Emma spreads her sketchbook on a picnic blanket and ties red balloons to the bench. She sets out a plate of cookie sandwiches at the sunny park.
She flips open her drawings — a basketball hoop, a football goal, a racing track — and waits. The bench beside her stays empty and the sky stays blue.
Emma traces the lines of her basketball picture again and again, watching the slide. A butterfly lands on the red balloon and drifts away.
She checks the path toward the park entrance. Nobody is coming. "Maybe nobody likes sports," she says to the balloons. The balloon strings hum in the breeze.
A crinkle at the edge of the sketchbook — a boy drops his shoe beside the blanket and stares at the football drawing. Emma holds out a pencil.
He taps the page and points to his sneakers. Emma redraws the football field with bigger posts. The boy's mouth opens wide, then he grins and does a tiny kick dance.
More feet thump onto the grass — a girl arrives with a basketball bouncing against her knee, a second girl carries a yellow cone, a boy brings a whistle.
Emma passes out colored pencils and points to different pictures: this one for basketball, this one for football, this one for a race. Everyone picks a spot.
The park suddenly fills with scuffed shoes and laughing voices. Someone dribbles the basketball into the football zone, someone else blows the whistle by accident, and the red balloons bounce and wiggle in the afternoon wind.
Emma picks up a marker and starts another picture as the sun turns the park gold. Her sketchbook lies open on the blanket, half-filled with new drawings nobody asked for.