Caring About the Colors

Tink.

Essie didn’t have to look to know what that sound meant. She did anyway, head snapping up in time to see a small red car driving slowly away, as if it didn’t have a single care in the entire world. The woman in it had one hand on the steering wheel, the other behind her head as she languidly took the corner onto a narrow dirt road bordered by two open, grassy fields. 

“Oh, no you didn’t.” Essie growled, dropping the tennis ball she had been throwing for her dog. Missy looked at her, slightly confused, before diving for it again and prancing off into the yard. 

Wielding a tennis racket, barefoot but angry enough to ignore the poke of gravel sticking to her heel, Essie made her way up the driveway. The sun overhead shined down on her blond braids in such a way that she looked like an angel with a glowing halo. If anyone had seen her now, though, she would be more akin to an angel of wrath than the kind that sang timidly in Christmas pageants. Her eyes glinted. Her fist was clenched over the tennis racket. Her mouth was formed into a scowl, which only deepened as she saw what she had expected to see: a tin can sitting exactly in the middle of the road, right in front of her mailbox.

“Oh no you did not!” She said again, with vindicated rage this time. There was already a growing population of litter along this road, mostly in the ditches that lined it, but this seemed a far more personal offense. The trash was on proud display this time, a glittering, bright yellow beacon that said “Look at me, a perfect illustration of the carelessness of human beings.”

Yes, it was a personal offense, but it was not by any means a new one. This was the third time Essie could remember that someone had simply rolled down their window and littered without even bothering to stop. Essie stomped out into the middle of the road, despite how piping hot the pavement was. “Yeah, thank you for this!” She said to no one in particular. A few birds flew out of the nearby tree in surprise. “Please, leave your trash anywhere you like, it’s not like anyone lives here!” A little madly, she gestured to her house, which sat behind a humble grove of ash and maple trees. 

She fumed silently for a few seconds, imagining several wonderful vengeances which may or may not have included rapping the litterer on the head smartly with her tennis racket. Then she took a deep breath of fresh prairie air, full of grassy, earthy, floral scents, let it out in one final huff, and took out the camera that sat perennially in her pocket. She crouched down and snapped a photo in the same way a policeman takes the mugshot of a criminal. Then she picked up the can, which was just a plain thing of iced tea (‘If it’s me time, it’s tea time!’). 

More slowly this time, Essie walked back down the driveway, muttering to herself. “...just shows the ignorance of people…don’t care that animals inhabit those ditches…people raise their children out here, for goodness sake!”

Essie, whose full name was Esther Alice, was a very articulate and well-spoken (but definitely not soft-spoken) twelve-year-old. She was a ways off from being thirteen, but she told people that she had already gotten there, because for some reason everyone seemed willing to believe that a teenager could be so opinionated and able to voice said opinions, but couldn’t quite accept it of an almost-but-not-quite teenager. She fit the image well enough, too, being tall with long hair and big feet. Her dad said that it had to be her fierce gray eyes that made her seem older, though. 

“And the second she opens her mouth anyone could believe that she belonged in college,” her mother often added laughingly. 

Essie threw the can into the recycling bin and tried to slide indoors without letting the cool air out. Missy scratched at the door a moment later and Essie, sighing, let her in too, letting more air conditioning escape in the process. Essie rubbed the terrier behind her soft ears and said, “what are we going to do with these people, huh? What do you think, Missy-moo?” The dog simply dropped the tennis ball at her feet and grinned pantingly up at her owner. 

“Who knows.” Essie kicked the ball down the stairs and followed it, headed to her room. The dimly-lit basement was cool, a sweet haven from the brutal heat. And Essie’s room especially was like a little oasis. The walls were painted a serene, cool blue, and the window was covered with dark curtains and only let in enough sunlight to make it seem cozy. It was somehow cluttered and clean at the same time – the floor, at least, was visible at all times, and Essie’s bed was made up more often than not. But the tapestry of posters, paintings, and other collected items that were hung on the walls and the various boxes of art supplies, notebooks, sketchbooks, and just book books made it seem more messy than neat. 

Essie shut the door behind her as she came in and went immediately to her desk, where she took out her camera and inspected the photo she had taken. Nice enough lighting, and the can was the obvious, prominent centerpiece. She printed it out and laid it on her most recent project: a large, plain piece of cardboard painted white. The only other pictures on it were of a crudely graffitied tree, some cigarette butts she had once found under the lilac bush, and the river.

There was nothing particularly special about that last one. Just dirty brown water, sandwiched in between two dirty brown banks. But everyone in Essie’s area knew that the river was nearly as polluted as the Hudson. What should have been the proud main attraction of the town was an unfortunate blight that everyone would have been happy to be rid of. 

Essie shifted the new photo around until she was satisfied with its position and glued it on. She stared at the poster for a while, until she felt a hand on her shoulder and nearly jumped out of her skin. 

