CHAPTER 1
Nine-year-old Stella Sobak buried her hand into the box full of colorful markers. Where’s the purple? she wondered as her plain brown eyes peered inside the box. Purple was Stella’s favorite color, and any marker, crayon, or colored pencil that had that color, she immediately wanted to use.
Stella searched some more. She picked up the blank sheet of paper that she planned to draw on and looked under it. No purple marker. She peeked under the table and stood up from her seat, just in case she was sitting on it. No purple marker. She ran her hand through her plain brown hair to see if she’d tucked it in one of her ponytails earlier. No purple marker. She grabbed the box of markers and emptied it. Markers of all the colors of the rainbow spilled out on the table and rolled in all directions. Some even fell on the floor.
Stella reached for one of the markers that was falling off the table. “Yes!” she cheered when she caught it. It was her favorite purple marker!
“What’s going on here?” asked an annoyed voice.
Stella glanced up, no longer smiling. Uh-oh! It was her twelve-year-old sister, Nicole. Nicole was bossy and became exasperated at nearly anything Stella did. Sometimes Nicole even shouted at her.
Stella hesitated. “Um…drawing?” she finally said, feeling nervous.
“Do you really need to make such a mess to draw one of your silly drawings?” Nicole asked.
“I was looking for the pur…” Stella’s voice trailed off. Nicole had lately started thinking that she was very mature, and one of the things she thought she was too old for was having favorite colors. Nicole thought that it was dumb. The strange thing was, Stella noticed, Nicole wore a lot of yellow. Stella had the feeling that yellow was her older sister’s favorite color, though she knew that Nicole would not admit that.
“They are not silly drawings!” Stella said instead. She crossed her arms defiantly and glared at Nicole.
“Whatever,” sighed Nicole, tossing her beautiful wavy brown hair as she turned to leave the dining room. “Stella, pick the markers back up,” she ordered as she disappeared into the hallway.
Stella uncrossed her arms and began picking up the scattered markers, but she was still angry at Nicole. They never got along. They always shouted at each other and argued. Stella wished it wasn’t that way.
Despite being in a bad mood now, Stella soon had all the markers back in the box. Sitting back down on her chair, she reached into the box, only to realize she didn’t know where the purple marker she had looked so much for was. Well, I don’t feel like drawing anymore, anyway, Stella thought.
The problem was, there wasn’t much to do that gloomy Sunday afternoon. Mr. Sobak was working and Mrs. Sobak was visiting their neighbor, old Mrs. Grayson. Nicole certainly did not want to play with Stella. Outside it was gray and cold.
Stella decided to go upstairs to her room. Maybe there she would think of something to do.
