Sunlight pours through the big windows. Four corners buzz with clapping, singing, and shuffling stacks. In the quiet nook, a stack of picture books waits.
Wren pokes her head over the tallest book. She tugs her sleeve. "Which side am I on?" she whispers. The pages crinkle, loud and loud in the quiet.
Wren marches to the music corner. SLAP. Her waxy crayon butterfly sticks flat on the drum. The drum kid freezes, eyes wide and round.
Tap-tap-CLAP. Wren stomps the rhythm while the kid bangs the bright yellow bong. The drawing slides back, now covered in tiny red dots. Wren snatches it.
Wren clutches the dotted paper and hums, wobbly and small. Five notes, then stop. The nature table waits just ahead, leaves scattered like colorful confetti.
She lines up five leaves, big to small. The leaf kid stamps a pinecone in brown mud and slaps it on a blank card. Crunch.
Wren holds the muddy card in one hand and the dotted drawing in the other. The cardboard crinkles under her sticky thumb. "Now what?"
Wren stomps to the middle of the room. She slaps the drawing down, thumps the rhythm along the paper's edge, and sets the pinecone card beside it.
SPLAT. A squishy clay ball bounces off Wren's nose and flattens dead-center into a lopsided sun. Every kid goes still. Wren's mouth drops open. "Oh."
Hands press leaves, thump rhythms, stamp songs, dot drawings all over the big paper. Wren presses her sticky fingers flat next to the clay sun. The paper rustles. The whole room hums.