When Alicia was very small she found the most beautiful flower in the forest but instead of plucking it, she stroked it and sang to it for a while. It was then that the magical animals of the forest chose her to be their protector, although she didn’t know that yet. From then on, they took care of Alicia and taught her many things without her even noticing. But there was something that they couldn’t teach her: Alicia rarely finished things properly. And that was something very important for a protector.

“She has to travel into the paper and learn there.”

“But that’s very dangerous”

“There’s no other way. She’s getting older.”

So, while she slept, they blew gently on her fingers.

Next morning, Alicia drew a lovely picture of her house and family. When she finished, she let the pencil fall onto the paper. However, instead of landing on it, the pencil sunk into the page as if it had been thrown into a pool. When it reappeared, it was a part of the drawing. The same thing happened with the table, and with everything else that touched the paper. The page grew and grew as it flew around the house sucking up the furniture and paintings. Alicia tried to stop it but just by touching it she too became part of the drawing.

When she got over her fright and saw herself inside the world of drawings, she decided to investigate. As she took her first step, however, she felt a strong pain in her leg and fell over.

“What a fall, Alicia,” said Ñasco, the dog by her side, or something like a dog, because it had 5 legs and was covered in white spots that hadn’t been coloured in. “Didn’t you realise that you’re missing a foot?”

It was true. While rushing to finish, Alicia had forgotten to draw one of her feet. Now she had to hop.

“Grrrrrnnnn, adnthv,… nanana” she tried to respond. However, she had also drawn herself such a twisted mouth that nobody could understand what she was saying.

Alicia went over the rest of the drawing of her body. She was missing an elbow, several fingers and his nose, she also had a horrible hairstyle ... but she didn’t think it was that bad. She was more worried about her parents. She wasn’t sure she’d put eyes and mouths on them and she ran around the house looking for them. But she had drawn them outside, and when she wanted to go out she realised that she hadn’t drawn the door of the house either!

She was still thinking how to get out when, through the uncoloured holes in the wall, she saw strange beings starting to surround the house. After a brief silence, they threw themselves at the house, trying to enter, and eventually one of them took advantage of a big uncoloured hole to get in. "I should have coloured the walls better," Alicia thought as she recognized the attacker. It was a black monster full of blotches that she drew one day when she was in a bad mood. More monsters followed him through the same hole and Alicia only had time to flee, hopping after Ñasco.
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“Follow me,” said the dog, “Piko can help us.”

Alicia looked at him, surprised. Piko was only a little songbird.

“You’re thinking it’s small, aren’t you? I think you’ve forgotten how you drew it…”

When they entered the living room they saw a gigantic bird trapped in a tiny cage. Alicia quickly freed it, and Piko lifted the girl and the dog into the air just before the monsters fell on them.

“Through the window, Piko!” Ordered the dog. “We will be safer outside the house”.

Piko escaped through the window and flew around looking for the rest of the family. Then Alicia spotted her pencil close to home and pointed out to the bird where to set her down. Once on the ground, the girl picked up the pencil and ran towards the house. She got there just in time to colour in the spots she missed in the wall and left the monsters trapped inside.

“Good!” shouted Ñasco and Piko.

Then Alicia, looking at how much she had rushed to finish her drawing, took the pencil and started to finish it off, correcting her errors. But her elbowless arm failed her and the pencil fell to the ground, drawing a little black dot.

“Oh no!” said Ñasco.

“What’s wrong with the dot?” asked Piko

“Well… it’s not a dot… it’s a black hole!”

And the moment the black hole started to grow and grow, absorbing everything with such force that nothing could escape its darkness.

Alicia appeared back at her table, together with her drawing and pencil. She thought that it had all been a dream, but on looking closer she saw that the wall of the house was now completely coloured in… and she breathed a sigh of relief.

“That was very dangerous”, said the magical creatures from their hiding place.

“Yes, but she has learnt that you can’t leave things half done, even if they don’t seem important. And this has turned her into a great protector.”

And it was true, because ever since then Alicia finished things as carefully as she had started them, especially all her drawings. All? Well, not all of them, because Alicia always made sure to never draw feet on her monsters, just in case.

(Story translated by Julia Farndale, Jessica Garrity and Jennifer Shovelton at Manchester Metropolitan University)