Deep in thought, Marissa moved slowly down the walkway out of the park and towards Nossa Senhora da Luz.  She waited for a break in the rush of vehicles then ran across the street and onto the sidewalk alongside the old church.  She made her way to the courtyard behind the building where they served dinner and found Pipio, Nino, Tomas and Paulinho with their paper bowls emptied.  Marissa saw the serving tables had been folded away and most of all the street kids who came to eat had already left.

“Sister saved you a bowl,” Pipio said.  “We told her you was coming late.”

“What did the lady say?” Nino asked.

“I’ll tell you when I come back,” she called back as she jumped up the steps. She was hungry but also needed to find Sister Angelica.  She came out of the doorway just as Marissa reached the top of the stairs,  holding a bowl of warm soup and the last thick slice of brown bread.

“Thank you,” Marissa said gratefully.  She was glad she hadn’t come too late. She bowed her head and said “Thank you, Lord” too because she knew that would make Sister happy, then took a bite of bread and sip of soup all at once.

“Sister Angelica?”  Marissa asked. “Can I talk to you, please?”

“Eat first,” the Sister smiled.  “Tomas said this is the only food you’ve had all day.”

Marissa sat down on the top step and quickly finished her meal as Sister Angelica patiently waited, putting the last crust of bread in her not torn pocket to save for the swallows.

“We met a lady in the park today,” Marissa said.  “She was looking for me.”

“So the boys told me,” said Sister Angelica as she sat down beside her.

“She’s a teacher, a ‘Professor’.  She wants me to go to her school.”

“Well, that is wonderful!” Sister Angelica exlaimed.  Marissa was a little surprised at her response.  Usually the Sister would warn her to be careful of strangers that might harm her, even though she knew Marissa and the boys had to talk to strangers when they begged.

“But it’s not a… regular school.  They teach ‘Arts’.  And she said I have ‘talents’.”

“I’m sure I agree with her.  And a good school would teach you how to use them.”

“But I don’t know if I can go,” Marissa explained.  “I think maybe I should say no.”

“Goodness, why is that?  Don’t you believe what she told you?”

“I believe.  I know she is a real wi… a real teacher.  She showed me.  But her school is way far away.  If I say yes I have to leave.  Leave the boys all alone.”

“I see. But you’ll be coming back, Marissa.  I left my family when I was away at school too.  It was hard at first but…”

“But it’s different,” Marissa insisted.  She and the others had slept in a hundred different doorways and alleys since she could remember, moving on whenever they were run off or a place became too dangerous.  It wasn’t like families with a house always there for them.  “What if the boys get in trouble and have to run away from our alley?  Or they go to jail like Marcelo did?  Then I’ll come back and never find them again.”

“I know the idea of being away worries you.  But does it frighten you enough to stop you from choosing something good for you?”

Frightened meant the same as scared.  She wasn’t scared of being away.  She just didn’t want the boys to think that she wasn’t part of their team anymore.

“What do you think I should do?” Marissa said to Sister Angelica.

“Why don’t we pray about it?” The Sister placed her palms together and lowered her head.  Marissa quietly did the same for a few minutes.

“What did God say?” she asked when Sister Angelica lifted her head.

“What did He say to you?” the Sister responded.

“He doesn’t talk to me, he talks to you.”

“Oh, He talks to you.  You just need to learn how to listen.  You’ll understand one day.”

“So you don’t know if he wants me to go to school or wants me to stay with the boys?”  It didn’t help her much if even God wasn’t sure what she should do.

“I know that when God gives a person a gift He is sad if they do not use it.”

“A gift like the lady said is my ‘talents’?”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” Marissa replied as she considered that.  “But I’d be gone a long time, not just a few days.  What if I couldn’t find the boys when I came back?”

“Do you see this building behind us, Marissa?” Sister Angelica asked. She thought that was a silly question.  Of course she saw the giant old church and its tall tower.  “It has stood here hundreds of years.  It will be here when you return.  If the boys go anywhere they will let me know and I will tell you where to find them when you come back to us.”

“So you think I should tell her yes, that I will go to the school.”

