The Bold Beasties Clubhouse

On the Clubhouse wall was a very large picture.

Almost.

There was a blue hill, a pink tree and a river that curled round a corner. Above them stretched a great white sky.

Siegfried had been painting the picture for a very long time.

“Is the sky snow?” asked Richie.

“No,” said Siegfried.

“Is it fog?”

“No.”

“An enormous white sandwich?”

Siegfried looked up slowly.

“Have you had your lunch?”

Richie went to find it.

The sky was waiting for a colour.

Not blue. Siegfried already had a blue hill.

Not pink. There was the tree.

He wanted the colour of everyone coming back to the Clubhouse after a lovely afternoon.

He could almost see it.

Almost.

On Monday, he mixed yellow with a dot of red.

The paint looked like mango.

Siegfried liked mango very much.

But it wasn't his sky.

On Tuesday, he mixed blue with a little pink.

The paint looked like a plum wearing pyjamas.

It wasn't his sky either.

On Wednesday, Connor brought a leaf.

“What about this green?”

Siegfried held it beside the wall.

“It's a lovely green.”

“Shall we use it?”

“Not for the sky.”

Connor nodded and put the leaf back outside.

On Thursday, Madge arrived with a pebble, a feather and a very serious expression.

“I wasn't sure which colour you needed, so I brought three.”

Siegfried thanked her. He lined them up beside his jars.

They were lovely colours too.

None of them was his sky.

On Friday, Pandora brought a notice.

“We're having a lantern supper tomorrow. Would you like your mural to be part of it?”

Siegfried looked at the white space.

“I haven't finished.”

“Would you rather show it as it is, or cover it for now?”

“Perhaps cover it.”

Pandora left a folded sheet on a chair.

“I've saved you a cushion beside mine,” she said.

“Even if I haven't finished?”

“Of course. It's your place for supper.”

All afternoon, Siegfried tried to find the colour.

A little more yellow.

A little more pink.

A little more blue.

His jar of paint became the colour of old socks.

He put down his brush.

Outside, everyone was carrying cushions, plates and paper lanterns into the Clubhouse. Ford had made a stand for the lanterns. Madge was choosing somewhere to sit. Connor was asking who wanted an extra cushion.

Siegfried watched them through the doorway.

They looked like the feeling he wanted to paint.

He picked up the sheet.

Then he put it down again.

On Saturday, Richie came to see the mural.

“Still waiting?”

Siegfried nodded.

Richie looked at the jars, the little painted test cards and the big white sky.

“Could I see the colours you tried?”

Siegfried hesitated. He usually kept those bits to himself.

“They look as if I don't know how to paint.”

“My first sandwich rocket looked like a sock,” said Richie. “I put it face down when anyone came near.”

Siegfried glanced at his own old-sock colour.

“Did you?”

“You don't have to show me. We could go and choose the supper cups.”

Siegfried looked at the cards once more.

“You can see them,” he said. “They're just not right yet.”

So Siegfried showed him.

Here was mango yellow. Here was pyjama plum. Here was soft feather grey.

Richie set the cards along the bottom of the wall.

“That one looks like Connor laughing.”

He pointed to a warm orange.

“And that one looks like the quiet bit after a story.”

That was a dusky blue.

Siegfried sat beside him.

He moved the orange card next to the blue. Between them, he placed a little pink.

“Would you hold those up?” he asked.

Richie held them against the white sky.

Siegfried leaned back.

“Oh,” he said.

“A good oh?”

“A very good oh.”

He had been trying to put the whole feeling in one colour.

Perhaps it needed more than one.

Siegfried chose three jars.

He painted a ribbon of mango near the hill. Above it he brushed a little pink, and above that the quiet dusky blue.

Where two colours met, a third colour appeared.

He smiled.

“Would you like to paint a test card?” he asked Richie. “You can choose any two.”

Soon everyone wanted to try.

Siegfried put paper on the table and showed his friends how to rinse their brushes between colours. He kept painting the mural while the table filled with small, surprising skies.

Madge made a pale green she called Pea Soup Morning.

Connor made an orange he called Another Slice, Please.

Pandora made a blue she tried to label TWILIGHT, but a drip turned it into TWILIGH.

She decided that was a perfectly good new colour.

At supper, their cards hung beside the mural. The battery lanterns glowed warmly. Cushions made a soft circle on the floor.

Siegfried's river curved beneath a sky of mango, pink and dusky blue.

It looked like the moment before everyone says goodnight.

“Finished?” whispered Connor.

Siegfried studied the corner above the pink tree.

There was still a little patch he might change tomorrow.

“Finished enough for supper.”

He sat down beside his friends.

Pandora passed him a plate. Richie asked him to save the corner piece of bread.

The mural was behind him.

His cushion had been waiting all along.

After supper, Richie waved goodbye.

Ten seconds later, Siegfried waved back.

Richie popped his head round the doorway again.

He had waited.