Read Fly on the Wall: How One Girl Saw Everything for Free Online Page B

jumped out a second-floor window a few years ago and broke her leg.
    Titus's self-portrait looks like a skeleton. Like he sees himself as all face and no body.
    Katya's is pretty good. It's her with her three little sistermonsters, all clinging to her and pulling on her clothes. She got her own expression just right: like she loves those kids to death, but they're making her insane—her hair all bedraggled.
    Shane made himself look like a guy with secrets. Lots of black, it's really dark. I don't think of him that way at all. He seems like he doesn't think about stuff—he's all surface and no substance.
    Well, that's not fair. Maybe I'm just mad at him.
    I thought he had substance in October.
    Brat's portrait is funny. He did himself squashed up against a piece of Plexiglas, so his face is all splayed out in queer shapes.
    Adrian's is dull, which is surprising to people who don'thave drawing with him because he seems like he's got so much personality; too much personality, even. You'd think his drawings would reflect that, but they don't.
    Malachy did a profile; it has a nice line. He was honest, too—you can see the texture of his skin in the picture. He's not bad-looking, but he drew every little mole, zit and pore.
    Cammie made herself look pretty.
    And me. Well, I did what Kensington wanted, and I won't have to listen to another harangue about my shallow, imitative comic-book vision. I went for soft fine lines and a loose style—exactly what Kensington likes the most. A total capitulation to the art teacher's demands.
    In books, the teacher is always right, and the heroine learns something. If this were a book about my life, I would have had some big realization doing this assignment. I'd have broken through my wall of resistance and suddenly experienced drawing in a new way—more honest, more fulfilling. My high-art selfportrait would reveal so much more about me than my cheapo comic book stuff ever could. It would be honest, true and emotional.
    But that isn't what happens.
    I have drawn the ordinary, ordinary girl I see every day in the mirror,
    so Kensington won't humiliate me again,
    so Shane won't laugh.
    And I look okay in the picture,
    and it looks pretty much like me,
    but there are no real clues to who I am, inside.
    Looking at the picture makes me feel ashamed.
    “Gretchen, we're seeing some effort from you,” says Kensington, finished eviscerating Brat for his gimmicky attempt at humor.
    “Uh-huh. I thought about what you've been saying.” Me. Talking crap.
    “Yes, you're getting more honesty in your work, and a more relaxed line,” she says.
    That poor fly is buzzing around Kensington now, and she's swatting at it.
    Ooh, she hit it
,
    but it's still alive.
    I hate it when people are mean to animals. That's why I don't eat meat
,
    or wear fur
,
    but the truth is, what really gets me is seeing someone leave a dog in a hot car
,
    or step on an ant for no reason
,
    or blow cigarette smoke into a cat's face
,
    or pull the legs off a ladybug
    or kill a fly just because it's there—
    all of which I have actually seen people do, like they don't even know it's cruel.
    Kensington swats at the fly again, absently, still talking about my use of three-quarter view in the portrait.
    “I'll get it,” I cry, lurching forward. I grab one of the plastic cups the painting classes use for rinsing watercolor brushes and a thick piece of drawing paper.
    “Gretchen, don't bother.” Kensington.
    “No, really, it'll only take a second.”
    “We're in the middle of your critique.”
    “I know, but let me catch it.” It's flying around for a second and then it's on the corkboard. Not even moving. Almost like it knows that me catching it is better than being cooped up in this stuffy classroom forever, with Kensington swatting at it.
    Cup over,
paper under,
there. Trapped
.
    “Will you open the window?” I ask.
    “That was fast.” Kensington pulls a key off her belt, unlocks the grate and opens the