“Sorry, sweetheart! I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“No, it’s fine,” Essie said, then clutched her chest in mock faintness, and her mom laughed, taking a seat on the bed. Like people tended to do whenever they walked into Essie’s room, her mom let her gaze wander over the walls, a faint smile creeping onto her face. 

“What’cha working on?” She asked finally, turning her attention back to her daughter.

“Nothing of great importance.” Essie flipped the board over, suddenly not wanting to share it with her mother. This was not because she thought her mom wouldn’t like it – quite the opposite. She was sure that her mom would think it was wonderful, and consequently want Essie to explain every bit of it. And she just didn’t feel like explaining. Explaining why she had taken a sudden interest in the environment or littering or any of it. She didn’t quite understand it herself.

“Oookay, Madame Mysterious,” said her mom, laying down on her bed and staring at the ceiling. It was also heavily decorated with paintings. Essie had fancied herself to be like Michelangelo when she had started doing them, though she figured that the way he did it must have been far more efficient than her attempts, which were performed with her dad’s step ladder, placed teeteringly on the bed. Most were of flowers. Daisies, violets, bluebells, bleeding hearts. And her personal favorite, cornflowers, which had taken ages to perfect, but were so beautiful that it was worth it.

Essie found herself fidgeting, wishing her mom would leave. She wanted to keep working on her project, or maybe just be alone. “Are you just going to keep lying there?” She said finally, wishing irritation had not crept into her tone.

“I like looking at your paintings.” Her mother responded.

“Okay, well, can you look at them some other time? I’m rather busy at the moment.”

Her mom got up off the bed, looking slightly hurt (although maybe Essie was just imagining that). “Okay, Sweets. I’ll leave you to your work.” She began to leave, then paused. “Anything you want for dinner, specifically?”

“Any pesto left?”

“Nope. Someone ate the rest of it for lunch…” Her mom raised an accusatory eyebrow.

Essie smiled sheepishly. “Oops. Right. Forgot about that.”

“I’ll maybe make some more if you let me show you how,” her mom said.

“I’ll pass.” Of all the arts, the culinary sort was the only that still held no appeal to Essie. She preferred to let her parents handle that one. 

“Have it your way. We’ll just have normal spaghetti sauce on our noodles.” Her mother slipped out the door and Essie waited for her footsteps to fade before putting on her headphones, picking up a marker, and getting back to work.

*****

Precisely one and a half weeks later, Essie was sitting in her English class, her now-finished project sitting face-down on her desk. She felt confident, in her favorite pair of frayed jean shorts and jangling bead bracelets, her hair pulled tightly into two braids. The final assignments of the year before school was finally let out were to be presented today, by those who had chosen the project over a three-page essay (so, the whole class). The topic, quite unoriginally, was “Something I Am Passionate About”.

Essie had been disappointed by this prompt, at first, until she had realized that while it would be a cause for many boring presentations from her classmates (how ‘passionate’ they were about volleyball, or football, or dance… as a sport, not an art, mind you), it was an opportunity to finally proclaim to a real audience her thoughts on… well, anything! An audience that had to listen to her, and maybe even would care, if she presented her cause well enough. And she was sure that she could. Even as the beginning of class bell was ringing, she was picturing in rapture expressions of complacency turning to interest, maybe even eagerness.

Choosing a topic had been difficult at first, of course. Essie’s ideas had varied widely, but she had found herself always drifting back to those ditches on the side of the road, filled with plastic and metal scraps and paper. And, to her own surprise, she had started taking pictures of these things. And keeping those photos, just in case it turned into something.

And it had. 

Now, here she was, ready to say to the world (or its equivalent: her 6th grade class) that she, Esther Alice, was into the environment. 

She was still getting used to the idea.

Miss Hiett, their fresh-out-of-school teacher, was sitting on her desk with an eager smile on her face. As the ringing of the bell came to an abrupt stop, she practically leapt to her feet and said “Alright, I was thinking we should just get started right away; try to get through as many presentations as we can.” She scanned the room, perhaps to see if anyone else in the room was as excited as she was. No one was. “Would anybody like to go first?”

Silence.

“I’m just going to go straight to the wheel if no one volunteers,” Miss Hiett reminded them, gesturing to a cardboard spinning wheel labeled with all the student’s names. Her smile faded a bit as still no one raised their hands.

Half out of pity, and half because there was no reason to delay it, Essie said “I’ll go.” 

Miss Hiett’s face lit up again and she asked “would you like the stand for your poster?”

“Yes, please.” Starting to feel a few flutters of nervousness in her stomach now, Essie stood up from her desk and walked quickly to the front of the classroom. She set the long piece of cardboard on an easel that Miss Hiett produced and surveyed it proudly for a moment. A few more pictures had been added to the collection – a creek at the zoo positively filled with trash, with two ducks poking around the mess half-heartedly, a vape just lying in the middle of a parking lot, shattered glass scattered in the grass – and she had written on the top in bold black marker: “DOES NO ONE CARE?”

