Sometimes, Ada would just sit in her room staring out the window, her mind working a hundred miles an hours. For a thirteen-year-old, she was terribly brooding. Nobody seemed to understand her or have much in common with her. Does anyone see anything, she'd wondered? Her parents had moved them out of the school where ?nigger' was her first name. But now, she was called different names that she didn't understand, like Oreo, Uncle Tom and Jiggaboo. And the name callers, this time, weren't white but black, like herself. After taking her usual after school shower, she'd throw herself face down on the bed and sulk until the Smurfs came on the Cartoon Network an hour later. Watching the Smurfs had a depressurizing effect.

And she had grown so distant from her sisters. They were living the normal lives of seventeen and eighteen year olds. They had boyfriends and were quite popular amongst their peers. Chinyere had even been accepted into one of the top universities in the country. Neither of them had much time to even bug her. Ada glanced over at the fashion magazine on the floor sitting on top of newspaper she'd spread on the floor. She had taken from Chinyere's room out of curiosity. After a few minutes of flipping through it, Ada had decided to make some improvements. The magazine glistened, its pages soaked in the black paint Ada had dipped it in. Ada turned back to the window, dropped her head into her hands and quietly sobbed.

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"See, it's true," said Ada to her friend Nancy. "All the boys in the cartoon are always darker than the girls, what sense does that make? In the Jetsons, George is white just like Jane is, so why is he darker? Same with the Flintstones and everything else."

Nancy shrugged. "That's because girls are supposed to be like that, I guess."

Be like what? Ada wanted to ask.

"What does it matter anyway?" asked Lilly.

"Whatever. I still don't agree," Ada snapped. She suddenly wished Nancy and Lilly would disappear into thin air, never to be seen again. She didn't care if they were really her only two close friends. How come all my friends are so damn stupid.

"Ah, let's just watch this," said Ada flipping to the Smurfs.

"Makes no difference to me," said Nancy.

"Me neither," said Lilly.

Ada's hands only twitched once.

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It all started when... Ada woke up thinking about the new painting set her mother had bought her yesterday for her eighth birthday. She had dreamt of liquid colors and the chemically smell of pigment and frog green paint drops on her nose. She rolled out of her bed and went to the bathroom and came back. She took the paint set and large sketchpad to the living room and set to what she thought it was that painters did. She stood in front of her "canvas" and thought about what it was she wanted to paint. When an idea popped into her head she began to work. For a while she followed the direction about mixing colors that the paint set came with. Then she decided she could do a better job and mixed her own colors. Once she got into it, she was impassioned. She closed her eyes and let her hands fly. A smile crept across her face. She didn't see or hear her mother walk into the living room. She only became aware of someone else's presence when she heard her mother gasp. Her eyes shot op en.

"Mom! You scared me!" Her mother didn't answer. She only crept toward what her daughter had painted, her eyes glistening. "My father used to play a guitar that looked exactly like that," her mother whispered. "I can almost hear the songs he used to play so beautifully."

Ada could only look at her mother. She wasn't finished painting the picture and she felt a pang of annoyance at someone having seen her work before it was finished, even if it was her first attempt. At the same time, that look on her mother's face made her skin prickle. "After your grandfather died, that guitar was stolen, never to be seen again. This painting is beautiful, Ada."

Ada only smiled, feeling proud that something she'd created evoked something so deep. Last year, during their trip home to Nigeria, her aunt had told her a bit about her grandfather's guitar playing. She'd said he'd sit on the porch and play lively highlife tunes that would have the whole village whistling and smiling. Ada could imagine her mother doing that booty-shaking dance she loved to do at Nigerian parties to her father's guitar playing. Since then anytime Ada heard acoustic guitar, she had thought about the grandfather she never knew. And the songs his lively fingers produced that she'd never heard. Her grandfather was whom she'd been thinking about as she painted.

After staring at it for a long time, her mother finally came back to herself. "When you are finished, can I have this to frame?"

Ada merely shrugged, she planned to paint many many more. "Sure."

"Good. Now, have you finished your homework? If you haven't forgotten, you have school tomorrow."

"Yeah, yeah, I'll get around to it."

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Ada stood looking at her locker, her eye unfocused. She picked up the banana peel that someone had slipped into her locker and dropped on the floor when she wasn't looking.

The two boys standing behind her giggled and elbowed each other.

"Really, he likes you," said the shorter one with puffy cheeks, pointing to his tall dreadlocked friend, who smiled bashfully. Ada knew he had big dark eyes and white teeth. Ada sighed and rolled her eyes. This is NOT funny, she thought, it's actually mean. Other students passed by in the hallway. Ada pushed a braid out of her face and slammed her locker shut.

"Yeah, right," she said quickly walking past them, her head down.

"Really, he likes you!" shouted the short boy behind her.

"Whatever," Ada mumbled without turning around.

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Ada's high school graduation was a relief. She walked across the grass past a group of girls who were hugging and crying. She was glad when she found her parents and sisters. Now she could leave this place for good.

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Ada: I did a lot of painting in high school.

The Olive E-Zine: Do you think as a high school student that you used your art as a sort of crutch?

