Image: Alvin Arnegger
Maise was pretty fed up with the whole portrait thing. To make it worse her brother Peter was not making it easy by running around the studio every time the artist, Mr. Turnbull, looked at his canvas and not at them.
“It’s going to take an eternity,” thought Maise as her brother in his sailor suit was once again placed beside her.
Peter was a naughty boy who took every opportunity to make Mr. Turnbull’s job as hard as possible. He would wait for Mr. Turnbull to take up his sketch pad before pulling the most hideous of faces.
Father had tried every method of bribery he could think of, Peter’s favourite picture books, even a colouring book with brand new crayons had been tried but they all ended up on the floor. Later when looking at the final portrait Maise was amazed that only yesterday the artist had managed to get a Peter face that looked half decent.
The last straw was when lining Peter up for the final sketch. The artist captured the two children seconds before he headed butted his sister.
Written for: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/2016/06/17/microfiction-challenge-1-childhood/
Morpethroad 
“Lovely, ‘sweet’, take on the image,” she smiled. “I can imagine Maise had a challenging childhood with Peter.”
Thank you my friend yes I think she did.
I think my daughter would sympathise with Maisie. As would I…I wonder what it would be like from his point of view, though?
Now that’s a good point…hmm another story in that..thanks for stopping by.
I must say, I did see the same sort of devilment in the little boy’s face. I have a similar photo of two of mine and there is torture written all over the older one’s grin.
Thanks Jane it will be interesting to read how others see the image.
Children’s portraits are so difficult to get right, seems to me. There isn’t the ‘character’ that painters put in adult portraits, but there’s something unique in each child that’s more like magic.
I agree, you never know what you might actually get.
Haha. This is hilarious. Making little kids pose for portraits, people were insane. I can’t really blame the little boy. But I love how innocent the kids look, and then you find out he head butted his sister. Classic brotherly thing to do at that age.
Ha, kids being kids Mandi…it must have been a nightmare for the artists…
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