It was Friday, and today, Sylvia's art class was painting pictures that had to do with their favorite movies. Josie looked over at Sylvia, who was having a good time with her painting, to her disgust. Ramiro looked over at Sylvia, who'd painted a beautiful picture of Disney's Pocahontas.

"Wow, that's beautiful, Sylvia," Ramiro gaped.

"Gracias," Sylvia smiled. "Yours is beautiful, too."

"Gracias," Ramiro smiled back.

Josie didn't understand what made Sylvia enjoy art and colors so much. While Martini was disgusted at how much fun Sylvia was having, she hoped Mr. Andrade would give her a grade that'll make Sylvia so depressed that she'd have to give up art.

Soon enough, Mr. Andrade looked at the students' paintings, and he seemed rather impressed with Sylvia's painting. "Beautiful use of color, Sylvia," he smiled. "I'd give this a B-."

Sylvia was a little shocked, and so were some of her classmates. She'd put a lot of effort into this painting, and Mr. Andrade had given her a lower grade than earlier in the week, much less the school year. Mr. Andrade went over to Martini and pretended to be impressed with her painting.

"Good job, Martini—another A+," Mr. Andrade said.

The students went over and were seriously unimpressed with Martini's painting. They had no idea what was going on in Mr. Andrade's head, and they felt sorry for Sylvia, whose efforts were underappreciated.

After class, Sylvia wondered why Mr. Andrade kept giving her lower grades when she put a lot of effort into her work. After all, on the first day, he said that he hoped the students wouldn't paint anything pathetic. For the rest of that week, he was unimpressed with Martini's and Josie's paintings. Now he seems to think Martini's sloppy paintings deserve better grades than Sylvia's eye-popping ones. Sylvia thought artistic talent was overrated, but she wondered what was going on with Mr. Andrade. Josie went over to Sylvia to see that the girl was a little down.

"What's up, Sylvia?" Josie asked.

"I don't get it," Sylvia sighed. "Last week, Mr. Andrade said he expected great craftsmanship, and he was impressed with my efforts. Now this week, he says that he's impressed with my work only to give me lower grades no matter how much I try to improve. I wonder what I'm doing wrong."

"The only thing you're doing wrong is wasting your time," Josie told her. "Maybe now you'll find something more important to do than all this ridiculous art stuff."

By this time, Sylvia was seeing red with Josie. "That's it! I've had it!" she fumed.

Josie was shocked at Sylvia's sudden outburst. "Sylvia, what are you doing?" she asked.

"Let me tell you something, Josie," Sylvia said angrily. "It's not ridiculous, and it's not a waste of time. Art is important, and you think you'd know by now since we didn't have art class for the entirety of middle school."

"Well, it obviously had no effect on me," Josie defended herself.

"Well, maybe if you hadn't been so caught up in yourself and supported me more, you'd have understood," Sylvia snapped. "Just imagine how bad you'd feel if the cheerleading squad were cut from school. I don't expect you to like art just because I do, but that doesn't mean you can tell me that it's not important, and it's not fair to make people who like art feel bad!" Then she walked off in a huff.

"Sylvia!" Josie called.

But Sylvia just kept walking, leaving Josie disgusted.

"Okay, fine, be that way," Josie huffed. "I'm done wasting my time telling you to stop enjoying art. I've got something more important to do." Then she went off to cheerleader practice.

Meanwhile, Martini was with Mr. Andrade in the art room, talking about how everything went this week.

"I swear, Sylvia Sanchez's ego is shattering," Martini said. "She's absolutely depressed that I've been getting higher grades in art class than her, but she certainly won't admit that she's upset. She keeps putting more effort into her work and working harder."

"Well, I guess I'll just have to give her even lower grades regardless of her craftsmanship," Mr. Andrade said. "I seriously can't stand having that girl as a student."

"And I can't stand how she can enjoy art so much and how good she is at making things complicated," Martini said.

That evening, Sylvia told her parents about what happened with Josie. "And I told her to stop making fun of me for liking art," she said. "Now I guess we're not friends anymore. I don't get why she keeps telling me to stop enjoying art when I don't even tell her to stop enjoying cheerleading."

"Mija, just because you had a fight with Josie, it doesn't mean you stop being friends for good," Elena said. "You just had to speak up and tell her what was bothering you."

"You don't have to like all the same things Josie likes, but you shouldn't give up art just because she doesn't like it," Pablo said. "You both should respect each other's rights to enjoy what you like."

"Well, I do respect Josie's right to enjoy cheerleading," Sylvia said.

"Good," Pablo smiled. "Okay, ready for a movie? Do you want to watch Pocahontas or something different?"

"Can we watch a scary movie in black and white?" Sylvia asked. "Sure, I love colors, but black-and-white movies have that beautiful old-fashioned feeling."

"Absolutamente," Elena smiled. "How about Invasion of the Body Snatchers?"

"Okay," Sylvia smiled.

Elena put a videotape of the movie in the VCR, Pablo turned the lights off, and the family enjoyed the movie.

The rest of the next week was rather unpleasant for Sylvia. Not only did she and Josie give each other dirty looks every time they saw each other, but during each art class, Sylvia would get a lower grade no matter how much effort she put into her work—and Martini would still get an A+ despite her sloppy work.