I kept looking for other ways to make improvements. One day Dad
brought home a five-gallon can of house paint left over from some job
he'd worked on. The next morning I pried the can open. It was nearly full
of bright yellow paint. Dad had brought some paintbrushes home, too. A
layer of yellow paint, I realized, would completely transform our dingy
gray house. It would look, at least from the outside, almost like the
houses other people lived in.
I was so excited by the prospect of living in a perky yellow home that I
could barely sleep that night. I got up early the next day and tied my hair
back, ready to begin the housepainting. "If we all work together, we can
get it done in a day or two," I told everyone.
But Dad said 93 Little Hobart Street was such a dump that we shouldn't
waste time or energy on it that we could be devoting to the Glass Castle.
Mom said she thought bright yellow houses were tacky. Brian and Lori
said we didn't have the ladders and scaffolding we needed.
Dad was making no visible progress on the Glass Castle, and I knew that
the can of yellow paint would sit on the porch unless I undertook the job
myself. I'd borrow a ladder or make one, I decided. I was certain that
once everyone saw the amazing transformation of the house begin, they'd
all join in.
Out on the porch, I opened the can and stirred the paint with a stick,
blending in the oil that had risen to the surface until the paint, which was
the color of buttercups, had turned creamy. I dipped in a fat brush and
spread the paint along the old clapboard siding in long, smooth strokes.
It went on bright and glossy and looked even better than I had hoped. I
started on the far side of the porch, around the door that went into the
kitchen. In a few hours, I had covered everything that could be reached
from the porch. Parts of the front were still unpainted, and so were the
sides, but I had used less than a quarter of the paint. If everyone else
helped, we could paint all the areas I couldn't reach, and in no time we