"I certainly do", Ama replied, after a moment's consideration to figure out what Billie meant by "do you feed them?" Ama glanced fondly up at a passing parakeet. "We can feed them some bits and bobs later if you'd like", she added brightly, though she was convinced the lively young girl would be quite preoccupied with the fence-painting task that was about to begin.

Billie had her own paintbrush, but Ama would provide the paint. In fact it was already laid out upon a garden table; a rectangular tray full of paint that was coloured... beige. Dull, dim, unfashionable beige. Apparently this was the colour Ama wished to paint her fence.

"Okay, let's begin!" she announced. But first, the Ghanan matriarch approached the tray, dipped her fingertip into the cool beige goop, and muttered a spell. All at once, swirling from her fingertip, the paint dyed itself all the colours of the rainbow, from dramatic royal blue to deep vibrant pink; from soft sunrise lilac to bright lurid turquoise. Now these were the colours of Ama's and Billie's future masterpiece.