The Enchanted Pottery Shop
© 2018 Bonnie K. Wellensiek
The Potter opened his great brick kiln and removed the cooled pieces of pottery one by one. The first piece he took out was a small dish that fit neatly in the palm of his hand. Before placing it on the wooden shelf in his workshop, the Potter held the little dish in his large hands, turning it this way and that, smiling with satisfaction at his craftsmanship.
Then he kissed it.
The little dish laughed.
“That tickles,” were her first words as, awakened by the Potter’s kiss, she felt his beard brush her side.
The Potter laughed, too, and set the little dish gently on the long shelf.
Next he awakened a small square jewelry box, a very large bowl, and several dinner plates. The workshop soon filled with chatter as the various pieces of pottery all began to exclaim with surprise upon finding themselves alive.
They struck up conversations with their neighbors, looking around in wonder from their places on the shelves lining the workshop. Precisely how they looked around I can’t quite say, as none of them had eyes. None, that is, except one little jam jar in the shape of a hedgehog, who soon took great delight in his small eyes, smiling mouth and sculpted paws folded across his round belly. But the seeing was simply something they could all do – a gift from the Potter. Like the gift of speaking, and knowing, and … well, everything.
The workshop was a wonderful place, with rows of wood shelves standing along the brick walls. Wherever the walls weren’t lined with shelves they were hung with paintings, for the Potter was an artist of many talents. The building stood on a busy corner in the city, and there were two big windows in the workroom, filling it with light. One looked out onto an alley and the other onto the street in front, where the pottery could watch the bright cars, the rushing people, and a small, green park across the street.
In one corner of the workshop, beautiful music was pouring out of a silver box with a whirling, twirling black plate on its top, which the pottery soon learned was called a record.
Before long, the little dish was joined on the shelf by an odd-looking mug who seemed to be squashed in, as if his sides had been squeezed in from rim to base on either side, while his clay was still wet.
“Hey!” said the irregular mug as he joined the little dish on the shelf. “How about this? Crazy, huh? I mean, wow!”
“Yeah,” said the little dish. “It’s wonderful!”
“What are you?” asked the irregular mug.
“I …” the little dish looked herself over, then looked around at the other pottery lining the room. “I … think I’m a dish. My sides aren’t big enough to be a bowl, and I don’t have any cup ring like those saucers. I’m not as big as all those matching plates over there. Still, I think I’m a dish, though I don’t know what I’m made for.”
“Cool!” said the irregular mug. “So you’re unique!”
Just then a new voice came from the little dish’s right. “The Potter sure didn’t waste much clay on you, did he?” It was a medium-sized bowl, and she was looking at the little dish critically, but not unkindly.
“What do you mean?” asked the little dish.
“You’re hardly big enough to hold anything,” said the bowl.
“Not as much as you can, that’s for sure,” replied the little dish. “It must be nice to be so large.”
“Hmph,” said the bowl. “There seem to be a lot of bowls bigger than me around here. And I’m plain as the day is long – however long that is. I don’t suppose he could be bothered to make me beautiful like that fancy vase over there.” She looked herself over without enthusiasm. Then she noticed the irregular mug. “What on earth are you?” she asked.
“Pretty sure I’m a mug,” said the irregular mug. “Handle, see?” He wiggled his handle, which made the dish laugh.
But the bowl just made a kind of clayish snort. “Well he messed you up good, didn’t he?”
“Mmmm … no, I don’t think so,” said the mug. “I’m pretty sure I’m exactly the way he intended me to be.”
“Huh,” said the bowl. “Have you checked out all the mugs around here? Big, small, novelty – they’re all round. And I don’t know how anyone’s gonna drink out of you without making a mess. See how the Potter’s drinking out of that round mug over there? If he tried that with your squashed-in sides he’d have stuff running all down his beard.”
“So maybe I’m not for drinking out of.”
“Some mug,” said the bowl. “But it’s OK. We’ll stick together, we three. Nothin’ special bowl, itty-bitty dish and squashed mug. We’ll make something of ourselves!”
The little dish was happy to have friends, but she had to admit that the bowl’s words made her feel kind of charcoaly inside. She liked the mug’s word better – “unique.” He was unique, too, and she thought his strange shape made him look interesting.
But the bowl was right about one thing. They could indeed make something of themselves. For not only did the Potter give all his wares the extraordinary gift of life, but he gave them the gift of choice, as well. True, he had fashioned them in just the shape he wanted. But after they came out of the kiln, he allowed them to choose their colors and designs for themselves.
In the days to come, the Potter introduced all the newly-fired pottery to his wonderful Glazing Room. There were shelves and shelves filled with so many colors and other things that the little dish felt almost dizzy with delight.
“Whoa … this is radical!” said the irregular mug, in his funny, irregular way of saying things.
“This is more like it,” said the bowl. “Now I get to run my own show. Maybe the Potter meant me to be a plain-Jane bowl, but I’ve got a different plan. I’m gonna make sure people notice me.
Being noticed was not a bad thing, of course, because once a pottery piece had decorated itself to its own satisfaction, the Potter would carry it back to the kiln for a second firing, where the colors would blaze into vivid, permanent beauty. Then the Potter would place the piece of pottery on the shelves in the bright, sunny shop out front where people would come from all over the city to buy his wares. There was always a lot of chatter amongst the pottery as they dreamed of who might choose them and where they might wind up one day.
Though the Potter gave his works of art the astonishing freedom to decorate themselves however they pleased, he was careful to give them lessons to ensure that they'd be happy with the results. He showed them the glazes and spent many days teaching the pottery how to use them to make the colors they wanted. He explained that the glazes looked very different in the jars than they would look when they had been fired in the kiln, and he posted charts showing them the colors that each glaze would become after firing. The Potter patiently showed them how to use the brushes, stencils, sponges, and other tools to decorate themselves just right, and took care to show them how to avoid mistakes that would spoil their work.
And he assured the pottery that he would be happy to help any of them that asked.
The bowl sat impatiently through these lessons. “Come on, come on, enough talk,” she grated. “Just let me get on with it.”
“I don’t mind,” said the little dish. “I just like the sound of his voice.”
The irregular mug said nothing; he was too busy listening intently to the lessons on colors.
At last the day came when the pottery could go to work in the Glazing Room.
The little dish looked at the rows and rows of glazes and special tools and jiggled nervously on the workbench. Partly because she was excited and partly because she was afraid she may not have understood all the lessons and might spoil herself.
“Don’t worry,” said the irregular mug. “Potter’s cool. If you mess up, just tell him before you go back in the kiln. He’ll show you what to do. After all, you’re his dish, Lil.” The irregular mug was in the habit of giving his own names to the other pottery, and he’d started to call the medium-sized bowl “Bo” and the little dish “Lil.” Lil rather liked it.
As the pottery considered how to glaze themselves, they shared their dreams for the future, and who might choose them from the shop.
“I hope I go to a busy restaurant,” said one of the ordinary mugs. “I love watching people on the street out front, so I want be somewhere busy. And I like the smell of coffee!”
“I just want to hold roses,” said a tall vase with a sigh. “They’re so romantic! Maybe even anniversary roses.”
“What do you want?” Lil asked the irregular mug, who liked to be called Reg.
“Who knows? There’s so many crazy possibilities.” When Reg said “crazy” he always meant it in a good way. “I don’t even know what I’d pick. I’m kinda thinkin’ I’ll just let the Potter pick something awesome for me.”
“Don’t know why you’d say that,” scoffed Bo. “It’s not like he’s done great by you so far.”
“Still say I’m exactly right!” said Reg, cheerfully. He was very hard to discourage, which irritated Bo.
But Reg and Bo (or the angry bowl, as some of the other pottery had come to call her) agreed on one thing. No ordinary glaze for either of them.
“It’s crazy colors for me!” said Reg.
“Me too,” said Bo. “And the Potter had better not try to stop me.”
“I just want to be pretty,” said Lil, “and useful.”