“Say yes to the chance to become what you should be, Marissa.”

“The lady said I should ask you something else too,” she said to Sister Angelica.  “She said ask about the bird’s names.”

“You know what ‘Amor’ is,” the Sister smiled and Marissa nodded. “And in Latin ‘Fides’ means faith, ‘Spero’ means hope.”

“Why did you name them that?”

“Because it’s just these three that like to follow you,” she answered to the girl’s puzzled look.  Marissa wondered what she would name them if a hundred birds liked her.

“It’s a verse from the Bible. First Corinthians,” Sister Angelica explained further.  “And now there remain faith, hope, and love, these three.  But the greatest of these is love.”

Marissa thought it was almost just like something Professor Merrythought had said. ‘Love is the strongest magic of all.’

“It’s time for me to go, Marissa,” Sister Angelica said to her as she stood.  “If you decide to go to school, come and say goodbye before you leave.”

“I will,” she replied as the Sister stepped inside and closed the back entrance.

She walked down the steps to the courtyard.  The boys were wearing the paper bowls on their heads and playing army.  “Halt!” Pipio called as he marched them to a stop before her.  “Sport Club da Luz army ready for battle.”  He made a salute to her and the other boys did the same.

“No more battles today,” Marissa said.  She had had more than enough confrontations with gangs and police for now.  “It’s time to report to the army base.”

“Where’s that?” Tomas asked.

“In our alley.  We have to get back and rest for tonight,” she said as she led them out the gateway of the church courtyard.  They tossed their helmets in the trash can as they left.

“Tell us about the lady in the long dress,” Tomas said as they ran across the street back to Parque da Luz and headed along Avenida Tiradentes.

 “You took a long time,” Pipio added.  “What did she talk to you for?”

Marissa wanted to tell them everything she had learned about witches.  But Professor Merrythought had told her she could not talk about magic.  It was a secret.

“Remember she said she was a teacher?” Marissa began.  “She told me about her school.  She asked if I want to go to her school.”

“Nuh-uh,” said Pipio  “What did she really want?”

“That is what she really wanted!” she insisted, annoyed that he thought she was pretending.

“Did you say yes?” Nino asked.  “’Cuz you can’t beg with us if you did.  If you go to school all day.”

“I told her no.  But she told me think about it and she’ll ask me again in two days.”

“Just tell her no again,” Pipio said.  “Just stay with Sport Club da Luz.  It’s better.”

“I told her no ‘cuz her school is far away, Pipio.  If I did say yes I have to leave.  But just for a little while.” She looked at Pipio.  “Do you think maybe that would be okay?”

“If it’s far away it’s private school like rich kids have.  They’ll treat you like a gutter kid and say they’re all special and you’re nothing.   Why would you go there?”

“’Cuz  maybe it’s the only chance I ever get to go to school!  Wouldn’t you go?”

“No.  It’s the same as Leandro.”

“Leandro?” Marissa asked puzzled.  “What’s that mean?”

“You said ‘Why would you want to act just like the people who hate you and hurt you?’”

“Kids in schools don’t hate us just ‘cuz we’re street kids”

“Their parents hate us and call us ‘filthy’.  I bet they teach their kids to hate us too.”

“Maybe if I go to school it will show I’m not just nothing and they won’t hate me.”

“They’ll still hate us.  You want to be like them and live with them so you can leave and never come back,” Pipio accused her.

“That is not what I want!” she shouted back.  “I want to go to school so maybe someday I can have a job and our own money to buy us food instead of begging.  And so the boys can sleep in a bed and not on cold cement.”

“’Cuz you don’t think I can take care of my team!” he snapped back at her.  He kicked the soccer ball a ways ahead, jogged after it and wouldn’t talk anymore.

“He just doesn’t want to see,” Marissa said to Nino beside her.  Nino shrugged and the other boys said nothing, trying to stay out of any argument between she and Pipio.

The evening grew darker and soon they reached the empty street that led to their alley.  The closed up storefronts and boarded buildings were dark. Along the littered sidewalk the street lamps were broken or burnt out except for one that always lighted the corner where they turned.  The swallows flew into the shadows towards the dark end of the alley where they had a little nest above Marissa’s piece of cardboard.

