Upon a Midnight Clear (Legend, Colorado 2)

"Yeah, what's more fun than watching cartoons?"

"Who's art kit is that on the table?" Quinn pointed to a box on the table under the front window.

"It's Eric's," the boy on the left told her.

Quinn smiled. Now she knew that Eric had the cowlick and Evan did not.

"Eric, may I look at it?" she asked.

"Sure." He shrugged. "I don't use it. My Aunt Val sent it to me."

Quinn retrieved the box and unsnapped the closure. "Ah, look at all these goodies."

The twins rolled their eyes. What was so neat about a bunch of paper and colored pencils and crayons and such?

Quinn drew out a sketch pad and the colored pencils and smiled.

"Well, you boys may go back to whatever walls you were planning on jumping on."

"Bouncing," Evan said meaningfully, craning his neck to see what she was doing.

"Off,"Eric added. "Bouncing off."

"Whatever," she said casually, without taking her eyes from the sketch pad on her knees,

and the lines and curves she was making with a light brown colored pencil.

It wasn't long before both boys had hopped down from their perches to lean over her shoulder, as she had intended.

"It's Miss Jane Mousewing." Eric pointed to the figure emerging from Quinn's rapidly moving pencil.

"How do you know how to draw Miss Jane so good?" Evan asked.

"Because that's what I do." She looked up at them, and seeing that they did not understand what she meant, she added, "I write the Miss Jane stories, and I draw the pictures, too."

They looked at each other, then said in unison, "S. Q. Hollister writes the Miss Jane books."

"Right. Selena Quinn Hollister. That's me. Quinn is my middle name, but I use it as my first name."

"Why?" Eric leaned ever closer until he all but hung over her shoulder, fascinated as the picture of the little mouse-girl became more defined.

"I guess 'cause my mother liked it." She shrugged as Evan closed in on her other side. "And because I have a cousin named Selena and it would be confusing if there were two of us."

"Then why didn't your mother just name you Quinn? Why did she name you Selena if she was going to call you 'Quinn?"

"Because in my mother's family, the first girl is always named Selena, after my mother's great-aunt. But my mom's brother had a little girl before I was born, and he had named her Selena. So my cousin got to be called Selena and I got to be called by my middle name."

"Hmmm." They both nodded, and leaned just a little closer.

"So, do you have any of the Miss Jane books?" Quinn asked.

"No," Eric told her, "but our teacher read them to us at nursery school sometimes."

"They're girls' books," Evan sneered. "We dont read girls' books."

"Miss Jane is not just for girls." Quinn fixed him with a stare. "What makes you think she's just for girls?"

" 'Cause she's a girl mouse. And because she does girl things."