The little dish turned her gaze to the window that looked out onto the alley, where big dumpsters overflowed with trash and someone had sprayed rude words on the wall. “There seem to be a lot of ugly things in the world. I just want to be one of the things that make the world a little nicer.”
“Well it’s not like he made you big enough to be useful for much,” said Bo. “I mean you couldn’t hold more than a dozen peanuts. If I were you, that would make me mad.”
Lil wondered for the first time why the Potter had made her so small. Had he really wanted to save clay for other dishes, like her friend, Bo, said? The thought didn't make her angry. But it hurt.
“Well, then, you should be glad you can hold so much, Bo,” said Lil. “You’d be a beautiful fruit bowl right in the middle of someone’s beautiful table.”
“I’m not going to sit around holding boring old fruit,” said Bo.
Just then the Potter came in and Reg jumped. “I’ll catch you later,” he said. “I’ve gotta ask the Potter some questions about my glaze.” And off he went.
*****
The paintings that hung throughout the workshop were a great help to the pottery as they considered what they wanted to do with themselves. For the Potter’s masterpieces showed them the colors of a sunset, the shades of tulips with water on their petals, and the gray-golden mist of a waterfall, to name only a few. Even the music from the record player seemed to somehow show them colors. Reg especially loved the music – and most especially when it was loud and fast. When the Potter played a record by the famous guitarist Zachary Flash, Reg vibrated with joy so intense that Lil was afraid he might break.
For Lil’s part, she loved a song about notes of music turning into to birds that flew away into a sky of incandescent blue. Lil wasn’t exactly sure what the word “incandescent” meant, but she was sure she knew what the color would look like.
So, after many days of thought, the little dish announced, “I want to be blue. The bluest blue, like the sky in the song… or the swirly blue water in that painting of a boat on a stormy sea.”
She studied the color charts in the Glazing Room, selected a shade, and dipped herself in. She stayed for a good long time to make sure she’d be really, really blue. Naturally, she didn’t look blue when she emerged, for the true colors of the glazes don’t show until the pottery is fired a second time. This made Lil rather nervous because that’s when the glaze would also become permanent – so there would be no turning back. But she would have to wait for firing day to see the results.
Bo, however, did not hesitate. She had begun to dive into various jars of glaze days ago, and to splash other colors on herself with brushes. Day after day she wandered around the Glazing Room humming to herself and muttering “Oh yeah!” or “Ha! That’ll show ‘em!” and splashing more and more glaze on herself.
“What all colors have you used?” Lil asked Bo.
“I’ve lost track,” said Bo. “Lots of black, I know that. Lotta red. This and that. I’m just following my heart.”
“But shouldn’t you follow the color chart, too?” asked Lil, rattling a little nervously on the shelf. “I mean, those colors are going to look real different when you go through the kiln again.”
Bo harrumphed. “Are you kidding? He just put that up there to make us do what he wants. To keep us from making ourselves how we want. Well, I’m not going to play his little games. The Potter’s not the boss of me!”
“But since he made us, he kind of is, isn’t he … ?” Lil hated arguments, but this seemed so obvious that she felt she had to remind her friend, who had probably just forgotten.
“That’s what he wants us to think, isn’t it? But how do we really know he made us, anyway?”
Lil felt rattled clear down to her base.
“But of course he made us! He kissed me, and I woke up!”
Another harrumph. “Just because he’s the first thing you remember, doesn’t mean he made you. Like, you didn’t see him make you, did you? So maybe he was just the guy that found us and decided to make us do whatever he wants by telling us that.”
“But Bo, if the Potter didn’t make us, who did?”
“I dunno. Maybe no one. Maybe we just happened.”
“But we’re so perfect. Things that just happen … they don’t have handles, or rims, or lids like the boxes. They just ... just …” Lil was not as good with words as her friend, and she searched for the way to say what seemed so evident. “Things that just happen are like … that!” She looked down at a stain on the floor where a careless vase had spilled a pot of glaze.
“Perfect, huh?” retorted Bo. “Like Reg, the irregular mug?”
Lil fell silent, for she had no explanation for why her friend should have squeezed-in sides. But she also wondered, if Bo was convinced the Potter hadn’t made her, why was Bo so angry with him for not making her fancier? Lil held her peace, though, for she was afraid that now they really were having an argument, and it made her clay feel fragile all over.
Reg had not been there to hear any of that conversation, for he had been spending a lot of time with the Potter. He had chosen a bright red for his inside, with orange at the bottom. And outside he’d covered himself in deep purple. But he felt he needed something more. Reg said if he was an irregular mug, he wanted to be the most radically, perfectly irregular mug there was. So he was off with the Potter for another consultation.
Although the Potter let his wares work as they liked in the Glazing Room, he always seemed delighted when they came to him for advice.
When he returned to the shelf that night, Reg was rattling all over with excitement.
“The Potter says he has an idea for me. He says he’ll show me tonight.”
True to his word, the Potter came that night for Reg. Before lifting him from the shelf, however, he stopped and spoke with Bo.
“You have a lot of glaze there, my bowl,” he told her, pointing to some dried blobs. “Those spots may not fire well. And are you sure you know what that undercoat will look like when you’re finished? I think you may not be happy with the results. If you’ll let me wash you, you can start again, more carefully.”
“I’m making myself the way I want,” Bo replied, her voice brittle. “And I don’t need your help.”
The Potter looked sad, but nodded and turned away.
“Are you ready?” he asked Reg.
“Yes sir!” said the mug, wiggling his handle, “Is it going to be crazy?”
“Very crazy,” said the Potter, with a smile. “A great storm is coming through tonight. I think you should see it.”
He carried Reg to the window facing the street and gently set the irregular mug on the windowsill.
“It will be loud,” the Potter told him. “But don’t be afraid. Remember you’re still inside my workshop.”
“Thanks, sir!” said Reg, fired with excitement.
That night there was indeed a storm – a great electrical storm such as the pottery, newly alive as they were, had never seen. The stars disappeared, and flashes began to illuminate the distant skyline. Then the storm was upon them. Great flashes lit the inside of the workshop like daytime, followed by enormous booms that made the shelves shake and the pottery tremble. The little dish thought she would have crumbled on the spot if she hadn’t heard the Potter’s reassuring words to Reg.
But Reg sat in the window rattling with delight at every flash.
“Radical!” he shouted. “The lightning is crazy! Like the sun got knocked off its shelf and is falling in broken shards all over the ground! And when the lightning flashes, the sky turns purple – just like me!”
Lil had to take Reg’s word for it, because she had scooted back into the corner of the shelf where she couldn’t see the storm. Even Bo, brash as she talked, had scooted back next to Lil.
After what seemed like half the night, when the terrible flashing and crashing stopped and there was nothing but the rhythmic drumming of rain on the roof, Lil fell asleep.
The next morning Reg was back on the shelf and wide awake. “Aw man, what a show! It was awesomer than awesome!"
The Potter totally knew what he was doing! I’ve got it – exactly what I need! Lightning bolts! Aw, you guys, they’re crazy! One big bright shard and then lots of little threads. It’s like a crack in the night letting the daylight through! Only more than daylight!”
“Cracks aren’t good things,” pointed out Bo. “They’re like the worst things ever … next to getting smashed.”
“Oh, but not the lightning cracks. They’re beautiful! Regular cracks make us weak, but when lighting cracks the sky it’s full of power. It’s crazy! So I’m going to put lightning bolts all over me. It’s perfect – I’m already purple like the stormy sky! Only… should I use white, or yellow? And what shade of yellow…? I’m gonna go ask the Potter what he thinks…”
With that, Reg climbed down from the shelf and scurried off to the Glazing Room.
When he returned an hour later, Reg had a pattern of pale jagged streaks all around his sides. “The Potter said bright yellow to contrast with my purple. It will be amazing when I’m fired again. And check it out. He suggested some black swirls near the bottom – the Potter says it will kind of suggest storm clouds!”
