When school ended for the day, Stella and Justin headed to the local hardware store. What would be a better way to spend the afternoon than comparing different shades of paint? Stella was both surprised and pleased that the principal had let Justin and her go alone. She didn’t need any teacher impeding on her great artistic visions.

An eager employee came to greet Stella and Justin once they walked in.

“Welcome! How can I help you?”

“Hi. We’re looking for some paints for walls. Light blue or green shades, something refreshing but calming.”

Stella turned to Justin for opinions, but he just shrugged his shoulders. All the different shades looked pretty much the same to him. Stella was the one with the plans, he was here to validate her opinions and witness that the school funds were used properly.

“Yes of course. We have plenty. Would this be for the living room or bedroom?” the woman asked with a smile and started walking ahead.

Justin’s cheeks caught a light shade of embarrassed blush. He cleared his throat.

“It’s for our school. We’re from Northview High.”

“Oh gosh, I’m so sorry. I just assumed... but I remember now. There was talk that people from the school were coming. I think green could be a good colour. It’s calm but also refreshing.”

“Sounds good,” Stella said. She told the area of the walls so they would have enough paint for them.

The employee combined different shades of green with drops of white and put the paint can in a machine that mixed them all together before showing the result. “Looks good, right?” Stella said.

Justin nodded.

“We wanted one wall with a different colour, right?” he asked

“Yeah. I was thinking if we had light green coloured walls mainly and one a bit darker?”

“Sounds good.”

They got one more can of paint, some brushes, paint rollers and other necessary equipment. It’d all be delivered to the school in the morning along with the bill. It was great that they didn’t need to carry anything.

Stella and Justin stopped at a café on their way home. While they enjoyed their drink, Stella’s eyes wandered around the room, looking for cool but cheap decoration ideas. It was in the nature of a teenager —for the stupid ones at least— to vandalize and break stuff, so it would be useless to buy anything too fancy or expensive, much to Stella’s dismay.

They parted ways at Stella’s house. Stella had barely walked inside when she was scooped up in a tight, perfume filled hug.

“Stella, my darling, I missed you so much.”

Mother’s voice was muffled against Stella’s hair. When Marisa finally let go of her daughter, the corners of her eyes were glistening with tears.

“Mom, you were away for four days,” Stella said. She had a soft smile on her lips. She had missed her mother too.

“That doesn’t mean I can’t miss my baby,” Marisa sniffed and wiped the corners of her eyes.

“How was your meeting?”

“It went well. We reached an agreement,” her mother said. “I brought you some new clothes from the spring collection to try on. They’ll officially hit the shelves next month.”

Stella gasped in excitement. She had been secretly hoping this would happen. Her mother got her free clothes from her work, and when Stella wore them to school, it was basically free advertisement. The arrangement benefitted both sides, and thanks to it, Stella hadn’t needed to buy clothes in years.

“Show me. I want to see.”

Marisa laughed and led her daughter in the living room where a large paper bag rested on the couch. Mila was eyeing it but hadn’t dared to jump in to investigate yet.

“These are all from our new eco-friendly collection. Everything is 80–100% recycled or otherwise sustainable materials.”

“That’s so cool.”

Stella pulled shirts and trousers from the bag, spreading them on the couch and table.

“These look amazing. I’d love to take all of them if they fit,” she said. She was all for more ecological fashion and would happily show it off for others too.

She tried out a few of the clothes and modeled them to her mother. Marisa gave her adoring comments and suggested what clothes would pair well with each other. After the mini fashion show, Stella folded all the clothes in a neat pile, separating her favourite ones, and left them on the living room table, since Mila had crawled in the paper bag and was sleeping in there.

Mathilda called from the kitchen that the food was ready, and Marisa ushered her daughter to the dinner table. Mathilda had cooked salmon and roasted potatoes with a fresh salad. Stella’s mother was nearly as helpless in the kitchen as Stella, even though she did try her best. Neither of them could get close to Mathilda’s level of cooking and were extremely grateful for her help.

During the dinner, Stella got her mother caught up on school and with her tennis progress. Stella doing tennis had been her parents’ idea, since they had thought it’d be good for their girl to have a hobby. While Stella’s parents had hoped she’d be more motivated towards the sport, she didn’t have interest in pursuing it seriously. She trained her best and participated in tournaments from time to time because it was fun, but Stella had no plans to become a professional player.

Marisa was happy to hear of her daughter’s improvement in tennis, but the lounge renovation caught her attention. 

“I could give you the couches from the theater room,” she said tapping her lip, “I have been thinking about buying new ones.”

“Oh, that’d be amazing!”

Buying new couches had caused a lot of debate in the student council. They’d have to buy them second hand since the budget didn’t stretch enough to buy new, good quality ones, even if they assumed there would be some discount. Stella was 100% sure they wouldn’t have been able to find anything in better condition than their couches. And they could get them for free! It would save a big part of the budget for something else. Stella beamed at the thought. Justin would be so happy.