Lucia was severely burned in a house fire that killed her father. She moved to her aunt's rural home to escape bullying over her scars. Though the scenery reminded her of an unfinished coloring page, she found acceptance in her new community. Years later, surgery restored Lucia's appearance. After her aunt's death, Lucia realized her feelings for Gardo, her childhood friend who had always supported her. On her 18th birthday, Gardo gifted Lucia a puppy, completing the coloring page and their story.

1. The Attendance
The attendance was being checked, and as her name was called, she squeaked
present ma’am, then felt like a mouse scurrying into whichever hole it can squeeze itself
into.
Mrs. Katigbak, the class adviser and also the art education teacher, repeated the
call just to be sure she heard her liliputian voice, zeroing-in her glasses into her seat .
“Lucia?” she repeated the call.
“Present, Ma’am,” she replied, now a few decibels louder, enough to be heard
by her fifty strong classmates, craning their necks to be sure she was already there. She
had been absent for a week.
“What happened to you, hija? You had been absent for a week.”
The tiny girl with badly burned skin that almost covered her entire face and
segments of her arms answered “ Ma’am, pasensya na po, wala pong pamasahe e.”
This time a class bully named Manolo thundered “Ma’am, siguro po pati
pamasahe niya nasunog!” eliciting a lunacy of laughter from her classmates. And soon
her classmates here in Pura Kalaw Elementary School in Barangay Escopa in Project 4
seemed like an orchestra that followed the offbeat baton of the rowdy Manolo,
chanting ulikba! ulikba! ulikba! while looking directly at the poor girl. Parts of her skin
were dangling, like stalactites of a cave. She was in a dark cave.
Lucia just bowed her head in shame and self-pity. Mrs. Katigbak was a teacher
who had a pale authority over her pupils, a skinny, hoarse voiced fiftyish teacher who
had already suffered a stroke. She couldn’t defend her from the ruffians; her shrill voice
not commanding enough to give them the chills.
“Okay, just catch-up on your coloring. We’re already on page three, and you
have to show me the three colored pages next Wednesday, or two days from now. Is
that understood, Lucia?”
“Yes, Ma’am, the wispy pupil said, as she bowed down again her bald head,
evading stares from her mostly unruly classmates.
Lucia walked home under a crestfallen sun, then proceeded to the house of her
Tiya Caring, who adopted her since her father died while trying to save her from their
burning shanty in Escopa. She had decided that would be the last time she would be
humiliated. She couldn’t stand it anymore. Truth was she only lied that she had no
transport fare, for she only had been walking the one and a half kilometer distance to
school. It was the humiliation she had to endure daily that made her absent.
Lucia’s father, a widower at thirty two, died a year ago while saving her from

2. their burning shanty. There was a brownout, and Lucia didn’t plant the olive-oily candle
firm enough. She was at kindergarten at that time, and she bought white rabbit candies
at a sari-sari store a block away from their rented house, until the candle tilted,
horizontalled, and enflamed the papers being drawn with superheroes on the wooden
table. She was alone in the house, the only child. Her mother had already died while
giving birth to her.
It was the owner of the store who noticed the pandemonium of neighbors
shouting “sunog! sunog!” and she bellowed to Lucia, who was now chatting with some
friends, that it must be their house that was burning. Lucia sprinted to their house and
tried to save some belongings- small belongings. Then her father Nardo zoomed-in like
Superman from his work in a sardines factory and scooped her into his arms, heaved her
outside, her face and arms in flames. He then rushed back into the burning house to
retrieve the rusty ref and a 29 inch colored TV he won in a game show. She was rushed
to a public hospital and was in critical condition. But she survived, but Nardo didn’t
make it.
She was adopted by her Tiya Caring, the lone sister of her late mother Carmen.
Her Tita was thirty-five and was still single.
She noticed the poor girl crying in the dark after she arrived from school. She
seemed to know the reason. She talked to her more with her heart than with her
mouth.
“Lucia, you were humiliated again in class, weren't you?”
Lucia didn’t answer, the words she can’t find, like crossword puzzles that are
quite mind-boggling.
“I’ve had enough of them. Just drop-out, okay. I can’t let them treat you like
that! Tomorrow first thing in the morning we’ll leave for Bataan. There you’ll find peace,
for the people there still have values.”
Lucia was hearing the words, and they seemed to sprout bright hues. She wafted
to the lone window in their twenty five square foot rented room, looked-up and saw a
full moon and the Big Dipper that seemed to be lading cotton-candy clouds.
Pilar was a peaceful town. Her Tita had a small bamboo house in Wawa, some
ten kilometers from the town proper. The houses here were century dashes apart. It
was early morning and the sun was just flexing its muscles for the tough grind ahead.
They alighted from a pedicab after getting off from a dilapidated bus.
At once she was mesmerized by the breathtaking scenery: Mountains merged
with one another, like a bevy of arms singing His prayer; crimson sun peeping from the
nearby sea; maya birds on patrol, some melliflously chirping, some preening; a tilapia