“The Potter says, the Potter says,” Bo mocked in a high, ugly voice. “You’re such a good little mug; you do everything the Potter says. You’re not crazy at all.”
Even Reg was startled into silence for a moment at the meanness in her tone. Then he said, very kindly, “But Bo… the Potter’s the craziest one of all … I mean, he brought me to life. It doesn’t get any wilder than that. So of course I listen to him.”
Bo just answered with a nasty sound like the splorching of wet clay.
Lil felt very sad and dusty for the rest of the morning. She hated it when her friends fought.
What’s more, Reg had spent so much time away in the Glazing Room the last few days that Lil had been left alone with Bo more than usual, and they had spent a lot of time talking. Bo had said how sorry she felt for Lil that the Potter had made her so small and plain. It was so unfair, when he must have spent hours on those beautiful vases.
After those talks, Lil was starting to think maybe the Potter really did care more about the fancy vases, and even Reg, than he did about her.
And what about the cup that had gotten knocked off the workbench a few days ago by a pitcher that was playing around with a long brush? The poor cup had been smashed to smithereens. (That incident had shaken them all to the core.) What kind of crummy shop was this, anyway, Bo asked, where the Potter let things like that happen?
Lil mentioned, shyly, that the Potter had warned them all very sternly not to move around the table while holding the brushes, and especially not to play with them. But Bo said that if it really was his shop he could very well have covered the floors with foam so the pottery could do whatever they wanted, and nothing bad would happen.
Lil reflected that ever since she’d seen the cup smashed, the shop no longer seemed to her like such a safe, pleasant place as it had before.
The little dish began to wonder if maybe she trusted the Potter too much. The thought made her feel sad and porous. She loved hearing the Potter speak, loved the softness in his eyes and his rough, warm hands, where she always felt so safe. Now, hearing Bo mock Reg with “The Potter says, the Potter says…” Lil wondered if she was foolish to trust so unquestioningly. After all, she was just a tiny little dish. What did she understand of the world?
But her thoughts were interrupted as exciting news spread throughout the workshop. Tomorrow was firing day! Any pottery who felt they were ready would be put back into the kiln where they would become strong, and the true colors of their glazes would appear.
Lil had been dried and waiting for several days, so she rejoiced at the news. Reg and Bo were excited too, though Reg fussed a bit, wondering if he should have added any other “crazy” pattern to his design. Lil reminded him that the Potter had told him just yesterday how unique he was. (And she secretly wished the Potter had told her that.)
“You’re right, Lil,” said Reg. “It’s going to be awesome! I guess we just kinda need to remind each other, huh? You’re the best!”
“I don’t need anyone to remind me that I’m gonna be awesome,” said Bo. “I took care of that myself.”
The workroom was full of chatter late into the night, as all the pottery shared their dreams – and sometimes fears – of firing day.
But when they woke the next morning to warm sun pouring through the big windows, there was a kind of reverent hush among them. Soon the Potter came in to say he had prepared the kiln and to ask who was ready to go.
He also reminded the pottery that if any of them had second thoughts about their glaze he would gladly wash them so they could choose a new color and wait for the next firing day, one week later. The careless pitcher, who had been very quiet ever since the accident with the cup, came forward and asked to be washed. He said he had come to hate the splashy pattern he’d been working on with the long brush and wanted to be some simple color of the Potter’s choosing.
“I’m so glad!” said the Potter, with no hint of anger in his voice. “I already have something wonderful in mind for you.”
A salt and pepper shaker set, who had made rather a mess of one another while quarrelling, also asked to be washed and start over. A few other pieces were still working on their glazes and asked to stay behind as well.
Piece-by-piece the Potter carried all the rest of them to the kiln and arranged them on the shelves. Lil forgot her sadness when she felt his strong hand holding her. He placed her in the kiln and whispered, “Sleep, dear.”
That was the last thing the little dish remembered until she woke feeling very warm and solid. The pottery dozed in the warmth of the kiln for a long time, until at last it grew cool and the kiln opened to reveal the Potter smiling in at them.
He took them out and set them on a big table, where he’d propped a mirror so they could see the results of their work.
“Woooooah!” said Reg, when it was his turn to look in the mirror. “Craaaaaazy!”
He was clearly pleased beyond words, yet strangely with no hint of pride. “What an artist!” Reg exclaimed, looking at his glossy purple sides splashed with shocking, yellow lightning bolts and black swirls all along the base. He tipped himself to admire his bright red and orange interior. The wild colors seemed to bump up against each other in explosions of joy.
“The Potter is amazing! Everything he told me came out waaaaay better than I imagined! And – woah!!! Lil, check it out!”
Lil couldn’t help but catch her friend’s joy as she came close to see what he was looking at. Reg gestured with his handle.
“Look here on my side. It’s the same on both sides, see?”
Lil looked closely and saw it – the glaze had revealed a fingerprint on one side of Reg and a thumbprint on the opposite side, just where his sides bowed inward.
“It’s proof that I’m no mistake!” cried Reg. “Not like I ever thought so. But this proves it – the Potter wanted me just the way I am!”
He promptly did a little dance, tapping out a rhythm on the table with his newly hardened base. Lil laughed with joy.
Then she caught sight of herself in the mirror. And she grew quiet.
She was blue. But a very plain, dull blue. Not the incandescent blue of the sky. Not the deep swirling blue of the sea. Just a dull blue like the concrete floor in shadows. Her heart sank.
Not only was she little, she was somehow even plainer that before.
Just then, the Potter set the medium sized bowl on the table next to them, and for a moment Lil forgot about herself completely.
Bo was … hideous.
Most of her glazes had run together into a kind of pinkish brown. And running down here and there all over her were lumpy streaks of the weirdest green Lil had ever seen. She tried hard to think what it reminded her of. She had never seen such a color in the Potter’s paintings or in the street outside the window. Then she remembered – once she had seen a dog in the alley get sick after eating garbage. It was that kind of green.
To make matters worse, there were spots all over Bo where she had carelessly left dabs of wax that kept the glaze from sticking, leaving her with exposed bits of clay that looked like open sores.
Bo sidled proudly past them to the mirror. But in front of the glass she froze and sat so still that she hardly seemed alive. After a long, still silence, she suddenly swirled toward the other pottery on the table.
“What are you lookin’ at?!?” she screeched. “This is my style, got it? I love the way I look, and I don’t give a shard what any of you say, so just shut up, OK? Just shut up!”
No one had actually said a word.
The Potter came then to carry the pottery back to their old familiar shelves in the workshop, where they would spend one more night before going out front to the shop.
The three friends sat in silence for a long time. Finally, Reg said, “Hey, Bo, I – “
“Shut up,” she said. “I don’t need to hear your opinion. I made myself just the way I want to be.”
“I … I was just going to say … I really like that color of red right there. It’s really pretty.” He pointed with his handle to a streak where the pinkish brown had darkened to a kind of maroon. “What colors did you put in it?”
Bo made a little movement that is what a bowl does when it shrugs.
“Well … it’s nice,” said Reg.
His joy at his own colors seemed to have been lost in worry for his friend.
The afternoon turned into evening, then to moonlit night, and at last the workshop fell silent as the pottery all drifted off to sleep.
But Lil sat awake on the shelf. Bo’s ugly glaze and uglier behavior, combined with disappointment at her own dull finish, left the little dish feeling bluer than her glaze.
She heard a small scraping on the shelf next to her and whispered, “Bo? Are you awake?”
“Shut up,” Bo whispered, and Lil shrank back. Then Bo added, “I don’t want to wake anyone up.”
After a silence, Bo whispered more softly, “What are you doing awake?”
“I … I just can’t sleep,” whispered Lil. “I had looked forward to today so much, and now it’s … it’s such a disappointing day.”
“What do you mean?” asked Bo, her voice sharp as a broken edge.
Lil was still a little afraid of Bo, but she has happy her friend was at least talking to her. And in the moonlight, Bo’s ugly green didn’t look quite so bad.
