Art class. Heavy-handed paintings clothespinned all around the room. Vertical racks draped with air-drying tie-dyed cloths. Fans whirring behind the clatter of little hands rummaging through metal canisters for gluesticks and scissors and paintbrushes.

Ms. Overalls, the art teacher stained with paint that wouldn’t come out after 100 washes, floated from table to table. Glancing over the backs of her budding artists, she surveyed their works, occasionally patting the head of her cleaning rag and stuffing it back down into her front pocket when it tried to wriggle free. As she breezed through the class, a patch of white clay pumpkins ripened into sloppy orange messes at the hands of the children. Except for Little Briefs’, that is.

Unable to find any orange paint at the art table he shared with T-Shirt and Cargo Shorts, his pumpkin remained an unripe blanche. And as the other children painted away, Little Briefs remained frozen, consumed by the scratchy nervous feeling rising in his chest.

“Your papa wasn’t very bossy today.”

T-Shirt’s voice startled Little Briefs. Glancing over at T-Shirt, Little Briefs watched him smother his own pumpkin in blue paint. Didn’t T-Shirt know pumpkins were supposed to be orange? What would happen to T-Shirt when he turned in a blue pumpkin for the art show? Would he get in trouble? Little Briefs hoped Ms. Overalls would notice and bring their table some orange paint.

“He seemed nice,” said T-Shirt.

Little Briefs didn’t know how to reply. The pumpkin stared up at him from the table, perfectly white and without a splash of color on its clay rind. Cowgirl Boot and Jock-Strap carried their pumpkins to the front of the class to dry and the scratchy feeling spidered through Little Brief’s fibers. He looked up and down the table again, hoping he had somehow missed the orange paint.

“Okay, my little Pablo Picascoats,” Ms. Overalls said. “It’s almost cleanup time. Finish up your pumpkins and leave them on the rack to dry for tonight.”

The hum of the drying fans filled Little Briefs’ mind, drowning out all other sounds in the room. The clock-on-the-wall’s second hand made its foreboding rotations. With one last desperate scan, Little Briefs’ eyes, though barely able to focus, spotted a splotch of orange nearby. At the end of the table, marbled with oranges and browns and pinks, the wet paint on Cargo Shorts’ pumpkin glistened under the art room’s lights.

“Cargo Shorts, do you have the orange paint?” said Little Briefs.

Cargo Shorts shoved another glue stick into his side pocket. “I don’t know,” he said.

“Is it in your pocket?”

Cargo Shorts shrugged.

The clock’s second hand made a pronounced tock--and then another. Cargo Shorts’ bulging pocket grew to unreasonable proportions. “I need to paint my pumpkin,” Little Briefs said. His voice grew frantic. “Give it to me.”

“I don’t have your paint,” Cargo Shorts said. He scowled and held down the flap over his pocket.

“Give it to me!” Little Briefs said. He reached across T-Shirt and grabbed at Cargo Shorts’ pocket. Cargo Shorts turned defensively. “Stop it!” he said.

Hearing the commotion, Ms. Overalls came from across the room. “Friends, what is this about?”

“Cargo Shorts took the orange paint and I couldn’t paint my pumpkin!” said Little Briefs. He began to cry.

“Cargo Shorts, is that---”

Ms. Overall’s voice vanished into the droning whir of fans beating air against the wet pumpkins and tie-dyes. One of the children dropped a canister on the ground and the metallic clang sheared through to the fraying threads inside Little Briefs. In a brutal moment, much like a sheet cracking the air when whipped over a bed, Little Briefs lashed out at Cargo Shorts.

“Give it to me!”

“Little Briefs!” Ms. Overalls said. She reached down and held back the crying Underpants with a paint-stained hand. Cargo Shorts fired back: “Don’t be so bossy!”

The bell rang and tears flowed from Little Briefs’ eyes. His pumpkin would attend the art show, a plain white lump of clay shaped by the hands of, and left unfinished by, a pair of Bossy Underpants.

---