When I was twelve or thirteen, my friend and I went wading in a creek near our homes in Lexington, Kentucky. When we stepped out of the creek, we noticed–with horror–that our legs and feet were covered with leeches. We had romanticized the creek as a special hiding place for the two of us, not realizing that it was in fact part of the city’s sewage drainage system. I tried to paint the leeches in a childlike style, and in some whimsical colors alongside the more accurate brown and gray. I hoped to evoke my experience of realizing that, unlike children’s books often suggest, the critters who live within bodies of water aren’t all cute, and don’t just exist to delight human beings. The crushed dandelions in the bottom right corner underscore my sense of disillusionment.