Inki drags paper across the dusty floor and slams her crayon down. Forty-four! she howls. Button jars rattle. On the sill, a purple paint blob waits.
Her paw scratches the purple blob onto the paper. One. The smallest wobbly mark. She tilts her head. It looks like a button, almost.
A wobbly button. A snappy feather. A paint swirl that smells like blueberries. By ten, her lines go crooked. The crayon SNAPS clean through.
She chews the broken end, sharpens it on the floorboard, and keeps drawing. Line after line. Huh. Close.
Thirty. Thirty-one. Thirty-two. Paws tap-tap-tap on the boards. She scribbles a tiny thread, a curled paint chip, a smudge that might be a moth.
Behind the feather jar, in the dark gap, something tiny catches the light. A star. She pokes her nose in and draws it, quick and small.
The paper GLOWS. Every wobbly line lights up gold and violet and blue. Her ears flatten flat against her head. Whoa.
She curls up on the boards, chin on her paws, the glowing paper in her lap. Outside, the garden sways. Line after line. All forty-four. Slow and steady.