Ada: Ha ha, well not as a "crutch" per se. It was a sort of almost therapy, I guess. I hated high school.

The Olive E-Zine: Why?

Ada: Why not?

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Ada and her family didn't arrive at the art gallery until late. Ada knew various artists from all over the country would be revealing their new art works at the gallery, too. She wanted to make a grand entrance. She'd actually skipped her English 101 course so that she could sit in her apartment living room and mentally prepare for the onslaught of egos at these events. Until now, Ada's parents had not allowed Ada to go public with her artwork. "School first," was what her father had always stressed. Now that she was in college and absolutely loving it with its in-depth courses and active artsy society, her parents felt it was finally OK. Her love for academics had blossomed and nothing would extinguish it, or so they hoped.

As soon as Ada began seeking places to display her many works, she found herself in the highest society of artists. She wore a silky moss green dress that, for once, was long enough to reach her ankles. She'd merely had to brush her closely cut Afro. Her mother and sisters weren't as surprised as Ada had feared when they saw that she had cut off her shoulder length mane of damaged chemically straightened hair. Her two sisters had actually surprised her with their freshly braided hairstyles. When they arrived at the art gallery, Ada's legs immediately began to shake. There were so many people and she immediately spotted dozens of painters she'd only seen in magazines and books.

The floors were carpeted with a lush wine shag. Some pieces were unveiled, some were in the process of being unveiled and others were still covered. One painting, or was it a drawing, seemed to be comprised of highly detailed doodles. Lines and arches and flowers mixed themselves into a soup of surprising logic. Ada couldn't figure out why it was pleasing to her eye. Another work showed a gorgeous mountainous landscape where nothing was the right color. The mountains were various shades of purple, the sky was a forest green and the trees were pink and yellow. Ada wondered what drug the painting creator was on. Surreal portraits, noble genre paintings, forgotten historical paintings were all over the place. Upper-class looking people milled around on clouds of haughtiness. Art critical eyes floated with pad and paper from colorful landscapes to modest murals to watery colors to serious portraits. And common folk savvy enough to finagle their way in had huge smiles on their faces. The air smelled of paint, expensive perfume and a hint of cigarette smoke. All light was focused on the paintings. Ada grinned to herself. She had never shown one of her paintings to the public and look where she was already. She put her hand to her mouth to stifle her snickers.

"There you are," said Mrs. Neumann, the owner of the highbrow art gallery and the woman who had taken one look at her painting and almost begged Ada to display it in her gallery. "We're just about to unveil your painting. Come with me."

"Oh, Mrs. Neumann...this is my family," Ada interrupted, motioning to her loved ones.

"Oh, I'm so rude! Nice to meet you all," she said offering a clammy limp hand to her parents and sisters. Chinyere and Iheoma, had to stifle their smirks. Chinyere was in medical school and Iheoma was in Business school. It wasn't often that they were in the presence of such people. Nevertheless, it didn't make them all any less funny. "You have a very very talented daughter here. I have no doubt that her painting will sell for thousands of dollars tonight."

"Really?!" Iheoma exclaimed. Ada sharply elbowed her sister.

"Yes, really, my dear. My gallery attracts the top artists and art buyers in the world," said Mrs. Neumann, holding her marshmallowy neck up high. "Now, Ada come with me, we've got an unveiling to attend."

As soon as Mrs. Neumann stepped in front of Ada's covered painting, holding the microphone, a crowd immediately formed in front of her. Not every work of art was special enough to be introduced by the gallery owner. Ada stood next to her, her long legs feeling as if they lacked bone. She stood so still that she felt her body would suddenly spring uncontrollably into action.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Mrs. Neumann deliberately said taking her time, to give more people a moment to make their way into the growing audience. "I'm about to introduce to you some of the greatest work I've seen in years. Her name is Ada Okwugwo and she's only twenty years old. Oh, screw it, let me just show it to you." There was a hush that flew across the audience. Ada nervously looked around, shifting from one foot to the other. She spotted her family in the front right and felt a bit of comfort. But why was everyone so silent? She glanced at her exposed painting and then back at the wide eyes of the audience then back at her painting. The room had gone completely silent. Was this the normal initial reaction? Maybe these people knew so much about art that they were busy analyzing and taking it all in. Maybe they were merely trying to come up with the best way to tell her how much the painting sucked. Then it was broken, ever so softly. Someone near the back sniffled. Ada tried to locate the sniffler. Then someone else sobbed near the front. A man to the left dropped his face into his hands. A woman in the center simply stared at the painting, salty water streaming from her eyes. Shoulders slumped. Faces frowned. Bodies shuddered. The entire room was crying, sniffling, weeping. Ada had painted the drooping daisy with its half dried half radiant indigo petals just after she'd watched the year's Miss America Pageant. After drying her tears, she'd painted for hours, her eyes open only to the sad image that lingered in her head. It had all seemed so sorrowful that night. All those talented women grinning to the point where their painted faces were about to crack. Their dresses restricting, their talents secondary, lined up like clones. She'd sat there in front of the television and watched the entire thing. Standing in the yellow-white spotlight, she didn't know whether to be happy or sad. Afterwards her father was anything but sad at his daughter earni ng ten thousand dollars in a day.

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