Past the front of the narrow alley, in the shadows just beyond the glow of the street lamp, a large cardboard box leaned against the wall of a building.  Marissa knew it used to contain a refrigerator because she had read that on the side of the box.  Scraps of wood and a dented metal mailbox held down old sheets of plastic on the top to protect it from rain, a faded piece of fabric hung as a curtain over one end ,and other salvaged items lay stacked about the makeshift shelter.  An unshaven, wild-haired bum in a worn long coat over a t-shirt leaned against the wall beside his home.  A long wooden toothpick hung at the edge of his mouth.

“Pipio!” the man shouted at the young boy and slugged him in the shoulder as he passed.  Pipio smiled and slugged him back.  Mr. Palito always seemed to be there at the front of the alley at just the time they came back each night.

“Hey, kid,” he said to Marissa.  “How’s the book?  Did you finish your story today?”

“I didn’t have time,” she said.  “Some things happened.”

“Pipio got in a fight with a gang!” Nino said.  “And the police raided the old building by the TV store.  They took a bunch of kids to jail.”

“Almost us too,” Tomas added to the report.  “But Marissa made us run right through them!”

“She saved us!”

“And then the lady in the long dress found us at Parque da Luz.”

“Sounds like a big day,” Mr. Palito replied.  “How about you dirty scruffs go wash up some before it gets late.”  The faucet at the back of the alley worked sometimes, but Marissa could never get the water to run when Mr. Palito wasn’t there.  Pipio led the boys back the dark passageway they knew by heart.

“The lady in the long dress?” Mr. Palito asked Marissa when the two were left alone.

“She’s a professor.  She wants me to go to her school.”

His face widened with the biggest smile Marissa had ever seen on Mr. Palito and in the light of the street lamp she almost thought she even saw a tear on the corner of his eye.  But that was silly.

“But I didn’t tell her yes or no yet,” she explained.  “It’s far away and I’d have to leave the boys.  I wanted to ask you should I go or not.”   But from the expression on his face she had no doubt what Mr. Palito thought she should do.  Marissa smiled too.

“Of course you should go,” he declared laughing.  “Did I teach you to read and write so you could be ignorant the rest of your life?”

“No,” she replied with a smile because she knew he was joking. “But Pipio says I should tell her no.  He thinks I’ll go away and never come back ‘cuz  they’ll teach me to act like them and hate street kids.  He thinks I’ll be… oh, I don’t know.”  She couldn’t quite say what she meant.

“Thinks you’ll be ashamed of coming from Boca do Lixo,” Mr. Palito said.

Ashamed.  That was the word Marissa had been trying to find.  It was the way people tried to make street kids feel just because they didn’t live in better places with better lives.  People like the man who called Tomas ‘filthy vermin’ looked down on them like it was their own fault they were homeless and poor and had to beg or look in trash to provide for themselves.  People thought street kids were worthless.  Marissa knew she was not to blame for where she lived, but sometimes she looked at the world around her and couldn’t help but question whether maybe what people thought was true.  Sometimes it was hard to deny that she and the others did count for nothing in Sao Paulo.

“At first I told the lady no ‘cuz I want to stay with the boys,” she said.  “That’s not ashamed.  And I’ll never get teached to hate people.  No one can teach me that.”

“I know that, kid,” Palito said and tussled her short dark hair.

“But if I say no I’ll never learn about mag… never learn stuff to make me smart.”

“Looks like you’re at the fork in the road, kid.”

“What’s that?”

“Means the street splits in two directions and you need to choose which way to go,” Mr. Palito explained.  Absently he took the toothpick from between his teeth and flipped it around in his fingers. “The future’s kind of like that. You got to think about where you’re hoping to get to and which way will take you there.”

She saw it was like streets.  Like going somewhere in the city she had never been before.  The best thing to do was ask someone who had been there.  She realized that was why Professor Merrythought had told her to talk to Sister Angelica and Mr. Palito.

