SILVERWOOD:henry

A SILVERWOOD COMIC

BY BETSY STREETER

©2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

WWW.BETSYSTREETER.COM

silverwood: a healing | page 1 ©2013 betsy streeter

“hey look, it’s picasso. drawing some more pretty pictures, picasso?”

“leave me alone,” says henry.

“why? you got naked la-dies in there or some-thing?” always the same stupid questions.

every day at 5th grade it’s the same.

“maybe i will,” says henry under his breath.

every day, the same thing.

“lemme see.” this is where someone snatches the book out of henry’s hands.

“give that back, or i will kill you,” says henry.

“really? kill me? you guys hear that? this little freak’s gonna kill me. or i should say, micro-freak. micro here is gonna kill me.”

silverwood: henry | page 2 ©2013 betsy streeter

these encounters al-ways end pretty much the same way - the sketchbook thrown on the ground, henry’s existence forgotten... until the next time he hits someone’s freak radar.

so henry also does the same thing every time.... he picks up the sketchbook, straight-ens the bent pages,...

...and goes back to drawing.

©2013 betsy streetersilverwood: henry | page 3

rosie usually watches henry draw from a distance. she’s only in third grade, so she’s pretty much invisible to the fifth-grad-ers.

one day, though, she sees her chance.

“i told my dad about you,” says rosie. “he says you’re probably guild. are you guild?”

“what’s guild?” says henry.

“guild is people who draw the future,” says rosie.

henry doesn’t know what to say to this, so he says nothing.

“i bet you’re guild,” says rosie.

“hi,” says rosie. “my name’s rosie.”

“mine’s henry,” says henry, keeping his head down. maybe this kid will move on.

©2013 betsy streetersilverwood: henry | page 4

“my dad says, if you’re guild and you draw something important, you have to tell someone,” says rosie.

“what does that mean?” says henry. this kid is weird. and talkative.

“like,” says rosie, “say you draw some-thing like an accident or stuff like that. you’re supposed to tell somebody. give people a chance. it’s not happened yet. just potential you’re seeing, get it? po-tential can still be changed. that’s why you have to say something, if you draw anything important. so if it’s bad, some-one might keep it from happening. that’s what my dad says.”

“um, okay,” says henry. are all third-graders this incoherent?

“one time,” says rosie, “i drew this cat, and it was stuck in a pipe, and it was all sad, and i showed it to my dad. and you know what he said? he asked me what color the cat was. and i said, orange stripes. and so then he went and looked in the yard, and here was this cat, with orange and stripes, and it was stuck. just like that! and we saved it. her name is millie. she sleeps on my bed at night. except sometimes she sleeps on my brother’s bed.”

“anyway, bye,” says rosie.

so that’s it. people can be so abrupt.

henry packs up his stuff and heads home.

©2013 betsy streetersilverwood: henry | page 5

if you draw

something im-

portant, you have to say some-

thing...

“i don’t think predicting the final score of the baseball game on tv counts,” henry says to his dog clarence.

but then... something comes out of his pencil. and he’s pretty sure, it looks like the kid who called him picasso.

that, and a car. going too fast.

maybe.

“what do i do, clarence?” henry asks. “do i show it to him tomorrow? he’ll just punch me and call me micro-freak. i know how this goes.”

That night...

©2013 betsy streetersilverwood: a healing | page 7

the end

screeeeeeeeech!!!

henry keeps his hands over his ears all the way home, first to keep out the shouting, and after that to muffle the sound of the sirens.

the school day proceeds nor-mally enough...

until it’s time to go home.

“somebody got hit!”

“call 9-1-1!”