The unfinished mural

Source: an original fiction extract.

On the third day of painting the school mural, Saira noticed that the fox had two different kinds of feet. One pair belonged to the animal she had drawn; the other looked like rounded slippers. She stepped back from the wall. Around the fox, younger pupils had added trees, stars and a stream that ran uphill. Saira had been asked to organise the project because she was good at art. She had imagined a finished scene that people would admire from the gate. So far, it looked like several unrelated pictures trying to occupy the same country.

After everyone left, she mixed green paint and covered a row of purple leaves. She corrected the stream and sharpened the fox's feet. It took only twenty minutes. The next morning, a boy called Milo stood in front of the wall holding a brush. He asked where his leaves had gone. Saira said she had made the colours fit together. He said the tree was supposed to be purple because it grew on another planet. She pointed out that the mural showed their local park. Milo said nobody had told him that before he painted it.

Their teacher listened to both of them. She asked Saira whether the younger pupils had helped decide what the scene would contain. Saira said she had explained the plan. The teacher asked the question again, without changing any words. Saira looked at the sketches in her folder. They were all in her handwriting. She said the wall would look a mess if everyone chose anything they wanted. The teacher agreed that they needed some shared decisions. Then she asked how those decisions could become shared if only one person was allowed to make them.

That afternoon they met beside the wall before opening the paint. Saira showed them how a narrow path could join separate parts of the scene. Milo suggested that the path lead through a gate to the purple tree, so visitors could choose whether to stay in the park or go somewhere impossible. Another pupil offered to paint footprints along it. Saira drew a faint outline and asked whether anyone wanted it moved. They changed two bends. When they began painting, she kept a damp cloth nearby but used it only when someone asked for help with a spill.

On the final day, the fox still had slightly uneven feet. The purple tree stood beyond a yellow gate, and the path was wider in some places than in others. People at the school entrance stopped to look. One parent asked Saira which part she had painted. She pointed to the fox and then began naming the pupils responsible for the rest. Milo interrupted to say that she had helped with the path too. Saira accepted this. Later, when she photographed the mural, she included the untidy row of paint pots at the bottom instead of cropping them away.

Consider the whole source. A reader said: “Saira’s wish to make a good mural is reasonable, but she mistakes organising a shared project for owning it. The ending suggests she finds a more generous use for her skill.” Evaluate how far you agree. Support your judgement with detailed references to the text and the writer’s methods.