THIRTY-TWO TRILLION AND COUNTING

A few weeks into the quarter, Mrs. Ling came around to all the art classes and made an announcement.

“Boys and girls, it’s that time of the year,” she said. “Time to start thinking about your projects for the Spring Art Show.”

But of course, I was already thinking about mine. I’d been thinking about it for months.

I’d never been in a real art show before, and I was going to make this the 195th thing on my list of 195 things. It was like the big finish line for Operation: Get a Life.

My project was going to be awesome!

Just as soon as I figured out what it was going to be.

“Remember,” Mrs. Ling said, “this is your chance to really show us who you are as an artist, as well as the kind of artist you might become if you continue on here at Cathedral.”

And that was a big part of my problem right there.

First of all, how was I supposed to show who I was “as an artist” when I didn’t have the first clue?

And second—hello, pressure! The Spring Art Show was my last chance to prove I belonged in art school. I still didn’t know whether I was going to make it back for eighth grade… or not.

In fact, it seemed like the more Mrs. Ling talked, the more problems I had.

“This is an open assignment,” she told us. “That means you can work with any materials you like, to create anything you can think of.”

That may not sound like a problem, but it was. See, it’s one thing when they tell you to make a self-portrait, or a junk sculpture, or whatever. But when you can do anything, it’s like getting a multiple-choice test with one question and thirty-two trillion possible answers. Good luck choosing the right one.

It didn’t help that all the students but me seemed to already know what they wanted to do either.