Page 41 of The Friend Game

“Slow down, Zach,” I laugh. “You all arerealartists; the artists at the show are just people who have made careers out of art.” I flip back a slide and address Luke and Caroline. “This is the art show we’re talking about.” I run through my explanation once more, noting the excitement taking over Caroline’s features. She’s not vibrating or squealing like Mia, but I can still sense her eagerness in the way her cheeks flush and her eyes glow.

“Wow.” Luke lets out a low whistle as I finish my spiel. “What an amazing opportunity for you all.” He looks across the room at me. “So were those the categories for submissions I saw on the screen when I came in?”

“Yes, there are twelve.”

I flip back to that screen, so he can see, then immediately regret it when he says, “Pottery, huh?” My mind flashes back to our conversation my first day.Pottery is no longer a passion of mine,I’d told him. It was clear then that he hadn’t bought my lie, and it’s even clearer now as he raises his eyebrows and stares me down. “Wonder if you’ll have any submissions for that category.”

“What’s pottery?” The other Peter (Peter W.) asks.

“Pottery is stuff made out of clay.” Ellie replies promptly. “Aunt Hannah used to make pottery and my mommy has one of her teapots. It’s so beautiful.” She sighs with reverence, and I feel heat rise to my cheeks. I had no idea Jill owned one of my pieces. When I first started selling my pieces I sort of made a big stink about my family not buying them. I wanted to see if I could make it on my own, without my family buying my stuff out of obligation.I’ll just make you something, I remember telling Jill when she protested my stance. Apparently she ignored me. I can’t be mad though.

I’m too touched.

Like blinking away tears, touched.

Yup, I’m standing in front of 19 second-graders fighting back tears. This is worse than the time Jill and Max came home from a date to find me watchingLady and the Trampand bawling my eyes out. All while Ellie and Liam snored on the couch.

How they fell asleep during such a heart-wrenching movie is beyond me. Those dogs became a family for goodness sake.

“You canmakea teapot?” Mia’s voice breaks through my angst, and I manage to focus on her instead of myself. She’s staring up at me with a mixture of awe and eagerness in her expression.

“You can make a teapot,” I tell her, injecting a little too much pep in my voice in the hopes of making up for my watery eyes. “But it’s more of an advanced pottery project. If you’re interested in submitting a pottery piece for the contest, I’d go for something simpler, like a bowl.”

“My mom doesn’t like clay,” Mia says with a sigh. “She says it’s too messy and that it will ruin my nails.” She looks down at her fingernails, which, I notice for the first time, are perfectly manicured.

Her mom’s not wrong. Working with clay all day does wreak havoc on your nails. But I also don’t think that’s something an 8-year-old should have to worry about. Then again, I wasn’t gettingprofessional manicures when I was 8, so what do I know?

“You can just do clay at my house,” Ellie offers.

“Or we can do it here.” Peter S. suggests. “I want to do clay too. I bet I could make a lightsaber out of clay.”

“A clay lightsaber might not workout,” Luke tells Peter S. with a laugh, “but I bet Miss Garza has some other clay projects in mind.”

“Actually,” I interject quickly, “as fun as it would be to do a clay project or two, I’m not sure it’ll be possible. I mean, we don’t have a kiln here to fire the clay.”

Plus, I no longer have anything to do with pottery. Knock, knock. Who’s there? Not pottery. Nope, because all of my pottery has left the building and will not be coming back again.

“What’s a kiln?” Peter W. asks.

“I bet my dad would buy us one,” Kingston pipes up. “He likes to buy me stuff.”

“I think,” I begin, trying to get off the topic of pottery, “we should discuss the first project we’ll be doing.”

“I bet my dad would buy ustwokilns,” Peter W. counters Kingston.

“Mine would buy three!” Kingston retorts.

“That’s nice of you both,” Luke interrupts before Peter W. can offer for his dad to spend morethan my weekly salary on kilns, “but the school actually does own a kiln.”

“What?” I’m so surprised I forget about trying to change the subject. “Really? How come I didn’t know about it?”

He lifts one shoulder. “Well, probably because it’s technically not the school’s kiln. It actually belongs to the church.”

“The church owns a kiln?” That’s bizarre.

“We do.”

“But what does the church need a kiln for?” I cock my head, Holy Spirit clarity striking. “Is it meant for demonstrative purposes? Because the people of the church need to remember that the Bible says we are jars of clay, fragile, but possessing the great treasure that is the power of God?”

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