Purity was frustrated.

For weeks, she had walked around with a pad of paper and a pencil trying to start a story with Prudence.  After all, her little sister, Bea could do it.  Why couldn’t she?

But writing a story was not as easy as it seemed.  Bea had a natural gift for it.  When Purity would start to write however, all she could see was her mistakes.  She would not get very far, a paragraph or two, before she would hear herself say,

“That’s so dumb!” Then she’d crumble up the paper and throw it away.  Ugh!  Why can’t I do this? It’s just a story!

Bea tried to help her, of course.  But getting advice from little sisters is not easy for big sisters to take.  THEY are supposed to know it all, right?! No, Purity was truly stuck.  What was she going to do?  Reading all of Prudence’s posts – day after day – on www.sketchyscribe.com made it clear that Prudence loved them both with a love that was just unstoppable.  Purity longed to reach out for her oldest sister.  But how?

When her writing attempts were going particularly badly, Purity would begin to doodle on the side of her paper.  Just little sketches of this and that:

Purity had been learning about the ancient tribes of the Pacific Islands in her Geography class.  These figures were easy to draw and they always made her smile.  They looked so “happy calm.”  She longed to feel this way.

Being a teenager was not what she had imagined.  Her emotions were in high gear much of the time.  She could remember when she had felt “happy calm.”  She had not felt this way for a long time.  She wondered if she ever would again.

One day, she was doodling after a test in school.  The teacher in her class was picking up the completed test papers. He walked by Purity and stopped.

“You have some real talent,” he remarked sincerely.

“Thanks,” said Purity.  It’s just a silly picture I draw sometimes.

“Do you know what they are?” Inquired the teacher.

“Statues on a Polynesian island,” remarked Purity.

“Not just any statues.  Those are the statues that honor the ancestors on Easter Island,” he said.

“Really.” Purity wasn’t surprised.  She knew her older sister had been planning a Polynesian themed Easter break. Maybe Purity had Easter Island in the brain?

“You know, if you added more detail, your picture would tell more of a story. The magic is in the details.” He took her completed test and moved on.

All of a sudden, Purity saw a flash of an image in her head.  It lasted for only a moment…

It was crazy beautiful.  And Purity was desperate to get it down on paper before she forgot it.  She worried she did not have the ability to draw as well as she needed to in order to get the story in the picture across.  Especially the hands. But she had to try. For once, her fear of losing the picture outweighed her fear of drawing it well.  She worked on the picture whenever she wasn’t working on something in class throughout the day.

When she got to her truck at the end of the day, she waited for her sister, Bea.  As she waited, she drew.  Bea arrived and they started for home.  All at once, Bea looked in the back seat and saw Purity’s sketch.

“Wow!  This is gorgeous, Pure!  It’s us! You, me and Prudence.  We are together.  We are on a beach in flowing white dresses and bare feet.  What a beautiful picture! What a beautiful story!”

“It’s not a story, it’s just a picture,” replied Purity.

“No it’s not just a picture,” remarked Bea.

“This picture makes you wonder all kinds of questions…Why are these girls dressed up on a beach!  Why are they barefoot?  You’ve started a story, Purity.  With one picture.  Now, we just have to fill in the details.  The magic is in the details.”

Bea sighed when she said it.

It was the kind of thing Prudence would say.

Bea smiled.  She decided to hang back, however and allow Purity to tell THIS story.