The New Rule

Violet sat at the kitchen table on Saturday morning, her spoon halfway to her mouth, when Mom said the words.

"Starting today, you get one hour of screen time. Then we're done for the day."

The spoon dropped back into the cereal bowl with a plop.

"One HOUR?" Violet said. "One hour isn't even — that's not even — that's basically NOTHING."

"It's sixty whole minutes," Mom said, sipping her coffee like she hadn't just ruined everything.

Violet crossed her arms. She had plans today. She was going to watch the new episode of Space Cats. She was going to play Fruity Stack on the tablet — she was SO close to beating Level 40. She was going to watch those videos where people make tiny food in tiny kitchens, because those were important. Very important.

"What am I supposed to do with the WHOLE rest of the day?" Violet asked.

Mom kissed the top of her head. "I bet you'll figure it out."

Violet did not think she would figure it out.

She used her hour right away. Obviously.

She watched Space Cats — Captain Whiskers got stuck on the moon again, classic Captain Whiskers. Then she played three rounds of Fruity Stack. She did NOT beat Level 40. She didn't even come close. And then Mom's timer went off — that awful, cheerful little ding ding ding — and the tablet went into the drawer.

The drawer.

Like it was just some regular thing. Like socks or batteries.

Violet flopped onto the couch. She flopped HARD, so Mom would know how she felt about this.

"The couch didn't do anything to you," said her older brother, Davis, passing through with a basketball.

"Go away," Violet said into the cushion.

She lay there for a while. She counted the bumps on the ceiling. There were a lot of bumps on the ceiling. This was the most boring she had ever been. She was probably the most bored person in the history of the world. Scientists would study her. "Tell us about the boredom," they'd say, and she'd say, "You can't even imagine."

She lay there some more.

She rolled off the couch and onto the rug.

The rug smelled a little bit like the dog.

She stared sideways at the bookshelf and saw the big box of markers — the GOOD markers, the ones with sixty-four colors, including Turquoise and Midnight Plum, which were, if she was being honest, excellent colors.

She was NOT going to color. Coloring was not the same as Fruity Stack.

She stared at the markers some more.

Fine. She'd draw ONE thing.

She drew Captain Whiskers stuck on the moon, except in her version, he had a jetpack, and the jetpack was shaped like a fish. She used Turquoise for the fish-jetpack flames and Midnight Plum for the moon sky.

It was actually pretty good.

So she drew another one. This time Captain Whiskers was fighting a space octopus. She had to invent a new color for the octopus because none of the sixty-four markers were exactly right, so she layered Sunset Orange on top of Razzle Pink and got something she called Octo-Coral.

Then she needed to make the whole comic strip, obviously, because you can't just have Captain Whiskers fighting a space octopus without showing how it ends.

She got more paper. She got ALL the paper.

She was on her stomach on the living room floor, surrounded by a sea of drawings, when the dog came over and lay down right on Panel Four.

"Biscuit, MOVE. You're on the part where the octopus steals the spaceship."

Biscuit did not move. Biscuit wagged his tail.

Violet pulled Panel Four out from under him and kept going.

Davis came back inside, bouncing his basketball. "What are you doing?"

"I'm making a comic," Violet said, not looking up. She was working on something important — Captain Whiskers had just discovered the octopus wasn't actually mean. The octopus was just lonely because nobody ever visited the Octo-Coral Nebula.

"Can I see?"

Violet hesitated. "It's not done."

Davis looked over her shoulder anyway. "Wait, that's actually cool. Is that a fish jetpack?"

"Obviously it's a fish jetpack."

"Can I be in it?"

Violet thought about this. "You can be the guy who sells space tacos in Panel Nine."

"Deal," Davis said, and he sat down next to her and started drawing Panel Nine. His space tacos looked terrible, but Violet didn't say anything, because his little alien customers were actually pretty funny. One of them was wearing a top hat.

Mom found them an hour later, still on the floor. The comic now stretched from the couch all the way to the front door. It was twelve panels long. It had THREE different villains — well, two villains and one lonely octopus who became a friend in the end. It had sound effects written in big jagged letters — KA-BLOOOSH and SPLORTCH and TACO CRUNNCH.

"Wow," Mom said, stepping carefully between panels. "This is —"

"Don't step on the Octo-Coral Nebula!" Violet and Davis said at the same time.

Mom stepped over the Octo-Coral Nebula.

"Can we tape it to the wall?" Violet asked. "Like a mural? A SPACE mural?"

Mom looked at the wall. She looked at the comic. She looked at Violet's face.

"Get the tape," Mom said.

They taped the whole thing up along the hallway. All twelve panels. Violet had to stand on a chair for the top row, and Davis held the tape, and Biscuit supervised by sitting in the middle of everything and wagging.

When it was done, Violet stood back and looked at it.

It was really, really good.

It was better than good. The colors were bright and wild — Turquoise flames and Octo-Coral tentacles and Midnight Plum skies. The story made sense, mostly. Captain Whiskers looked brave. The lonely octopus looked happy at the end. Davis's space taco guy looked ridiculous, which was perfect.

"I want to make another one tomorrow," Violet said. "A sequel. The octopus should get a jetpack too."

"I call drawing the jetpack," Davis said.

"Fine, but I get to pick the color."

That night, Violet was getting ready for bed when she passed the hallway and stopped to look at the mural one more time. Mom was there too, studying it.

"Captain Whiskers kind of looks like Biscuit," Mom said.

Violet tilted her head. He did, actually. She hadn't meant to do that, but there it was — Biscuit's goofy face on a space cat on the moon.

She laughed.

"Mom?" Violet said.

"Yeah?"

Violet almost said something about the screen time rule. She almost said maybe one hour wasn't that bad. She almost said she'd had a really good day.

But instead she just said, "I need more paper. Like, a LOT more paper."

Mom smiled. "I think we can arrange that."

Violet brushed her teeth, climbed into bed, and pulled the covers up. She was already thinking about the sequel. The octopus would definitely need a name. Maybe Olympia. Olympia the Octopus, defender of the Octo-Coral Nebula, best friend of Captain Whiskers.

She fell asleep fast, her fingertips still stained Turquoise and Midnight Plum.