3. farm, about five feet in diameter, floating on green grass; two coconut trees on the
sides of her aunt’s bamboo house, its leaves blown by a tireless wind, as if giving praise
to it.
The scenery looks familiar, as if she had seen it somewhere, but can’t remember
where. Until some minutes later after tic-tac-toeing her mind did she figure-out where
she had seen it. She plucked out her coloring book lodged in her knapsack, opened page
three and saw that the scenery was almost an exact replica of the drawing, with a
woman (must be her aunt) also present. Only things unaccounted were the playful
shaggy puppy wagging its tail and licking the cheek of the grass lazing woman, and a
poultry farm posing on the left side of the picture.
She showed her aunt the almost exact replica. Her aunt smiled after seeing it.
“It seems to be a good omen, my dear. This will be a new place for you, I
promise. The people here still adhere to strict Christian values, and they have imparted
it to their children.”
By then, the pedicab driver, walked in with their small baggage. “Where will I
place this?”
“Oh, you place it wherever you want, it’s a small house we have. By the way this
is Lucia, my niece. Lucia, meet Gardo, short for Luthgardo. He’s my caretaker here, a
very good and bright boy too. He’s number one in his class.
Lucia noticed the about fifteen year old boy was a hunchback. But if not for it he
could have passed for a teen idol, with a cliffy nose, deep-blue eyes with winged
eyebrows that seemed to always fly because of his frequent smiles. He smiled at her.
“How are you, Lucia? ”
“Oh, I'm fine,” she replied sheepishly, still ashamed of her looks.
“Gardo, Lucia here was severely injured when their house was burned, as I have
already told you in my text messages. I decided to leave and not anymore wait for
this school year to end because I couldn’t stomach anymore the humiliation inflicted on
her by her classmates. You know Manila kids, they’re rude.”
“Oh, I see. Don’t worry Lucia, kids here are virtuous, kind. And in case someone
messes up, I’ll take care of him,” the kuba exclaimed.
Laughter symphonied with the sway of the coconut leaves.
It didn't take long for Lucia to accustom herself to her new surroundings. The
neighbors, though far away, opened their doors to her as if she had long been their
own. Food and smiles were shared. Fruits were in abundance, with every family having a
plethora of trees on their lots. In Manila there were a few trees, only lampposts were