“Did you go to school, Mr. Palito?” she asked.

“Sure did,” he replied and glanced away to the right like he was remembering something.  “Best years of my life.”

“Then how did you end up…” she paused.

“A bum?” he finished for her and smiled to show he wasn’t offended.  “Long story, kid.  Some other time, okay?”

She nodded.

“When is the lady coming to see you again?”

“She’s going to send her…”  Marissa was about to say that Professor Merrythought was sending the little owl Tesimal, but stopped herself.  “She’s going to send a letter in two days.  A ‘confirmation’.”

“Well you got no rush to figure it all out tonight then,” Mr. Palito said to her.  “You just sleep on it and decide tomorrow.”

“Okay,” she agreed.  “Goodnight, Palito.”

“See ya later, kid.”

Marissa walked to the back of the dead end alley then ducked below a large rusty old ventilation unit braced to the side of the abandoned building.  Underneath was the hidden area where she and the boys slept at night, sheltered from getting wet if it rained.  Above her head the swallows chirped hello as she crawled in and sat on the scrap of cardboard that covered the hard cement.  Remembering the bread crust in her pocket, she took it out and dropped it in their little straw nest.  The boys huddled around Pipio looking at one of the comic books Mr. Palito had found for them.  Pipio lighted the pages with a small flashlight that also came from their neighbor at the front of the alley.  Marissa could tell by his glance that he was still upset with her.

“Read for us, Marissa,” Tomas asked.

“Why? You just make up stories for it anyway,” she replied.

“Yeah but you know what it really says,” Nino said.  She looked at Pipio and he nodded.

“Okay,” she agreed and scooted over next to them.  “But don’t blame me if I fall asleep in the middle of it.”

As it turned out, Nino, Tomas and Paulinho all dozed off just before her as she reached the last page of the story.  When her eyes drooped shut too, Pipio took the comic from her hands, laid her beach towel over Marissa and switched off the flashlight.  Darkness filled the alley but for a glow above the building roofline, the stray luminance of the million lights that burned on the towering faraway horizon of the Sao Paulo night.

Marissa awoke before dawn as she always did to the sound of Fides, Spero and Amor singing and chatting with each other.  The swallows flew off just before sunrise lighted the alley.  Marissa changed to her other shirt and shorts and got clean shirts for the boys out of the box she kept their few belongings in.  When they woke up she went to get a drink of water and rinse off while they put on clothes.  She looked towards the front of the alley to see if Mr. Palito was awake.  A pair of worn old boots sat by the curtain outside his box.  That meant he was still sleeping and had probably went out again late last evening after seeing they were back.  On mornings after he had been gone all night he usually would sleep until the afternoon of that day, so Marissa would have to talk to him again when they came back that night.

Marissa slipped on her backpack and Pipio picked up the little wooden shoeshine box that used to be Marcelo’s but was his now.  Then she and the boys headed out for the day.  Pipio still wasn’t talking to her.  They chose to avoid the blocks of Leandro’s territory and instead headed down towards the market area.  They used the money Professor Merrythought had given the boys to purchase breakfast, a large tray of black beans and rice that they all shared.  The street vendor at the cart would only give them one plastic fork so the boys used their fingers and let Marissa have the fork since girls are supposed to eat more politely.

Marissa didn’t know how to bring up the subject of school with Pipio again.  She tried to think of how she could make him understand how important school was.  She couldn’t tell him she had to go to school to learn to do magic right so they wouldn’t take her to witch jail.  Even that wasn’t really why she wanted to go.  Most of all it was because she knew it was the only real chance they had ever had to maybe not be homeless for always.  But Pipio thought going to school would change her from being a street kid and then she would never want to come back to Santa Efigenia again.  Just like Melinha and Marcelo and his mother had never come back.

“I’m gonna shine shoes by the big office,” Pipio told Nino as he pointed up the street at one of his regular spots.  “You guys work here or come tell me if you go someplace else.”

Nino, Tomas and Paulinho took spots at one side of the bus station.  Marissa, with Spero perched on her shoulder, turned to go stand about five meters away at the other side.