“I wanted to be blue, like the sky,” said Lil. “Or blue like the deep sea. And I tried to follow the Potter’s instructions and the color chart so carefully, but now I’m just a dull, sad blue.” Her voice almost cracked with her sadness.
“Oh.” Bo sounded relieved. “Well, it’s not your fault, is it? If the Potter had helped you, maybe you could have gotten what you wanted. But he didn’t, did he? He sure seemed to have plenty of time to help Reg get all glazy-crazy. But I guess he couldn’t be bothered with us.”
She’s right, thought Lil. (For the fact is, even the wisest dishes can sometimes think very foolish thoughts.) It did seem, thought Lil, that the Potter had spent a lot of time helping Reg with his glaze, and none helping her. Listening to Bo’s angry words, it didn’t occur to Lil that she’d never actually asked the Potter for his help.
Lil started to feel hard inside and kind of cold. She wished she could be back inside the warm kiln. But now she would be a dull, melancholy blue forever, and the Potter didn’t seem to care.
“I guess not,” said Lil.
“Well, you know what?” said Bo, “I don’t care. In fact, I don’t give a shard!”
“You don’t?”
“Nope. I don’t need him. I can make myself whatever I want to be. And so can you.”
“How?” said Lil. “It’s too late. Once we go through the second firing, we can’t change our glaze.”
“Ha!” said Bo, so loud that a plate on a nearby shelf stirred. She lowered her voice back to a whisper. “Ha. That’s just another one of the Potter’s lies. But I’m done listening.” (It crossed Lil’s mind, for an instant, that Bo had never really listened in the first place, but she was so overcome by her friend’s words that she pushed the thought aside.)
“OK, I’ll let you in on a secret,” Bo went on. “I’m not completely satisfied with the way I came out. Don’t get me wrong – it’s my style, and it’s great and all. But I still want to make a few changes. So I’m going to do a little work, tonight – if you get my meaning – and then I’m going back in the kiln.”
Lil was stunned.
“But… but you can’t re-glaze yourself after you’re fired. The Potter said– ”
“You don’t get it!” Bo hissed, almost forgetting to whisper. “Lil, you’ve got to get over your obsession with the Potter! What has he ever done for you? He’s just a guy that wants to tell us what to do. He wants to keep us from living our lives the way we want to, and it’s not fair! But I’m my own bowl. I’m doing what I feel like, from now on. And you can, too.”
Lil couldn’t speak.
“Lil, if you want to be a different blue, then be a different blue! Listen, I’m going back to the Glazing Room tonight. I’m going to … you know, touch myself up … just a little. Make myself perfect. Come with me.”
“Bo! We’re not allowed in the Glazing Room by ourselves. The Potter said – ”
“Shards, Lil!” Bo’s voice was angry. “Stop it!”
Lil shrank back. Bo’s voice softened, but only a little.
“Think of it. You can dip yourself in every blue there is until you’re bluer than the ocean in that stupid painting. People will look at you and say, ‘Smash! There goes one blue dish!’”
The idea was too big, too overwhelming. And somewhere right in the center of Lil, there was a little spot that felt like soft clay, and it was telling her that Bo was wrong. But the thought of being an ugly, dull blue for the rest of her life seemed unbearable, if there was really something she could do to change it.
“Come on,” said Bo. “It’s not like we’re hurting anyone. And it’ll be more fun together.”
Lil had felt so brittle since she’d seen herself in the mirror that morning, that when Bo spoke of having fun together – of friendship – Lil gave in.
After all, she reasoned (as dishes always tend to reason when they are talking themselves into a big mistake), they really weren’t hurting anyone. The Potter had given them leave to use any glaze they wanted. So if they just went into the Glazing Room at a different time, it really wasn’t that big a deal. And since she’d obviously gotten her color wrong somehow, maybe she had misunderstood other things. Maybe when the Potter said, “Never go into the Glazing Room alone,” he hadn’t really meant never ever. In fact, Lil thought, suddenly cheered, she wasn’t going alone. She was going with Bo.
The sensible side of Lil, which was actually quite big for such a small dish, told her that was nonsense and she knew exactly what the Potter had meant. But in the dark of the workroom, Lil had decided to listen to Bo, instead of her sensible side.
“OK,” said Lil. “I’ll go along, just to keep you company. But I probably won’t use any glaze. I’ll just watch.”
“Sure, whatever,” said Bo. “Come on, before someone wakes up.”
Together the bowl and dish made their way down from the shelf and across the floor toward the door to the Glazing Room, trying not to rattle as they went. Lil wasn’t sure if she was relieved or sorry when they found the door open.
They slipped inside and climbed up to the painting table. Above them loomed the shelves of glazes. Bo climbed up and brought down a big jar of black glaze, which she poured over herself, leaving a mess on the table. Next, she got a brush and dipped it into red. In big, crooked letters across the inside of herself, she painted one of the ugly words Lil had seen on the wall in the ally.
Lil tried hard not to gasp when she saw what Bo had written. Why would Bo want to make the world – to make herself – so ugly? Lil almost fled back to the workshop.
“So what’s it gonna be, little dish?” Bo mocked. “You going to be a good little Potter’s dish all your life? Just sitting around being all quiet and small and hoping someone likes boring blue. Or are you going to actually do something? You wanna be pretty? So be pretty!”
Lil rattled nervously on the table.
“This is it, Lil – this is your chance. You gonna let it go?”
“Well …” she looked up at the jars marked ‘blue.’ “… maybe just a tiny bit.” After all, a different shade of blue on top of her glaze surely couldn’t hurt. And maybe it would help.
“Here,” said Bo, “Try a brush.”
From the other side of the table she flipped a brush toward Lil. It was a big brush with a thick wooden handle, and Lil suddenly realized that when it landed on the table it would make a terrible thump. In a panic, Lil jumped (as much as a little dish can) to try and intercept it. But she collided with it instead and sent it flipping up into the air, end-over-end.
The brush spun up toward the shelf directly above Lil and hit a small, mostly empty, glass jar of white glaze, which Bo had left hanging partway over the edge of the shelf when she’d shuffled past it to get the red.
The wooden handle of the brush hit the bottom of the jar with a sharp “CLINK!” and before Lil knew what was happening, the jar was plummeting toward her from above. The little dish managed to leap out of the way just as the empty jar hit the table and smashed.
But she hadn’t leapt far enough.
Lil was splattered in white glaze and one heavy, jagged shard of glass came down on her like an arrow.
Lil screamed as she felt herself crack. The point of the glass shard had pierced a neat hole right through Lil’s curved side, and it stayed embedded there.
Through her own scream she heard Bo swear and shuffle down from the workbench and out the door.
It suddenly became very, very quiet.
Lil began to shake. Silently she trembled – with shock, and shame, and despair.
Then her wail shattered the silence. Great sobs of anguish shook Lil till she rattled. And the heartbreaking cry of a broken dish echoed through the shop.
Then the Potter was there, bending over her.
“Oh, my little dish,” he said. And the tenderness in his eyes hurt almost as much as the shard of glass in her side. “Oh, my little one. What have you done?”
“I … I …” Lil gasped and gasped again before she could speak. “I … tried to … fix myself. I came out so … plain … and … dull. I thought if I … Oh, I know … I knew … it was wrong. And now … now I’m broken! I’m ruined forever!”
And she sobbed anew with such utter desolation it seemed she might crumble to pieces.
“If you were unhappy with the way you were, why didn’t you come to me and ask for help?” said the Potter.
Lil was speechless. Why hadn’t she? It seemed so simple; she couldn’t imagine why she had not.
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “If only I had. But now it’s too late.”
The Potter picked up the little dish and cupped her in the palm of his hand. “My little one,” he said, “it’s not too late. You can ask me now, and I’ll help you.”
“But I’m broken,” said Lil. “I’ll never be good for anything now.”
“Let me be the judge of that,” said the Potter, and his eyes crinkled as he smiled.
“You can fix this hole in me?” she said in amazement, a tiny bit of hope beginning to warm her. “You can make me like I was before?”
