Milo stomped up the school steps. His yellow backpack was bigger than he was. The crunchy leaves sounded like laughter.
He gripped the strap so hard his knuckles turned white. 'I don't want to go in there,' he thought.
The hallway was a river of kids. Milo pressed against the wall like a small stone, watching them flood past.
He found an empty chair by the window. Then he opened his pencil case — it was completely empty except for one tiny crayon.
Art time arrived. The boy stared at his blank paper. A girl beside him broke her blue crayon in half and pushed the bigger piece toward him.
Milo looked at the crayon, then at her. He took a deep breath and whispered, 'Thank you.'
He picked up the blue crayon and started drawing. A giant yellow sun appeared on his paper, growing bigger and bigger.
The yellow sun spilled right onto her paper. She giggled and added a blue ocean next to it.
Milo smiled — a real smile. The classroom didn't sound scary anymore. It sounded like the happiest place on earth.
Together they kept drawing. The sun and the ocean grew and grew until the whole page was full of color.
