She Knew Mom Would Be Mad: A Short Story Tells You Why

She knew Mom wasn't going to be happy if she did it but she couldn't resist. There it was on the sewing machine table. The pincushion was on the sewing machine table and the pins were a mess. The pins were all mixed up. There was no order to the pins and they begged to be arranged.

She had arranged the pins many times before. She enjoyed the small colorful pins the best. She would use the plain steel pins if she had too but the colorful pins were her favorites. First she would remove all of the pins from the pincushion leaving only the needles and safety pins. Next she would organize the pins into small piles of different colors. Next she would count them to see how many of each color were in each pile. If Mom had been making a new clothing item there would not be as many pins to work with.

The process took a bit of time but she enjoyed it all. She marveled at the different colors, the different lengths of the pins, how many of each color she would be able to use, and how many plain steel pins there were.

The designing process began. Now that she knew how many colors of pins she had to work with and how many pins of each color she had to use she could begin to think of a design. Sometimes there were not enough pins to actually form a specific design but she could think of a pattern instead to use all of the pins. It was a challenge each time and she enjoyed that part of the process too.

Today she had plenty of yellow pins. A star! Stars are yellow. She loved to see their light shining down from the night sky. She could make a beautiful yellow star on the pincushion. Mom would have to love that she thought. Everyone loves stars.

She remembered the other times she had created designs on the pincushion. Maybe the first time Mom was puzzled yet enjoyed the art work. But Mom told her not to use her pins or to push them into the pincushion. Mom said it was difficult to use the pins when they were pushed into the pincushion. She didn't really understand that. The pins were always easy to remove for her. And she loved making the designs. She was sure that Mom would enjoy seeing the beautiful yellow star!

She first defined the design with white pins which helped her place the yellow pins in straight rows to create the edges of the star. Next she used one blue pin in the very center and arranged five red pins around it to crate a small flower in the center. Of course she knew real stars don't have flowers in them but this was her design and she had one blue pin and five red ones. She circled the star with green pins. Next she used the plain steel pins to form lines down the edges of the string lines on the pincushion. She had used all of the pins. The design was complete. The star was perfect. She love it. She knew Mom would love it too.

She was in bed when Mom first discovered the pincushion with the star design on it. She had told her daughter many times to not use her pins like that. She had told her how difficult it was to use the pins when they were pushed into the pincushion and were so close together. It was difficult to remove the pins when she wanted to use them. She looked at the star with it's straight lines, the small flower in the middle and the shining steel pin lines down each side and a small smile crossed her face.