“It’s not fair,” Nino said.  “You get more change ‘cuz people stop to hear Spero singing.”  On some days thanks to the little bird she would get as much as the three boys together.

“Well maybe I could get Fides and Amor to sit on your shoulders if you didn’t try to catch them all the time,” she retorted as she moved off.  Or maybe it was part of being a witch that she was the only one the little birds would perch on.

They stayed by the bus station through the morning.  A few people gave them spare change, mostly pennies and nickels.  Most hurried past them on the way to their jobs or said they had already given all their change to other kids.  Marissa knew the thousands of homeless children hoping for a handout must far outnumber the full sum of change in all the pockets and purses of the few kind people on any one day.

After five o’clock, when most of the workers had left for the day, Marissa gathered their earnings together to see what food they might afford.  They didn’t have very much so she hoped Pipio would have done better when he met them back here.

The late afternoon was very hot so the boys sat in the shade of a wall while Marissa walked under some trees along the sidewalk to find where Fides and Amor were resting.  She knew she would have to make Pipio talk to her again about school.

“What do you think I should do, Spero?”  she said quietly to the little swallow perched on her finger peering at her with his dark little eyes.  He tilted his head to the side as if to consider the question.

“Sister and Palito say I should say yes.  Pipio says I should say no, so all the boys will say that too.  If I could tell him it’s a witch school, maybe Pipio would want me to go.”

But Professor Merrythought had said ‘You cannot tell any Muggles about being a witch.’  It didn’t seem right that she had to keep it secret from the boys, that she would never get to do magic for them.  People with witch families didn’t have to keep it secret.

“If I learned magic I have to hide that too,” she whispered to Spero.

‘We keep our magic lives separate from nonmagic people,’ the professor had told her.  That meant she could only do magic with other witches who do it too.  If everything they taught her could only be used in witch places then what Pipio thought really was true. They would try to make her part of their world.  Maybe not on purpose or by force, but someday all their rules might make her have to leave Santa Efigenia for good.  But she couldn’t stop being part of the team.  She meant nothing to anybody else in the world, but she was important to the boys.  If she didn’t have the boys she didn’t have anyone.

“Marissa!” Pipio shouted from up the street as he ran towards them, waving with one hand and widely swinging the little shoeshine box in his other.  He came to a stop, out of breath but smiling.

“I shined a man’s shoes!” he said excitedly like it was some fantastic news.

“So?” Marissa replied with a confused look.  It was what he did every day.

“It was the man who I shine for every week,” Pipio continued as she and the boys listened. “He was with two other men and he told them I give the best shoeshines of anyone.  So I shined their shoes too.  Then he was going to pay me a Real for all three but he didn’t look ‘cuz they were talking and he gave me too much.”

“You should’ve gave it back.” she told him.  That was the right thing to do.

“I did!” he explained. “I showed him he gave me the wrong bill.  Then he said keep it for being honest! Look!”  From his pocket Pipio held up the paper note, a ten Reais bill.

“Wow,” said Nino.  “I wanna shine shoes.  All we get is change.”

“And I got five quarters too,” he added to Tomas and Paulinho who were very happy about the team’s sudden fortune.  “So you can have desserts tonight.”

“Don’t spend too much all at once,” Marissa reminded Pipio.  “If we save most we can buy food all week.”

“I know.  Just a treat today,” Pipio said.  “Let’s go.”

At the vendor on the market street they bought five of the little fruit pastries.  Pipio was able to pay with their collected change and save the ten Reais.  They took them to a nearby little square of trees and benches where they could sit awhile without anyone wanting to drive them off.  Pipio handed out a pastry to each of the boys who then went to sit under the shade of a tree.  He held out the fourth one to Marissa sitting next to him on the bench.

“Save me the one in the bag,” she asked him as she unzipped her backpack on her lap.  She took out the paperback book.  “I don’t want to get the pages sticky.”

Pipio rolled his eyes that she wanted to read instead of eat.  He ate his own pastry and watched as she turned through the pages.  The three swallows came to sit with them also, Fides and Amor together on her right shoulder and Spero at his preferred spot on top of the open book.

