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Chapter 19
Innovative Technology
“Hayley’s in the art room,” says AuntSylvie, “she’s been drawing some magnificent pictures of the bathtub regatta”.
She and Walker amble slowly down the corridor, looking at the children’s paintings on the wall. The current theme is wildlife, a wild rabbit nibbling some grass, a smallholding with a few goats at play, a majestic stag on the edge of an autumnal forest with well proportioned trees and accurate colours depicting the deciduous and evergreen trees.
The tour of the gallery comes to an abrupt halt.
Cheerfully, bouncing up the corridor towards them, comes FullyCharged, “look, look, that’s my falcon,” he says, pointing to a detailed pencil sketch fixed to the wall.
“We saw it at archery practice last week, it took me hours to draw this.”
His proud falcon stares out at them with eyes that seem to follow people around the room. The eyes are piercingly good. Unfortunately, not everything about the sketch is well drawn. Miraculously the falcon, with one leg shorter than the other, still manages to balance correctly on its perch.
FullyCharged is the sort of small boy who seems to operate in only one of two possible modes, either absolute handful, or completely asleep. The staff nicknamed him FullyCharged, because that’s completely in character with the way that he charges around the place! A normal walking pace seems to be out of the question. The nickname FullyCharged also seemed a kinder option than calling him SugarOverdose which is what somebody had suggested!
Both aged six at the time, FullyCharged and Hayley arrived at the Noble Coliseum on the same day, and for the same reason. In spite of their completely different personalities, they became friends instantly.
AuntSylvie and Walker both praise FullyCharged, “what a marvellous picture, and so skilfully drawn”.
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