Gucio worries his picture is not good enough for art class. Then his rainbow begins to glow, and tiny colourful creatures start climbing out of the page.
Gucio sat very still at his desk, gripping his crayon so hard that his fingers felt sore. All around him, the classroom buzzed with rustling paper and soft splashes of paint. Children were making bright suns, blue seas, and striped cats. Mrs Kasia walked from table to table, smiling at each picture as if every one of them was special.
Gucio liked drawing best of all, but today his tummy felt full of fluttering butterflies. What if his picture looked silly? What if everyone else could draw better than him?
He bent over his page and drew a big rainbow arching over a meadow of flowers. He added round petals, tiny leaves, and a little patch of shiny grass. When he finished, he stared at it for a moment, then quickly hid the paper behind his back.
Mrs Kasia stopped beside him. "What have you made there, Gucio?" she asked kindly.
Gucio felt his cheeks grow hot. He opened his mouth, but no words came out.
Then something strange happened.
A bright shimmer ran along the rainbow in his picture. Red sparkled. Orange twinkled. Yellow flashed like a lantern. The flowers began to sway, even though there was no wind in the classroom. A tiny sound drifted out of the paper, soft and giggly, like someone laughing into a shell.
The children turned toward Gucio's desk. Chairs scraped. Crayons stopped moving. Mrs Kasia's smile faded into surprised wonder.
From the glowing page, one tiny colourful shape wiggled up, then another, and another. They peeked over the edge of the drawing, blinking at the room as if they had never seen a classroom before.
Gucio's heart thumped hard. He wanted to hide his picture again, but he could not move. The little creatures stretched their bright hands toward him, and the rainbow on the page shone even brighter...