Free PODs by Michelle Pickett

profound for someone so young.
    “I’m Katie. I’m thirteen. My best subject in school was art. I was in eighth grade and had an “A” average, like in your theory, Eva. I left my parents, grandparents and older sister behind. I think we’re all caught up. Now, back to my original question—what about the walls?” Katie stood and brushed her pants off. She looked around the room, waiting for our answer.
    “They could use some color,” Tiffany agreed.
    “Good!” Katie ran to her bunk. We could hear her rummaging around before coming back into the living area with boxes of pastels, markers, watercolors, and acrylic paints. “Let’s get to work.”
    “Wait, what are you going to do?” Aidan looked at Katie, down at the paints and markers, and back to her again.
    She smiled. “Redecorate.”
    I shook my head. “Katie, as much as I don’t like the white walls, I don’t want to use all your art supplies.”
    “Oh, that’s okay. I have a ton more in my bunk.” She stared at the pastels for a few seconds before selecting a handful and passing the box to me.
    “All right, then. I suppose we’re redecorating,” I mumbled around bites of cereal.
    I heard a chuckle behind me just before a hand reached around and took the pastel box from my hand. I smelled him before I turned to look at him. I already knew what I’d see—gray eyes. Not a dull, lifeless gray, but a shiny, silvery gray with just a hint of blue. Slowly, I turned and looked up. He shrugged. “Far be it from me not to give a girl what she wants,” David said with a grin.
    He walked off and sat down next to the boys’ bedroom door. It was about the same place I’d first seen him doodling when I entered the POD.
    I sat on the floor about ten feet from him, halfway between him and Katie. Tiffany sat adjacent to me at the wall separating the bedrooms and bath from the living area. George started his art masterpiece on the kitchen wall, Aidan and Seth in the hallway. Jai Li watched us like we’d gone insane. Maybe we had.
    Josh sat on the couch and rolled his eyes. “Coloring on the walls. I guess the people who fixed the raffle did pick a bunch of children.” A pile of candy wrappers littered the floor around his feet. Had he brought an entire suitcase filled with junk food?
    “You’re going to pick those up, right?” Tiffany frowned at the wrappers on the floor.
    Josh shoved another little candy bar into his mouth and smirked at Tiffany as he flicked the wrapper on the floor.
    Tiffany sighed, and I gritted my teeth. We’ve all got to live with each other for a year. Can’t he even try to make an effort to get along?
    “Two rules,” Katie announced. “Keep it clean, and let’s have some fun!”
    I wasn’t a very good artist. It ranked right up there with being a champion athlete…and the way I’d broken Molly Garner’s nose last year—while running track—was testament to my talent as an athlete. So rather than draw something completely heinous and force everyone to look at it over the next year, I used a paintbrush to write words.
    I wrote some of my favorite quotes. Tiffany stopped on her way to the bedroom and watched. “‘Some people drink from the fountain of knowledge, others gargle.’ Hmm, is that quote meant for Josh?”
    From the couch, Josh frowned and flipped her off, then shoved earbuds in his ears and started nodding along to the beat of his music.
    “Yeah,” I said under my breath. “He’s the gargling type.”
    “What other quotes do you have?” she asked, looking around me to see what else I had written. “‘When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice’ I like that one,” Tiffany nodded.
    I smiled. “It’s a Cherokee proverb.”
    I also painted some random words like peace, joy , and love . I wrote whatever came to mind, like I would in my journal. I did most of it down at the floor level so it’d be hidden as much as