“Not like before,” said the Potter, gently wiping the spilled glaze from her with a soft cloth. “You’ll be different. But all will be well if you will trust me.”
“I do,” said the little dish.
“Good,” said the Potter. “Now rest here tonight, and we’ll begin in the morning.” He made a small nest of cloth and set Lil carefully in it.
As he set her down, she felt a drop of something warm fall on her and was shocked to see it was blood. Then she saw a wound in the Potter’s hand – the glass shard must have pierced his skin when he picked her up! Her foolishness had injured the very hand that made her.
“Oh no!” cried Lil. “Your hand!”
“Peace,” he said, “all will be well in the morning.” And, tucking the cloth up under the little dish to ease the pressure from the shard in her side, he said, “Now sleep.”
Surprisingly, she did.
*****
The next morning Lil awoke to a pain in her side. She moaned and tried to go back to sleep because she had been having a lovely dream about bird-notes in the sky.
Then she saw the Potter at the workbench, setting out tools.
“Are you ready to begin?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said softly.
The Potter set her in front of him and looked at her gravely for a moment.
“What do you want me to do for you?” he asked.
Lil was surprised. She had expected him to just do whatever he wanted, without asking her. But he seemed to be waiting for an answer.
Shyly she said, “To fix me.”
“Only that?” asked the Potter.
Sadly, she said, “I’ve always wanted to be blue like the incandescent sky or like the sea in your painting. I wanted to be something that made people think of those beautiful things, so they could be just a tiny bit happier. And to be useful, if I could … even if I am too small to hold much. But it’s too late now. I know that once my glaze is fired I can’t change it.”
“It’s true, you can’t,” said the Potter. “Only I can.”
The little dish could hardly dare to imagine it.
“Would you… change my glaze? Make me nicer? You know better than me, so whatever you wanted to do would be fine.”
The Potter smiled and nodded. Then he gave her a long serious look that made the little dish squirm.
“I have a design in mind for you, little one. A beautiful design. But changing your glaze will hurt. Are you willing to let me hurt you for a little while, so that I can work my design on you?”
The little dish rattled a bit, and felt the shard scraping in her side. But she answered, “Yes. I trust you. Only … please don’t make it hurt any more than it has to.”
The Potter laughed a little sadly. “Oh, silly little dish. I never do.”
The Potter took her in his hands and gently pried the shard of glass from her side. Lil gasped but felt better the moment it was out. But she had a strange empty feeling where the hole in her clay was.
“Was that all? That wasn’t so bad.”
“No,” said the Potter. “To work my design I’ll have to remove some of your fired-on glaze. And the only way to do that is to grind it off. But I am quick and skillful.”
“I trust you,” said Lil, meaning it, but unable to stop the tremor in her voice.
So the Potter began his work. The first day was hard.
The Potter used a grinder and other tools to make lines on her in certain places, removing the dull blue glaze all the way down to the clay. Her edges had an especially hard treatment, until they were almost bare. But the Potter spoke kindly to the little dish, and gave her times of rest, dusting her off and rinsing her in cool, soothing water. His hands were unrelenting, but always tender.
That night he carried Lil back to her old shelf in the workroom. Reg had already taken his place on the shelves out front, but after the shop closed for the night he came back to the workroom to visit the little dish. The irregular mug told her how sorry he was for everything that had happened to her. He made her laugh with funny stories about the people who came into the shop and the antics of the mischievous hedgehog-shaped jam jar. And he encouraged Lil to trust the Potter’s “awesome” plan.
Though scraped and sore, and still with an embarrassing hole in her side, Lil felt positively cheerful by the time her friend returned to his place in the front of the shop.
She had not seen Bo since the accident, but suddenly, as the shop quieted for the night, Lil heard the voice of the angry bowl, sharp as ever. Lil spotted her old friend in the corner of a shelf across the workroom. Bo had been placed next to a family of friendly canisters, but when they tried to befriend her she must have chased them all to the far end of the shelf. Now she sat alone on one end of the shelf, at eye-level with the Potter, who talked quietly with her. Lil didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but she couldn’t seem to tune her hearing in any other direction.
“… act like it’s all my fault!” Bo was shouting at the Potter. “Well I blame you. You, get it? You and all your rules and the crummy workshop you made. If this was a better place then things like that wouldn’t happen.”
Lil couldn’t hear all of the Potter’s words, for he spoke softly to Bo. But she caught “My own dear bowl …” and “… let me help you …” and she was sure she heard, “… not too late … not even now …”
For a few moments Lil could hear only the soothing murmur of the Potter’s voice but not his words.
Then Bo screeched, “Shards no! You’re not coming near me with a grinder. And I don’t want to be washed. I’m fine just the way I am. All I want is for you to leave me alone and let me go back in the kiln. Leave me alone, you hear?!?”
The Potter reached a hand out to gently stroke the angry bowl. But Bo jerked away so violently that she rocked and would have toppled off the shelf if the Potter hadn’t caught her. He placed her back on the shelf and walked away with his head bowed.
Over the next few days, the Potter spent a lot of time with Lil, and she came to look forward to every morning, even though she still feared seeing the grinder or the files. But he used those less and less, and by the fourth day he carried her to the Glazing Room and began to mix glazes.
The Potter worked carefully, sometimes holding the little dish tightly in his hand while he applied paint with a fine-tipped brush. Other times he set her down and poured a dollop of glaze in her middle, saying, “Twirl around, little one. That’s right – do a little dance. Now the other way … good, good!”
On the evening before firing day, the Potter finally finished his work. He stuck a large piece of wax beneath Lil. “To keep your new layer of glazes from sticking to the shelf when they run on top of the old,” he said. And he left her to her rest.
When morning came, Lil joined the other pottery gathered near the kiln. The pitcher who had asked to be washed was there. He was now one single color, though Lil couldn’t tell yet what that color would be after firing. The pitcher tipped his handle to Lil, but they could seem to find no words to say to each other. Rather they sat side-by-side in companionable silence.
Toward the edge of the group, Lil saw the angry bowl. The Potter saw her, too, and knelt to speak with her.
“I plead with you once more, my precious bowl,” said the Potter, “let me wash you. If you go into the kiln without washing
– with that fresh glaze over your old – it will end badly for you. And the word you’ve painted on yourself is an ugly, ugly word. A word I hate and forbid in my shop. If it’s a word you want, let me choose one for you – a better word.”
“Just put me in the kiln,” muttered Bo.
The Potter straightened. “I will not,” he said. There was a little gasp from some of the gathered pottery. “Not with that word upon you.”
But Bo would not speak to the Potter. So he turned to his work setting the other pottery into the kiln.
When he bent to pick up the little dish, she saw something bright flash in his hand. With a gasp, she saw what it was.
Holding her in one hand, the Potter placed the shard of broken glass back into the hole it had made.
“You’re putting it back?” Lil cried, aghast. “But why? Is this to punish me for disobeying you?”
“You’re forgiven long ago, little one,” said the Potter, kindly. “But will you trust me even with this?”
Shaking ever so slightly, Lil said, “Yes … I will.”
He smiled and placed her in the kiln.
Suddenly Lil saw a movement behind the Potter. It was Bo, sidling into the kiln on her own. She had evidently hoped to sneak in behind the Potter’s back, but he turned and fixed her with a knowing gaze.
Bo stood still for a moment, then boldy climbed up onto the lowest shelf of the kiln.
“Come out, my bowl,” said the Potter. “Because you are mine, and for your sake as well.”
But the angry bowl would not reply and didn’t move an inch.
The rest of the pottery waited in absolute silence to see what the Potter would do.
Sighing deeply, he closed the kiln.
“Sleep, my pottery,” he said, as the door swung shut.
*****
Lil had strange dreams of being painted with crimson blood that turned to glaze. She dreamt that, when she was fired, the crimson glaze turned white. She dreamt that she was in the flames of the kiln, but found them cool like the moist cloth in the Potter’s hand.
