kicking at the grass.

Teta came and sat beside her with a cup of tea. She looked at the drawing.

"What a lovely garden," she said. "Is anyone playing in it?"

Kenz looked at her picture. There were flowers and grass and sky, but no people at all. It looked a bit empty.

"No," she said.

Teta sipped her tea. "When I was a little girl, about your age, my father brought home one orange. Just one. Oranges were special then, and we didn't have many."

"What did you do?" asked Kenz.

"I wanted to eat the whole thing myself," said Teta with a smile. "But I had three brothers. So my mother cut it into four pieces. My piece was very small. But do you know what I remember most?"

Kenz shook her head.

"I remember all four of us sitting on the doorstep, with juice running down our chins, laughing. I don't remember how the orange tasted. I remember the laughing."

Kenz was quiet for a long time. She looked at her twelve perfect crayons. She looked at her basket of strawberries. She looked at Yousef, sitting under the tree now, with his chin in his hands.

Then she stood up.

"Yousef!" she called. "Come here! Do you want to draw with me?"

Yousef's head popped up. "Really?"

"Really," said Kenz. "And you can have strawberries too."

Yousef came running so fast that he almost tripped over the blanket. He sat down next to Kenz, cross-legged, with a huge grin.

Kenz put the crayon box between them. "You can choose any color you want," she said. "But press gently, like this, so they don't break."

Yousef chose orange. He pressed very, very gently, with his tongue poking out. He drew a big round sun in the corner of Kenz's garden.

"That's a good sun," said Kenz.

Then Kenz drew a girl with curly hair in the garden. Yousef drew a boy with messy hair next to her. Kenz drew a swing. Yousef drew a ball, and a dog, and something that he said was a dinosaur, though it looked a bit like a potato with legs. They both laughed so hard that they fell over backwards onto the blanket.

They took turns with the strawberries, one for Kenz, one for Yousef, until there was only one left.

Kenz looked at it. Yousef looked at it.

"We can share it," said Kenz. She bit it carefully in half and gave Yousef the other piece. Strawberry juice ran down both their chins, and they laughed even more.

Then, crack!

Yousef held up the green crayon. It was in two pieces.

His eyes went big and worried. "I'm sorry, Kenz! I pressed too hard! I'm so sorry!"

Kenz looked at the broken crayon. For a second she felt a little sting inside. Her perfect crayons were not perfect anymore.

Then she remembered Teta's orange.

"It's okay," she said. "Now we have two green crayons. One for you and one for me. We can both draw grass at the same time!"

Yousef's worried face turned into a giant smile.

When it was time to go home, they showed their picture to the whole family. It was a garden full of people, a swing, a dog, a sun, and a potato dinosaur. It was messy and crowded and wonderful.

"This is much better than my picture this morning," said Kenz.

Teta winked at her. "That's because now there's laughing in it."

Lesson: Sharing turns "mine" into "ours." Things are fun, but the people we share them with make the happiest memories.