4. shadows converged: their minds electric, their dreams moving in dactylic beat.
Lucia also noticed houses were far apart but they seemed to be facing each
other, always opened. In Manila the doors were glued side by side, and hardly opened.
And if they did and faced doors on the opposite side, people in gossipy gestures
obtruded them. Smoke they left after, still blurring the doors. And when they retired,
vehicles roared by. Dust settled after.
Lucia also enrolled again the next school year, and her classmates were nice,
sympathetic to her plight though not to the point where she would feel pitiful, inferior.
They played marbles, their colorful hues attracted her. How the bud shaped colors made
their way into the glass mystified her. They dug the holes, she swished-in the marbles.
After two years, through their parsimony and hard work the business prospered.
Her aunt now had chickens that multiplied gradually. They would bike on roller coaster
roads on their way to the market with their produce. Times were good: Lucia now doing
well in school without the teases and brickbats, Gardo now in college pursuing his
dream to be a teacher, page three now almost done, with Lucia just waiting where the
puppy would just popped out from, or if ever it would present itself at all. Her old
crayons were still there, waiting for their finishing touches to unfurl.
Lucia and Gardo also became close. Once Lucia showed Gardo the old coloring
book she had treasured like a teddy bear, spreading page three to tell him its similarity
with the scenery. “But there’s still something missing, the puppy, not here. And you
and me, not here also.”
“Oh, soon they’ll be there, I promise. But there are still things around us not
there physically, but there. Some invisible things, but omnipresent. For sure someone
up there is guiding us, same with your parents, they are always guiding you, their spirits
are. Look at these tilapias Lucia. You only see five floating around, but we know there
are many more down there. Then like a viewfinder his eyes statued at the poultry farm.
“And look at only about ten chickens there peeping, though we know a lot more are
inside the wires. What we see is what we don't get sometimes, you understand that?"
Lucia just nodded. She seemed to have feelings for him now. A puppy love?
After two years more Lucia noticed asphalt roads built. Then they had a
smoother delivery of their produce, unlike before where muddy trails and dusty paths
were traversed and Gardo had to muscle more the pedals just to reach the market.
Lucia thought it might not be cement, but it’s better than those trudgy surfaces. Things
were now taking a turn for the better. Good things were popping out, attending to their
needs to make life more easier.
Her aunt's house was also expanded. Two rooms have mushroomed. It was now
made of concrete, and a cluster of trees adorned it; acacias, guavas, mango trees now
mingled with the two coconut trees that were the original trees when Lucia first settled

5. there.
Once a neighbor offered a brown puppy to Lucia’s aunt, and this elated Lucia,
who had thought page 3 of her coloring book would be transferred to reality in the life
they were living. But her aunt said she had a phobia on dogs, showing scars in her left
leg inflicted by a neighbor’s dog. Lucia understood her aunt’s fear, and just accepted
that maybe the page would never get completed.
Six years passed, and the business prospered more. They now had a van, and
Lucia was now sixteen and Gardo twenty-five, still single. He was already an elementary
teacher. Lucia just graduated from high school, with honors . But she still kept her
coloring book, page three of it almost complete. Gardo was still helping in the business
after his classes, though another driver and helper by the name of Boyong was hired. He
was fortyish, with a wife and two kids. They had a small hut skirting the fishpond, which
now ballooned to three hectares. Aside from tilapias, bangus fishes also swam in the
freshwaters.
One pleasant morning her aunt talked to her. “Lucia, we’re going to Manila. I’ve
saved enough money for your operation. There’s a plastic surgeon there I’ve talked to.
He said you can still look good, almost back to your old self. I want you to look good, you
understand? Lucia just smiled, embraced her Tiya Caring.
To Manila they went. Gardo was left to attend to the business, along with
Boyong. But Gardo drove them to Manila first. Lucia noticed workers cementing the
roads. Ah, this town's progressing, and it will further ease the delivery to the markets of
the fishes and chickens, Lucia thought.
In Manila the surgery went on smoothly. It was a skin grafting operation. Thin
layers of her skin in the thigh, buttocks, and the abdomen were grafted to replace the
charred skin in her face and arms. The dangling skin in her arms were cut too. The
operation was successful. She was almost her old self again, like page three of her
coloring book, which she had kept in a drawer up to now.
Gardo was ecstatic upon their return. “Wow, I almost didn’t recognize you.
Aren’t you pretty?”
The pleasant, cute face had come back: the chinky eyes, pouty, valentine’s day
lips, well chiseled nose and an apple shaped face with a smile that makes it more
scrumptious.
She touched parts of her new skin, and this time Lucia felt it, unlike before when
he first touched her. This time it had rhythm, had magic, like a wand's spark in a fairy
tale story.
“Why, was I not good-looking before? You said what counts is the inner self,