Then she turned to her peers, most of whom were gazing off into nothingness already, and began. “I’m going to be presenting on the problem of littering and pollution in general, especially in our area. Though,” she added as an afterthought, “it is a giant problem worldwide.”

“Wait, are you like that Greta Thunberg girl?”

Slightly thrown by the interruption, Essie did not respond immediately. She was grateful when Miss Heitt rebuked the boy who had asked the question: “Henry, please save your questions for the end of the presentation.”

“I mean, she kinda looks like her, though.” Said another kid. “I mean, just with the braids and all that,” he added apologetically. 

“Jordan!” Miss Hiett said. “Please raise your hand.”

By that point Essie had mustered her wits and said calmly, “just because I am interested in the environment doesn’t immediately make me an activist,” and left the boys to puzzle over that last ‘big’ word as she continued. 

Steadily she plowed through the facts she had researched on the topic. Essie admitted to herself that she had not really expected this part to peak the interest of everyone. She herself felt somewhat bored.

But then the exciting part came. Essie began gesturing to the pictures. “These are all from my backyard and road by my house,” she said, and felt the same invigorated anger that she had felt when she had first come across these scenes rising in her. “For some of them, I have actually seen people just throw crap out the window in a kind of drive-by. Like they don’t even care.” Eagerly she continued, going on about how no one gave any thought not just to the earth itself, but the people who inhabited it other than themselves –

“Ope! Sorry, Essie, your time’s up!” 

Essie turned to Miss Hiett in surprise. “What?”

“I forgot to mention it at the beginning of class,” Miss Hiett shrugged. “You only have six minutes.”

“Oh. Um, okay,” Essie turned back to her audience and realized that all of them were still wearing that dazed expression. Some had their heads on their desks. Even her friends looked bored. “Well,” she finally said quietly, “I guess I’m just asking you to, like, actually care.” She took down her poster and began to go to her seat. 

“Hey, Essie,” Miss Hiett stopped her. “Can you see me after class?” Maybe she had meant to whisper it, but the whole class heard, and, apparently broken from the spells they were under, said “Ooh, somebody’s in trouble,” under their breaths.

Essie brewed silently in her seat until the end of class, when she went to Miss Hiett’s desk. “You wanted to talk to me?”

“Yes,” Miss Hiett looked up and smiled. “I think you had a lovely presentation” – lovely? Really? That’s it? Thought Essie – “But I just don’t think some of those pictures were exactly school-appropriate. You know, cigarette butts, vapes. Please ask me about that before bringing it into class next time, okay?”

Essie didn’t say anything. That was all Miss Hiett had noticed from the whole presentation? It was the pictures of the cigarettes that worried her, not the things themselves, sitting under Essie’s beautiful lilac bush?

“Okay, Essie?” Miss Hiett repeated.

“Okay,” Essie muttered, shouldering her backpack. Then she walked out of the room, tears pricking at her eyes. 

*****

“So, how was school today, Sweetheart? I forgot to ask.” Essie’s mother sat at the foot of her bed, where Essie was reading.

“Fine, I guess.”

“You guess?” Her mom frowned. “Presentation not go great?” By that time, it had been inevitable that Essie’s parents knew about the photos.

“No, not really.”

“Tell me about it.”

Essie reluctantly explained how none of her class had seemed to even be listening, how she had been interrupted twice, and how, at the end, her teacher had reprimanded her for showing “not school-appropriate” photos. By the end, her voice was hoarse from trying not to cry. 

“Oh, sweetie,” her mom said, squeezing her hand. “That sucks.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m really proud of you, though. You were really brave.”

“To present to my class?”

Her mom smiled and looked at the ceiling again, as though in thought. “Yes, that too. But I mostly meant that you’ve been really brave to care at all.”

Essie leaned forward. “Explain.”

“Well, baby, I think that it’s like you said – people are just complacent. But it’s more than that. I think they’re scared to care. It’s a lot of work to be concerned about this world of ours, and you might end up getting hurt because it is getting hurt. That’s just how it always goes with caring about something, though. But you” – she prodded Essie playfully in the chest – “have put that big brain and big heart of yours to good use. And that’s really brave. You can see the beauty of this world in a way your classmates can’t, and you’re doing something to try to protect it. That’s really cool, even if it feels like it’s not doing much.”

“Thanks,” Essie said quietly.

“I love you, Esther Alice,” her mom said, and hugged her tightly. Then they both laid back and looked at the ceiling, admiring the bright colors of the flowers. Essie pointed to one that sat right in the middle, a yellow primrose.

“That one,” she said, smiling, “I found growing in the ditch.”