Free The Christmas Portrait by Phyllis Clark Nichols Page B

watch.”
    That meant it’d be a Western tonight. Daddy said we would take a vote, but he took turns voting with Chesler and then with me. So it wasn’t really voting. It was Chesler’s turn tonight. Most of the time I picked something Daddy and Chesler liked to watch anyway. Getting them to watch a movie kept them busy so I had time to think or draw.
    We were running up the stairs when Daddy hollered, “Hey, you want popcorn or marshmallows?”
    I yelled, “Popcorn!” I grabbed Chesler’s arm and gave him the eye.
    Chesler yelled, “Marshmallows!”
    That way we got both. When we got to the top of the stairs, we made our thumbs-up sign, curling our fingers and shaking hands and doing a thumbs-up and touching thumbs. Uncle Luke taught us that sign. He said that he and Daddy learned to do it when they were boys as a sign they were brothers and they stuck together.
    Chesler could be annoying, but as his big sister I had to look out for him. That was on one of the lists Mama made for me. One list was about helping Daddy because Daddy wasn’t so good at remembering things, like taking out the trash before it smelled, and making the grocery list before we went shopping, and remembering everybody’s birthdays. Another list was about helping Chesler. I was five years older than Chesler, so I already knew things he didn’t know yet. Mama wanted me to help him learn to read, and to make sure he brushed his teeth and his hair, and to remind him about being kind so he could put smiley faces on his calendar.
    And Mama wanted me to wake Chesler up and start the day happy. That was the hardest thing on my list.
    As I put on my fuzzy slippers, I heard Chesler running down the stairs, and I could already smell popcorn. I headed for the den. I was right about the movie. Cowboys and Indians again. Chesler was the only kid I knew who didn’t like movies with cartoon characters. We grabbed the blankets Granny made for each of us and wrapped up. Then we sat lined up on the sofa like blackbirds on a fence and passed the popcorn basket back and forth ’til it was all gone. When Daddy reached for the bag of marshmallows, I told him I was sleepy and wanted to go to bed. He said okay but not to get up too early. I took my blanket and started up the stairs.
    I wasn’t really sleepy, but I was tired of horses and shotguns and men spitting in the campfire, and I wanted to work on my gifts for Granny Grace and Aunt Susannah Hope. Daddy wasn’t big on shopping, and Mama always said a homemade gift was the best kind anyway.
    Before I got to the top of the stairs, I stopped. “Daddy, make sure Chesler brushes his teeth before he goes to bed. You know what Mama said about sticky marshmallows hugging teeth. They need a good brushing.”
    “Yes, Kate, I’ll make sure of it.”
    I had done what Mama put on my list, so I headed to my room. I turned the covers back on my bed and pulled my sketchbook out of my desk drawer. The second I heard the television go off, I planned to close my sketchbook, turn out my desk light, and jump into bed just like I’d been there all the time. Even if my light was out, Daddy would still come in to check on me.
    Before I started drawing, I got my page of stickers out of the drawer. They were just little yellow round stickers about the size of a nickel. I asked Mama one time why we couldn’t just buy some smiley-face stickers. She drew two dots and a half a circle on one of those yellow dots and said, “Why, if we bought smiley faces then we wouldn’t get to make our own! And that’s half the fun!” So I put big dots with glasses on them to look like Pastor Simmons, and I peeled it off the paper and stuck it on my calendar for today. I had made Pastor smile this afternoon when I talked to him about my favorite book.
    I could have put two stickers on December 18 because I made Granny smile when I told her I’d invite Laramie over to play. Putting that smiley face on the calendar before I went to sleep was as