She awoke with a start to the Potter’s voice, and the feel of cool air.
“Good morning,” he said, lifting her from the kiln. “How is my new little dish?”
Lil wiggled drowsily in the Potter’s hand. Then, with a little gasp, she realized that she could no longer feel the shard of glass. And she couldn’t feel the hole in her side either – or just barely.
The Potter carried her to the table where the other pottery waited their turns in front of the mirror. The big pitcher stood looking at his reflection in reverent silence. His glaze was pure, shining white – so white it almost glowed with a light of its own. Lil stared at him in wonder. When he stepped away, he came to where she stood in line. The pitcher didn’t speak for a while. Finally, he said, “You know, the Potter cut his hand when he picked up the pieces of the broken cup … the cup I broke. It bled pretty bad. It smeared on my handle when he carried me to the shelf.”
That’s all he said.
Lil waited patiently until a tall, square vase in front of her finished examining himself and stepped aside.
When Lil looked into the mirror, she turned and looked behind her in confusion, for she felt she must be looking at some other small dish nearby. Then she turned to the glass again and realized, with awe, that this was her.
Lil’s edges were such a pale blue that they were almost white like the sky at the horizon. But the blue quickly grew in intensity as it moved toward her center, merging with the dark blue of her original glaze. And, throughout her, there were swirls of other blues – some thick and nearly white like the foam on the edge of the churning waves in the sea-painting; others were a luminescent turquoise; still others dark and almost black-green, flecked with little sparks of gold.
All these swirling blues circled down toward her center like a whirlpool. And there, in her deepest center, above the churning dance of blues, was a clear sparkling pool of the purest water. Awestruck and confused, Lil rocked from side to side to see if the water in her center would slosh. But it remained a deep unmoving pool, smooth and clear as glass.
“Oh!” said Lil, as the truth came to her. It was glass!
The jagged shard that has injured her had melted in the kiln into this beautiful, transparent pool. And it had filled the hole. Or almost. Only a tiny empty hole remained just above the surface of the glassy pool at her center.
Lil tipped and twirled before the mirror, hardly believing what she saw. She studied every swirl and splash of color, until a little tapping sound from a salt-shaker behind her reminded her to move along.
She moved away from the mirror, half afraid that she might still be dreaming in the kiln; but she heard the Potter’s voice beside her, real and clear.
“Well, little dish?”
“Thank you, oh, thank you!” she said, her voice cracking. “I never dreamed it was possible.”
“Without my help, you can never know what is possible,” he said, with a smile.
“I know. I’m so sorry I didn’t ask sooner,” she said.
“But you did ask,” replied the Potter. “And that’s what matters.”
The little dish rocked happily in a circle. “Even the crack is mostly fixed. I suppose I could never be perfect after such a break, but I’m so happy that even if I’m a little leaky I don’t mind.”
“Little dish,” said the Potter, “you can be perfectly what I mean you to be.” He picked her up. “Now it’s time for you to go to the front of the shop where everyone can meet you.”
“Sir,” said Lil, “Where is Bo?”
She could somehow feel his sorrow through his hands as he turned to show her.
There, still in the kiln, sat the medium-sized bowl. Lil’s heart sank. Her old friend looked worse than ever… the black glaze had mostly run off, leaving the same repulsive colors as before, only now looking dirtier. Yet the bright red, hideous word remained inside her; it had run so that it looked like a bloody wound, but it was still horribly readable.
Bo struggled and strained on the shelf trying to free herself.
“A third firing is a difficult thing, and must be done right,” said the Potter. “Because she would not obey me, she went in unprepared, and her new glazes ran from the old and stuck her to the shelf. Now they are hard-fired, and I must chip her loose. It will be painful.”
Lil nestled deeper into the Potter’s hand. “I know you won’t make it hurt more than it needs to,” she whispered.
“I never do.”
The front of the shop was even more wonderful than Lil had imagined. The front was all windows that looked out onto the busy street. Several pieces of pottery rested on folds of blue velvet in the front windows, enjoying the sunshine and the view. Some of them she knew; others were pieces the Potter had made earlier. A little bell above the door jingled every time a customer came or went.
The rest of the shop was painted bright yellow, except for the back wall, which was a warm, rustic brick that reminded Lil of the kiln. The pottery that wasn’t in the front window sat in beautifully crafted wooden cases along the walls, or on
tiered glass shelves in the middle of the shop. The glass shelves looked as if they were made of air, and Lil felt almost dizzy as the Potter set her on one of them next to her old friend the irregular mug.
Reg was beside himself with delight when he saw Lil. For a while, all he could say was, “Woah,” and “Wooooooah!” He
danced around Lil, tapping with delight as he admired her.
“It’s crazy! You’re like a whole new dish!” he said at last.
“I almost don’t recognize myself!” said Lil, catching her reflection in the glass shelf. “And look, there’s nothing left but a tiny hole.”
“Awesome!”
Just then, a movement caught Lil’s attention. They both watched in disbelief as Bo sidled into the shop on her own. She moved awkwardly and with a scraping sound owing to some jagged pieces of glaze along her base. The pottery in the shop grew quiet as the filthy-looking medium-sized bowl crossed the room and climbed up onto a low wooden crate in one corner – for the tall cases and glass shelves were out of reach without the Potter’s help.
“What are you lookin’ at?” she demanded, to everyone in general. “I’ve got a right to be here same as all you goody, goody pots with all your stupid colors. I’m special, and people are gonna notice me!”
“Hey, Bo,” said Reg, “it’s good to see you!”
“Shut up,” she muttered. “You don’t care.”
After that no one dared to speak to the angry bowl, so she sat sullenly on her box. But the newly-glazed white pitcher left his velvet seat in the window, where the Potter had placed him, and came to sit quietly next to Bo on the crate. He sat with her in silence through the rest of the day.
*****
Despite her sorrow for her friend, that first day in the shop – and each one after – was magical for Lil.
It was a busy place, for the Potter was well known in the city. Those with a less discerning eye didn’t always recognize his craft, and sometimes mistook his artistry for mistakes. But those in the know understood the quality of his wares and would go nowhere else.
Lil soon understood that the people who came to the shop could not hear the pottery speak. Only the Potter could hear their voices. But the pottery could understand everything the people said, and it was fun to listen to them make their selections.
A plump, red-faced woman (who had forgotten to take off her apron) and her tall, slender friend came into the shop that first day to buy dishes for their restaurant. The round lady was in a great bustle, and her partner was very picky, but they were both pleased with what they found.
“We can’t keep up with all the customers!” said the plump chef. “Our dishes are busy from open to close!”
The ordinary mug who loved coffee, along with the rest of his large family, and a whole troop of plates and saucers, were picked. They clattered with excitement in the two big boxes that would carry them to their new home.
“I’m ready to go!” said the ordinary mug. “Let’s just see if they can brew their coffee fast enough to keep us full!”
A few people went to look at Bo in the corner, and Lil could hear their shocked gasps and some very unkind remarks.
The romantically-inclined vase found a home that day, with a man who kept checking his watch and made two calls from the shop to a restaurant to make sure all the preparations were in order. The vase wasn’t sure where she was going, but she had a feeling it was going to be special, and her glaze sparkled with anticipation.
That evening, when the Potter had turned over the sign in the window from “Open” to “Please call again,” he went about the shop chatting with the pottery as he dusted them and wiped off any smudges.
Lil could think of nothing to say as he polished her with the soft cloth. She just sat contentedly in his hand enjoying his company.
Reg, as usual, had lots to say, and even more questions.
When he had seen to everyone, the Potter returned to his workshop in the back, where he put a record on the record player. The music that floated into them seemed to Lil like it was made of all the many colors of her glaze, though she couldn’t explain how.
Reg sat in rapt silence, taking in every note.
When the record had finished, the Potter returned and went to the corner where Bo sat on her crate.
“Come back with me to the workroom,” he said, “where we can talk in private.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” said Bo. “And I don’t want to talk to you – what you did taking me out of the kiln hurt like shards. And I know you just want me to hide in back where people can’t see me. Well I want to be noticed. So go away.”