Pipio took the last bite of his pastry then licked his fingers clean.  He looked over to see the other boys had laid out on the grass beneath the tree after eating.  He and Marissa sat silently for a few moments before he spoke.

“Sister Angelica and Mr. Palito said you should go to school, didn’t they?” Pipio said.

“Yes,” she replied.  He knew she had talked to both of them about it.

“So you’re gonna tell the lady yes.”

“Not if you think I’ll never come back,” she said.  “You said tell her no.”

“You’re gonna do what I say and not them?” he asked in surprise.

“Sister and Palito never sleep in the cold rain with me.  Or helped me out of dumpsters when I fell in when I was little.”

“They never helped me take Leandro’s knife away when he was gonna cut my throat,” Pipio replied and they both smiled.

“You were right,” Marissa told him.  “ At school they’ll try to make me like them.  So I’m going to tell her no.”

“I know you’d never really hate us,” he said.  “I didn’t mean that.”  He shoved his shoulder against her and she shoved him back.  To him that was practically like a hug.

“I can learn from books anyway,” she said.  “I don’t have to go to school .”

“It’s better to stay.  Tomas and Paulinho would probably cry if you went far away.”

She and the boys were used to spending every minute together.  On the streets it was safer that way. But once in a while they were apart for longer times.  Like on days when Pipio would shine on the other end of the block from where they begged, or during the hours she spent with Mr. Palito practicing writing and math while the boys went out without her.

“Remember the times you went to Favela Morumbi to look for your mother?”  Marissa said.  That had been when Melinha was still with them, before Pipio was leader and before they found Paulinho.  Favela Morumbi was on the other side of the city and he had walked there.

“Yeah,” he said quietly.  He didn’t talk about his mother much anymore.  Maybe it made him feel bad.

“You always took a long time.  After you were gone for three or four days I was afraid maybe you weren’t coming back,” she admitted.  Pipio was the only one she would let hear her say the word ‘afraid’.

“I always came back!” he declared strongly, upset that she had implied he ever might abandon his team.

“Because you’re always part of Sport Club da Luz even when you’re far away.”

“Yes,” Pipio said, and smiled because she had said it like she was proud of him.

“If I went to school,” she said,  “I would always come back too.  I’d always be part of the team.”

“Then it wouldn’t matter if you went to school.  If you come back with us then you’re still homeless.  Nobody in Santa Efigenia will give you a job ‘cuz you’re still a gutter kid to them.  People will still say they’re all special and you’re nothing.”

“But if I went to school I would learn all the things they know and maybe more.  And then,” she confirmed,  “I would never believe them anymore when they say I’m nothing.  That’s what matters.”

Pipio looked at her but did not reply so Marissa continued.

“After me I’d want you and Nino to go to a school, and then the little boys.  Then when people try to make us to feel ashamed of being from Boca do Lixo we’ll know we never have to be. We’ll know we’re all special.”

“And someday when we see that mean old man at the bus station again,” Pipio added to her pictured future,  “Tomas can spit on him!”

Marissa gave a quick stern look to show she disapproved of that, then they both broke out laughing.  The other boys heard them and came over to see what was so funny.  Marissa and Pipio didn’t care to explain their whole conversation so they all just scooted together on the bench and Marissa read to them for a long time.

As it got towards evening Pipio told the boys it was time to head back to the alley.  Marissa had Tomas hold her backpack while she went to the little restroom at the corner of the square.  When she came back the boys were all smiling together like they had a secret.  It probably meant they had put a lizard in her backpack but she didn’t care right then because it had been a good day and Pipio was happy that she decided to stay.  She would figure out later how to tell Mr. Palito and Sister Angelica that she wasn’t going to school.

As they walked along Marissa thought about what extra food they could get and where she could hide it in the alley. She wished she had something to cook with or even knew how to cook so they could make their own bread or hot soup or other things.

“Tomorrow we’ll go to the market and see how much food we can buy with ten Reais,” she said to Pipio as she walked beside him.  Nino, Tomas and Paulinho were watching out in front of them.

