A Spot of Serendipity

She loves the look of her newly purchased composition book, blank lines inviting the scratch of her just-sharpened number two pencil. “See Spot Run,” she writes in careful print, mindful of the spacing between words. “Run Spot…” Frowning at the less-than-perfect fullness of the “o” in Spot, she scrubs vigorously with her eraser to make “Spot” disappear. The effort wins her a small smudged puka through the paper. Her face crumples and she fights back tears. An idea blossoms, composing her face. With regained confidence, she grasps hard at the pencil and begins anew: “Run (puka) run!”