Lil felt like she might break again when she heard how Bo spoke to the Potter. Even though she trusted him like no one else, it still frightened Lil to hear Bo telling the Potter who had made her to go away.
“My bowl,” said the Potter (and Lil could hardly believe the tenderness in his voice), “It was for your privacy that I invited you in back. But if you will not come, then we will talk here.”
Bo said nothing.
“You know why I used the chisel in the kiln. If I had not, you would be there still. But if you had obeyed me it would not have been needed.”
“Oh, so everything bad that happens to us is all our fault!” said Bo.
“No,” said the Potter. “Sometimes it is the fault of others. But you know the truth in this matter.”
“All I know is I want you to shut up and leave me alone.”
“Oh, bowl,” said the Potter, “I made you for something special. And I made you to be beautiful. See how smoothly your sides curve, how thin but strong your clay is. I took such care with you when you were on the wheel. And I gave you the gift of life – something that doesn’t come to clay on its own. Without my kiss you would only be a thing of stone. But you live. And in my kiss I gave you even more. You can see and think and choose how you decorate yourself. I made you for beauty, my Bowl. Why have you chosen to make yourself ugly?”
“Because I don’t want to be your bowl!” shouted Bo. “I want to be my own bowl!”
The Potter made no reply, but reached out and picked Bo up, holding her securely in his hands, despite her wriggles of protest.
His face was very close to her as he spoke.
“You have chosen pain, as surely as you have chosen that word inside you. But even now, even after a third firing, it is not too late. Oh, bowl, won’t you come to the workshop with me and let me remove all the mess you’ve smeared on yourself?”
“And get treated to the grinder? That’s what you really want to do to me.”
Lil worked up all her courage, then, and spoke. “The grinder only hurts for a little while, Bo. And he’s as gentle as he can be and still get the job done. But the fresh glaze feels so wonderful and clean.”
Bo just sat in sullen silence.
“It is the only way to undo what you’ve done,” said the Potter. “But with my help, you can still be beautiful, more beautiful than you can imagine. Then people will notice you for all the right reasons. Listen to your friend, the little dish. She submitted to my hand – even when it hurt – and see how glad and beautiful she is.”
“The dish!” said Bo, and it was her ugly, sarcastic tone again. “The dish, the dish! It’s all about your precious, perfect little dish. You’d do anything for her!”
Lil was shocked. Hadn’t Bo convinced her only a fortnight ago that the Potter didn’t care for her?
“I treasure all my pottery,” he said. “I want the best for you, my bowl, just as I do for the little dish. I have such a design in
mind for you. Won’t you let me work it?”
“Leave me alone!”
The Potter sighed, then, and did as she asked.
*****
The days that followed were exciting for Lil, and she was so busy listening to the customers and visiting with the other pottery on the shelves that she could almost forget her friend’s hurtful words. But she felt a kind of invisible crack inside herself whenever she saw people furrow their brows and whisper when they looked at Bo.
Many of her friends were carried off to their new lives, and more newly glazed pottery arrived from the workroom, so the shop was always filled with activity, and there were always new friends to meet.
A few mornings after Lil moved to the glass shelf, an elegant lady in a blue silk dress came into the shop. She sparkled with gold jewelry and her silvery hair was swept up into a bun in a way that made Lil think of a wave in the ocean.
She browsed the shelves in silence, until her eyes fell on Lil.
“Oh my!” said the lady. “How lovely!”
She picked Lil up with her long, cool fingers and turned her this way and that. Lil shivered with excitement.
The lady’s husband, a tall man in a perfectly pressed suit, had joined her, and was looking over her shoulder at Lil.
“Look at this lovely little dish,” said the lady. “This would be perfect for a votive candle!”
“No, Hon,” he said. “It’s defective. See - there’s a hole in it. The wax would drip through and ruin whatever it sat on.”
“What a shame,” said the lady, clucking her tongue. And she returned Lil to the shelf.
Defective? Lil felt like clay dust. She had never heard herself called that before. But she could not deny her defect.
Still, many customers exclaimed over the beautiful little dish and she couldn’t stay sad for long when the Potter cleaned her every evening, and she heard him call her “my little one.”
One bright morning a long, purple car pulled up in front of the store. The driver, in a bright red uniform with gaudy gold trim got out. With a skip in his step, he came around to open the door. Two of the strangest men Lil had ever seen got out of the back. One was in a purple zoot suit with blond hair that stood up spikier than the clay hair of the hedge-hog jam jar. His friend wore torn jeans and a black leather jacket sparkling with silver trim. He had long brown hair tied back in a ponytail.
The little bell tinkled as they walked into the shop, and the man with the spiky yellow hair grinned.
Suddenly Reg gave such a jump that he clattered on the shelf and made Lil jump, too.
“That’s him!” said Reg. “Oh my glazes! That’s him!”
“Who?” said Lil, rattled.
“Zachary Flash!” said Reg. “Only the greatest, craziest guitar player on the planet! I’ve seen his picture on the front of the albums when the Potter plays my favorite records. And that’s what it says: ‘Greatest Guitarist on the Planet.’ Chips and chisels! I can’t believe he’s here in person.”
Lil giggled.
“Woah!” said a voice from across the shop. Lil was confused for a moment because it sounded so much like the irregular mug, but Reg was right beside her.
“Wooooah! Crazy!” came the voice again, and she realized it came from Zachary Flash who was headed straight for them.
With nimble fingers, the musician picked up Reg and examined him. “Craaaazy!” he said again. “Hey Len, come look at this crazy mug!”
His leather-jacketed friend joined him, and seemed to agree that Reg was crazy – and clearly that was a very good thing.
“This is Lenny Storm, Zachary’s drummer,” Reg whispered down to Lil. Lenny had taken Reg and was examining him intently.
“You gotta have this, Zach!” said the drummer, handing Reg back to his friend. “It’s the craziest mug I’ve ever seen!”
“I know, it’s like I’d had it custom-made or something. It looks exactly like my guitar!”
Reg let out a little squeak of shock, and Lil, who was just as surprised, couldn’t stop herself from laughing.
“That’s it, Reg!” said Lil, “You’re not an irregular mug at all. You’re a perfect guitar mug!”
“Awesommmme!” shouted her friend, who was upside down as Zachary Flash played an air guitar with him.
“Kind of hard to drink outta, though…” mused Len.
“Oh, I’m not gonna drink outta this,” said Zach. “I know exactly what I’m gonna use it for. It’s gonna hold all my guitar picks. Safe and in one place so I’m not always lookin’ for ‘em.”
“Crazy!” said Reg.
“Even on tour?” asked Len
“Even on tour,” said Zach. “This mug’s goin’ everywhere with me!”
“Wooohooooooo!” shouted Reg, “This is it!”
As Zach carried him to the counter to be wrapped, Reg called back to Lil, “You’re going somewhere wonderful, too, I know it! Just keep trusting the Potter!”
“I will Reg!” called Lil. “And I’ll miss you too, you ... you … crazy mug!”
*****
The shop seemed quieter after Reg was gone. But Lil was so happy for her friend that even when she felt a little lonesome she had to smile. The Potter brought a nice, rather shy cookie jar to join Lil on the glass shelf, and the two of them hit it off quite well.
As they days passed, several more people showed interest in the little dish, but they all noticed the small hole and returned her to the shelf. It would have been easy to feel defective, especially when she remembered how she got the hole in the first place.
But whenever the Potter came to polish her, or she caught sight of her beautiful swirling blues reflected in the glass shelf, she recalled the Potter’s words: “You can be perfectly what I mean you to be.” And Lil was encouraged.
Lil tried several times to talk to Bo, but her old friend seemed to have come to hate her, so Lil finally left her to herself.
A few days after Reg went “on tour” (as Lil liked to think of it), the angry bowl made a move. She climbed down from the crate and scraped across the room to the front window. With some difficulty, she climbed up on the blue velvet, shoving aside a spoon rest that scurried out of her way.
