Chalk Juice-Final Draft

“Mama, bring us a towel,” Adam called from the back door.

Uh-oh. Why do they need a towel? I wondered.

When I had looked out moments before, my tiny artists were busily creating chalk masterpieces on the smooth concrete diamond in the middle of our red brick courtyard: temporary worlds unlimited in imagination. Being a staple in our toy box, the dusty chalk is used to write rainbow colored notes of welcome to friends coming over for summer cookouts or to fashion birthday party carpets complete with multi-tiered birthday cakes with more vibrant colors and artistic designs than any of my Leaning Tower of Pisa-esque cakes.

Hurrying to the door, I saw two little purple faces staring up at me. No, they weren’t aliens. They were Adam, then almost six, and Faith, who had just turned four.

“What did you do?” I asked in a tone not quite resembling that of Richie Cunningham’s perfect T.V. mom.

“We made chalk juice,” they chimed almost in unison. If ever the devil and an angel got together, this is the look you would see on its devilish angelic face: cherubic cheeks and wicked grins topped by eyes that said, We might be in trouble, but boy was it worth it!

“Where are your clothes?” I screeched.

Yes, they were naked as the day they were born. But this day, instead of red, oozy slime covering their birthday suits, they were wearing purple “chalk juice.” Head to toe.

Chalk juice, my children had learned from a family friend (a friend I would dearly love to get my hands on at this moment), could be made by wetting sidewalk chalk to form a pasty paint. Up to this point, though, they had used it only on inanimate sidewalks and concrete patios, surfaces that I did not have to wash.

Adam and Faith began to look a little worried as I repeated my earlier question with staccato succinctness, “Where. Are. Your. Clothes?”

“Outside. We didn’t want to get chalk juice on them,” Faith replied with shoulders shrugged, arms outstretched, and palms up to indicate that, of course, this should be obvious.

Well, it did make a kind of sense. They took off their clothes so they wouldn’t get them dirty—much the same, I remembered, as my mom said I had done at the age of three when my cousin Vanessa and I decided to go “swimming” in a black, silt-filled puddle. Vanessa had ruined her new dress.

“Wait right here. Do not come in this house dripping wet,” I commanded as I raced for the nearest Barbie emblazoned beach towel. I grabbed the camera, too. The damage was done—might as well get a cute picture out of it. Besides, this would make an excellent picture for their senior page in the high school yearbook. Hey, a mom has to get revenge somehow.

Retrospect is the perfect mom. She would have overlooked their jay-bird nakedness, applauded their artistic endeavors, and washed them up with cheerful admonitions not to paint their bodies anymore—at least, not literally.

I, however, am not. My response was not quite so cheerful or enlightened that day as I roughly scrubbed the chalky indigo artwork from their wriggling bodies until the tub waters—clear at first—changed to dusty rose, gentle lavender, and finally deep violet. Their glowing pink skin testified to the force it took to remove their joyful stains. All evidence of the chalk juice was washed away—except for the photo.

If you look at that snapshot today, you won’t see my scowls, of course. What you will see are the smiling faces of two children living completely in the moment, glee creasing their faces into grins, their spirits testifying that sometimes the fun is worth the trouble.