vulpine
/ˈvʌl paɪn, -pɪn/
1. of or resembling a fox.
2. cunning or crafty.
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“Daddy, look what I made!” The boy said as he ran up to his
father.
In the
boy’s hands was a crude sculpture made out of Play-do. It was a mash-up of different colors and had
the rough appearance of some kind of animal.
Its body was a mangled mess of yellow, blue and red, and had a lumpy, oddly
shaped tube like body. Each of its four legs
was a different color, length and thickness, and each had a misshapen paw like
piece on the bottom. The head was long
and angular red clay, ending with what had to be a snout of some kind, and two
angular ears made of pink clay, each a different size. The tail was a bulbous mix of blue and green,
and stuck straight up from the base of the body.
“That’s
really great, buddy.” The boy’s father said.
Of course he did not mean it, but he could hardly tell a six year old
that the work of art was bad. In fact,
if his mother had any say, it would probably be displayed in a place of honor
on a table or bookshelf.
“Can
you guess what it is?” The young artist asked.
He bounced on his heels as he asked.
“Well,
sure. It’s…” The father hesitated for a
moment. “It’s a fox, right?” It did have
a kind of fox-like body if he looked at it the right way. He just hoped if his guess was wrong, his son
would not be upset.
The boy
giggled. “No.” He said, still smiling
brightly.
“It’s
not? Then what is it?”
“You
hafta guess.”
“Is it…a
dog?”
“Uh-uh.”
Those
were the only two animals he could think of that even remotely resembled the
boy’s sculpture. Unless it was not an
animal that existed in real life.
Knowing his son, it could easily be an imaginary made up animal.
“Is it
a real animal?” The father asked.
“Uh-huh.”
That took
away his excuse for not knowing. If it
had been imaginary, he could at least give the excuse of not knowing what it
was, since it only existed in the boy’s mind.
But if it was a real animal, there was no excuse.
He
thought about it as long as his son’s expectant gaze would allow him. He could not think of single animal other
than a fox or some kind of dog. It
partially resembled those, at the very least.
He decided to at least say something.
“Could
it be…a wolf?”
The boy
laughed. “No.” He was smiling widely. At the very least the boy was enjoying
himself. That was something. “Do you give up Daddy?”
“I
think so, kiddo. What is it?”
“It’s a
cat!”
“Really? A cat?”
“Yup. See?
It has the ears and the tail and the feet and everything.”
“Oh? Oh.
Now I see. It’s a very nice cat,
buddy.” It looked nothing like any cat
he had ever seen, even when allowing for a child’s less than stellar sculpting
skills. “Hey, why don’t you go show
Mommy, and see if she can guess.”
The boy
agreed and ran off to find his mother, leaving the man to wonder what cat the
boy had been thinking of when he made the figure.
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I've said it before, and I'll probably be saying it again: Always encourage children's artistic abilities, even if it's not exactly good artwork. You never know where it might lead in the future.
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