Today started off as possibly the most peaceful day of my life. I woke up nice and early and well rested. I laid in bed for awhile just thinking of what I was going to do that day. My “sunshine yellow” walls seemed especially cheery today. I decided to work on the sketch before I headed to the kitchen to settle the disturbance that had awoken me. I was almost finished with it. I had been adding the final touches for about a week now. I wanted it to be perfect because it was of my best friend.

After about thirty minutes and one eraser later, my stomach urged me to the kitchen. I was extremely hungry, so hungry that I was smelling food! “Wow, I must be hungry,” I said to myself as I headed to my door. When I opened it I was blasted with the strong scent of bacon and the sound of eggs crackling on the stove! “What is going on?” I thought in amazement.
I made my way to the kitchen while I looked for a sign that would tell me who was cooking. I finally realized it was my mom. “Hey. What are you doing up so early?” I questioned. My mother works nights and doesn’t get home until 7:30 A.M. therefore isn’t up when I am.

“I got off around midnight.” She answered. That made sense of everything. “I decided to make breakfast,” she said, adding “Grab a plate the eggs are almost done." I did as she instructed.

That was the first time in a long time we had eaten breakfast together. It was very pleasant. After breakfast I decided to take advantage the warm May sunshine. I grabbed my sketch book, determined to finish today, and a sweat shirt in case it was chillier than it looked and headed to my favorite tree at the back of our pasture. As I climbed to the best branch for sitting on in the tree, I noticed our horse and her new foal were out enjoying the sun as well. I settled myself on the branch and watched the foal play for a bit. I just didn't seem to be in the mood to draw anymore. I propped the sweat shirt behind my lower back and closed my eyes feeling the warmth of the sun on my face and the slight breeze dance with my hair.

I must have dozed off for a little while because I awoke to something poking the small of my back. I stretched my arms out then pulled the sweat shirt from behind me and stuck my hand in the pocket to pull out the object that caused the disturbance. It was my ipod, I must have left it in there yesterday. I placed the head phones in my ears and shuffled through the songs landing on one I hadn't heard in awhile.

Suddenly creative genius struck me and I grabbed my sketch book. I looked at the drawing of my friend that I had worked so hard on, and with new eyes took another whack at perfecting the details. About twenty minutes or so later I was finished. I set the book on the branch near my feet and turned off my ipod. As I was winding the cord to the head phones around the device the wind picked up, knocking my book from the tree and blowing my sketches around furiously. I jumped from the tree to try and gather them before the wind whisked them away. Just as my feet hit the ground a huge drop of rain plopped on my head.

I gasped as the rain started to drench everything, and ran to the scattered sketches that were riding the wind to the pasture. As I grabbed each one I glanced at them to see if it was my friend's face, but I had yet to find it. Finally I saw the last one off to my left, lying lonely on the ground, being soaked by the rain. "Oh no!" I groaned as I ran to get it. Without looking at it I placed it in the protection of the book and ran to the house.

When I was in the safety of my dry house I opened my sketches to examine the damage. The ones I was able to get quickly had almost no damage, well nothing a little heat couldn't fix. "The moment of truth," I thought as I picked up my prized portrait and turned it over. The rain had streaked the graphite in places and blotched it in others. I stared in shock at the picture. I could still make out who it was, but it was distorted, almost how I imagened someone with a twisted looking-glass self image, a psychology term I had recently learned.

I let the picture dry and brought it to my teacher the following Monday. "Simply amazing," she told me and we decided to enter it in an upcoming show.

I titled it "The looking Glass." It didn't win first place but I didn't care.