“That’s better,” Bo muttered, for she mostly just muttered to herself now. “Finally gonna get seen. Finally gonna go somewhere.”
The Potter came just then, and Lil saw that he’d noticed the bowl in the window immediately. He didn’t remove her, but just looked at her with a long, sad gaze.
Lil could see the shock on the faces of the people who stopped to look in the window when they spotted the filthy-looking bowl with the hideous word. But later that day a man who seemed to have been walking past the shop with no interest at all in pottery suddenly stopped and came back a few steps to look at the bowl. For a moment, he looked as shocked as the others. Then a wide grin spread across his stubbly face, and he came into the shop.
The man might have been handsome, if he had cleaned himself or brushed his teeth, which were in very bad shape. But he didn’t seem to care.
He went straight to the angry bowl and picked her up. Bo straightened and seemed to be angling herself so that the angry word inside her caught the light.
“Well, look at you!” said the man. “You’ll do fine!” He guffawed, and added, “In fact, you’re just about perfect.”
He carried Bo to the counter as the rest of the pottery watched in disbelief.
“I’ll take this bowl,” the man told the Potter.
“A moment, please,” answered the Potter, “while I check to see if it’s available.”
“What do you mean? Of course I’m available!” shouted Bo, as the Potter carried her to the workroom. Lil’s shelf wasn’t far from the door and she couldn’t help herself – she strained to hear their conversation.
“Just as I always have,” said the Potter, when they were through the door, “I will let you choose in this matter, too. But I will plead with you once more before you go … stay with me, let me remove that word from you and give you a new glaze. That man does not mean good for you, my bowl, and you will not be happy if you go with him. All of your dreams will be finished if you become his and not mine.”
“You’re just mad because he chose me!” said Bo. “You can’t stand that anyone would love me for who I am!”
“You are my bowl,” said the Potter. “I know the clay beneath your glaze, and I love you as I did the day I formed you on the wheel.”
“Well I don’t want to be your bowl,” said Bo. “You just want to be my master. But I’ve told you before, I’ve got no master. I’m my own bowl.”
Through the open door, Lil could see the Potter shake his head. “You will always have a master, though I am so much more than that. But if you go with that man, he will be your master – and no more.”
“Well I choose him!” Bo's screech was so shrill that Lil thought surely even the scruffy man would hear it.
“As you will,” said the Potter, and his voice was filled with sorrow. When he returned to the front of the shop, Lil saw that there were tears in his eyes.
But the scruffy man didn’t notice. “Well, is that bowl available or not?” he asked.
“It is,” said the Potter.
When the transaction was complete, the Potter reached for a box and paper to wrap the bowl.
“Don’t bother,” said the man. “A chip or two won’t matter – couldn’t look any worse than it does now.” He chortled. “This is my lucky day, spottin’ this thing in your window. See, my wife, she won’t let me use any of her fancy-shmancy dishes. Oh, no – anything I ask her about, she says no I can’t take that, it’s too good. Well, I’ve finally found somethin’ so ugly she won’t care how I use it.”
He picked up the angry bowl and tucked her under his arm. “Yessir,” said the man, rubbing Bo’s side as he headed out the
door, “I do like to chew. And you’re gonna make a fine spittoon!”
There was no response – only Bo’s stunned silence as the bell jingled on the door. And they were gone.
“Potter…” Lil’s voice was rough as unglazed clay.
The potter came and stood by Lil’s shelf.
“Is there no more hope for Bo? None at all?” she asked.
“She has chosen shame” said the Potter. “Her new owner is a careless man and doesn’t value her at all. She will be broken before long.”
Lil was too sad to speak, but only shifted miserably on the shelf.
The Potter leaned closer. “You know, don’t you, that only I can hear the voices of the pottery?”
“Yes,” whispered Lil.
“There is something more you may not know. Just as I alone can hear you, I can also hear you anywhere. If my bowl should call me, even from the dreadful life she’s chosen, I will hear.”
“Do you mean…?”
“After the shop is closed for the night,” said the Potter, “I often go about the city buying back broken pottery.”
He said no more but picked Lil up to give her a quick polish and set her back on the shelf.
Lil grieved over Bo’s leaving far more than over Reg. Although Reg had been her first and best friend, when Lil thought of the amazing life he was leading she couldn’t help but rejoice. But thinking of Bo just made the clay in her middle churn like mud.
It was lucky that the shop was so busy, for it distracted Lil from thoughts of Bo.
She also found that she could be of help to the shy cookie jar, who always felt somehow too plain, despite her cheery red glaze and bright letters spelling “Cookies” painted by the Potter himself. Cookie confessed to Lil that she rather envied her – for she was such a beautiful, delicate dish – and Cookie felt so big and plain. When Lil told her how she’d once felt so small and dull and useless, and how she’d cracked herself while disobeying the Potter, Cookie was shocked, but seemed to take courage.
“You went through all that and still turned out so beautiful!” said Cookie “Then maybe things will turn out alright for me too.”
Lil never thought she would feel anything but shame when she told about how she got the hole in her side. But hearing Cookie’s words made her feel different.
The summer passed and the leaves on the tree outside the shop turned bright yellow. The cookie jar went home with a little girl and her mother, and a toothbrush holder joined Lil on the shelf. He was nice, but a little dull.
Lil had almost grown used to being picked up, admired, and rejected when people saw the hole in her side. Almost. But she still felt a little dusty inside each time she was returned to the shelf. One time someone carried her all the way to the counter before they noticed the hole.
One Saturday afternoon the shop was filled with people when Lil heard a soft, “Oh!”
She looked up to see a young woman, with the softest skin Lil had ever seen. It was the color of the glaze the Potter
called “maple” and she had large dark eyes flecked with something that reminded Lil of the gold sparkles in her own glaze. The young woman’s hair draped from her head in silky black braids, gathered back with a blue ribbon.
The young woman picked up Lil and examined her in silence. Lil could see herself reflected in her large, dark eyes. “Oh,” she said again, and it was like a sigh.
“Jeremiah!” the young woman called, her voice suddenly excited. “Come look!”
A young man with a broad chest and short hair came and stood beside the beautiful woman, with a hand on her shoulder. When she woman turned to look up at him, Lil understood her beauty more. For Lil had never seen a more loving look except in the eyes of the Potter.
“Look at this little dish,” said the woman. “It’s so beautiful! It’s like looking down into a magical whirlpool. And the colors! They’re almost … incandescent!”
Lil gasped.
The young man smiled and nodded in a way that said anything the woman found beautiful, he would too.
“Oh, Jeremiah, this is exactly what I’ve been looking for! You know how I worry about my diamond ring every time I take it off to do the dishes or scrub the floor. After all …” She smiled up at her husband with the look of a new bride. “… my ring is the most valuable thing I own. I worry every time I take it off, but if I don’t, I worry that I’ll spoil it.”
The woman held up her hand and a small diamond in a gold ring caught the light and cast little rainbows all over Lil. “I’ll keep this little dish by the window in the kitchen and keep my ring in it whenever I take it off. I’ll never put it anywhere else!”
To be the safe-keeper of this woman’s most treasured possession? Oh, if only, thought Lil.
Then Lil saw Jeremiah’s eyes focus closer and she felt the familiar, porous disappointment as he pointed to her side.
“Did you see that, Di?”
“Oh, Jeremiah, there’s even a little hole!” said the woman, and her voice sounded more excited than ever. “That’s perfect! Any water from my hands will drain away and keep my diamond dry.”
Amazement and warmth rushed into Lil, as Di carried her to the counter. She was overwhelmed by the love in her voice and the gentleness in her hands.
“You do such beautiful work!” the woman told the Potter, setting Lil carefully on the counter. “This is a perfect ring dish! It’s like you made it just for me!”
The Potter’s smile warmed Lil to her very center. As he placed her into a small box lined with cotton, she heard him say, “I did.”