“No,” he replied.  “We voted to use it for something else.”  The other boys heard them talking and slowed down so they were all walking alongside her.

“Something importanter,” Nino added.

“Something else?” Marissa asked.  “What else is more important than food?”  She was prepared to get very angry if they had decided they wanted to spend the money on some unneeded thing like a toy or a radio.  “And I didn’t vote so it doesn’t count.”

“You can vote,” Pipio said.  “If you vote different than us it’s still four against one.”

“What do you think you’re going to buy?” she asked sternly, ready to tell him what a silly idea it was and how they were not going to waste the ten Reais on whatever it was.  Though he saw Marissa was about to yell at him, Pipio kept walking up the street acting happy as could be.

“A girl shirt and shoes,” he said smiling and the other boys were grinning widely too. “So you’ll be dressed pretty when you go to school.”

Marissa froze on the sidewalk and couldn’t speak for a moment.  It wasn’t any answer she had expected and she didn’t know what to say.  The boys all started laughing.

“We voted you should tell the teacher lady yes.”

“Oh, Pipio,” she finally exclaimed, then bit her lip very hard because she felt tears coming in her eyes and didn’t want the boys to see her cry.  “Thank you.”

“’Cuz no one can make you be like them anyway,” Pipio said by way of explaining his change of mind.  “You’re too stubborn.”

Marissa and the boys ran the rest of the way to the alley.  Marissa kept the lead until she reached the alley, still racing so fast that she had to grab the streetlamp on the corner to stop herself.  She saw Mr. Palito sitting near his cardboard box and rushed over to tell him the news as the boys caught up and gathered around her.

“I’m saying yes!” she exclaimed.  “I’m going to school!”

“Congratulations, kid!” Mr. Palito replied.  “Wait here.  We’re going to celebrate.”

From somewhere within his cardboard box he brought a tray of cheese and bread for a ‘dinner party’.  They all stayed up late and talked about things she might learn in school. Mr. Palito told the boys that science was about biology, geology, and a hundred other ‘ology’ things.  Marissa secretly wondered if she would learn those at witch school or if it would all be about magic things.  As midnight passed he sent them all off to sleep.

--------------------------------------------

In the pitch black darkness Marissa awoke to a pricking pain in her foot.  “Hey,” she whispered to whichever bird it was whose claw was holding her big toe.  “Go back to sleep. It’s still night.”

“Hooo,  hooo,” came a quiet reply.  It wasn’t the sound of a chirping swallow.  She fumbled to find the little flashlight on the ledge above her and switched it on to see the glowing eyes of a tiny creature perched on her left foot.

“Tesimal?” she whispered, trying not to wake the boys.  As she sat up the little owl fluttered out into the alley.  She crawled out to follow him and stood up in the darkness to find him sitting atop the rusty ventilation unit.

“You’re not s’posed to be here ‘til tomorrow,” she yawned.  Tesimal held out one leg that she could see held a little sheet of paper tied with a loop.  Knowing it must be her confirmation letter, she excitedly reached out and undid it from his tiny limb. As she unfolded the parchment page it expanded to a full size she could read by the glow of the flashlight.

Dear Sir,

Please accept this confirmation of my attendance at Witness Stone School of the Magical Arts for the semester beginning February 14th.

Sincerely Yours,

Professor Merrythought had told her to sign the letter if she decided yes.  Marissa quietly crawled back into the shelter and found a pencil in her backpack.  She laid the paper out and in her best cursive writing she carefully spelled out her name.

As she folded the letter it shrunk back to its former size then she tied it back on Tesimal’s outstretched leg.  She took from her pocket a little bit of cheese she had saved from the dinner party.  “Thank you, Tesimal,” she said.  “I hope you like this.”

The tiny owl poked at the morsel then took it in his beak and quickly swallowed it down.  “Hooo,” he called softly in his tiny owl voice, then glided silently away into the darkness.

Marissa gazed up the alleyway towards the light from the streetlamp.  In her mind she imagined herself standing at the fork in the road, looking both directions, then turning to follow the road that led to Witness Stone School.  The road that led to the world of magic.