6. didn’t you?” she quipped.
But some good things never last, as the Streisand song goes. Her aunt was
diagnosed with breast cancer. She didn’t give much attention on a lump on her left
breast that soon enlarged and had to be removed. She tried chemo, they travelling to
Manila weekly but to no avail. After two years she died, left her with all her properties.
The day she was buried was devoid of colors. The sun shone but the rays didn’t
touch her skin; the wind blew but the insouciancy was stoic.
It was Lucia’s birthday. It was a Sunday. Lucia was looking again at her coloring
book, with the puppy only the one to be colored. It was only a month after her Tia
Caring was laid to rest, and the world seemed to have been devoid of colors. She was
now eighteen, her debut, and she seemed to be alone. Gardo left yesterday, told her he
was attending a writing seminar in Manila. She didn’t remind him it was her birthday.
But wonder of wonders, Gardo zippily arrived in his old pedicab, with a large
carton box at its back.
The wheels halted. “Happy Birthday, Lucia! Here, I have a gift for you.”
A white puppy sprang out from the large milk carton box after Lucia, face
immaculate, untied its knots.
“There, anymore problems with page 3?” Gardo asked.
Lucia’s smile was a masterpiece. “No more, everything is present. Thanks a lot,
Gardo.”
Lucia was now falling in love with this man, her long time friend soon to become her all
time love?
“Hey, but where’s me on that page. Surely you are now that lady your aunt used
to be on that page. But where am I? What if I just draw myself on that empty space
offering you flowers, kneeling, pleading for your love?” the young teacher kidded.
Gardo was now stooped, playing with the puppy, and Lucia noticed that on this
easy going afternoon, a fresh rainbow was on his back, seemed to be lying upon it.
“No longer needed, Gardo. You’re already there. You’re in my heart,” Lucia said.

7. didn’t you?” she quipped.
But some good things never last, as the Streisand song goes. Her aunt was
diagnosed with breast cancer. She didn’t give much attention on a lump on her left
breast that soon enlarged and had to be removed. She tried chemo, they travelling to
Manila weekly but to no avail. After two years she died, left her with all her properties.
The day she was buried was devoid of colors. The sun shone but the rays didn’t
touch her skin; the wind blew but the insouciancy was stoic.
It was Lucia’s birthday. It was a Sunday. Lucia was looking again at her coloring
book, with the puppy only the one to be colored. It was only a month after her Tia
Caring was laid to rest, and the world seemed to have been devoid of colors. She was
now eighteen, her debut, and she seemed to be alone. Gardo left yesterday, told her he
was attending a writing seminar in Manila. She didn’t remind him it was her birthday.
But wonder of wonders, Gardo zippily arrived in his old pedicab, with a large
carton box at its back.
The wheels halted. “Happy Birthday, Lucia! Here, I have a gift for you.”
A white puppy sprang out from the large milk carton box after Lucia, face
immaculate, untied its knots.
“There, anymore problems with page 3?” Gardo asked.
Lucia’s smile was a masterpiece. “No more, everything is present. Thanks a lot,
Gardo.”
Lucia was now falling in love with this man, her long time friend soon to become her all
time love?
“Hey, but where’s me on that page. Surely you are now that lady your aunt used
to be on that page. But where am I? What if I just draw myself on that empty space
offering you flowers, kneeling, pleading for your love?” the young teacher kidded.
Gardo was now stooped, playing with the puppy, and Lucia noticed that on this
easy going afternoon, a fresh rainbow was on his back, seemed to be lying upon it.
“No longer needed, Gardo. You’re already there. You’re in my heart,” Lucia said.