Banana

When she saw me, the wee girl ran over with her drawing book and crayons.  She lived next door to a friend I was visiting and knew I would always be up for drawing pictures with her.

“Can we draw a picture?”  She asked with big, imploring eyes.

“Of course we can.”    We sat down on the warm grass of the front garden where she carefully opened her new box of Crayola crayons.  Their bright waxy colour glowed in the sun and a fresh, white page of her drawing book was turned.

“What shall we draw?” I asked.

“A man,” she answered with no hesitation. “You draw him, and then we’ll colour him in.”

I picked up a black crayon and lightly drew the outlines. 

“I’ll give him a jumper, trousers, boots and he can have a big hat on his head,” I suggested.

Once the outlines were drawn, I asked, “Why don’t we start with his jumper – what colour do you reckon?”

She picked up a red crayon and said, “Tomato.”   Then with absolute concentration, she carefully coloured the jumper in the finest tomato.

After complimenting her colouring prowess I suggested the boots might be next.  

Upon careful consideration of the colours available, she picked up the brown crayon and declared, “Chocolate!”

So, chocolate colour boots it was.  Once finished she then announced that the trousers would have to be sky.  This clearly meant blue, like jeans, and before long, our man’s blue trousers were complete.

By this time, I was totally invested in her inventive use of colour names, and to prove I was with the programme, I picked up the yellow crayon and confidently suggested, “maybe his hat could be banana?”

She gave me a rather perplexed look.  “That’s not banana, that’s yellow.”