“Um… this is where the school bus picks me up,” Marissa told them.

“Time to say goodbye, scruffs,” Mr. Palito directed.  Pipio stood up from polishing her shoes to a perfect shine one last time.

Marissa tried to look calm and strong even though she had grown more and more nervous with each block they came.  Now the moment was here.  She was really leaving for school and would be gone not just a few days but for many months.  Excitement and doubt swirled inside her.

“Bye, Marissa,” Tomas said. "Don’t forget about us.”

“I won’t,” she said.  “Remember to save bread for the birds when you can.”

“Bye,” Pipio said.  He slugged her in the shoulder and she slugged him back.  Nino and Tomas punched her too, but Paulinho hugged her.  He wasn’t as tough as the others and still acted like a baby sometimes.

Marissa lifted up her fat, overstuffed pink backpack and slung it onto her shoulder.  Somehow she had managed to fold and tuck all her clothes and school supplies inside it.  Mr. Palito opened the windowed door and walked inside with her.  She waved once more to the boys as it closed.  No music played now, but Miss Julieta sat on her stool just as before.

“Marissa-rissa-rissa,” she sang.  The dark old lady had remembered her name and held out her wrinkled hand.  “How is my little twirler?”

“I’m good,” she smiled.  Miss Julieta then turned to inspect the other person who had entered.  Marissa thought maybe she would tell Mr. Palito he had to leave her magic place.

“Palito,” she nodded.  “A very long time since we have seen you here.”

“Miss Julieta,” he nodded back.  “Just came to see off this dancing girl.”

Her cane motioned them into the next room.  Whack!  Mr. Palito jumped forward as the knarled stick smacked his backside when he passed.  “Need no excuse to come visit more often,” the old woman said sternly but then laughed.

The giant dance hall was now an empty small room with only a few steps to the other door.  Mr. Palito opened it and entered the dim storage room where the stained glass market scene pictured two tall boys carrying broomsticks.

“How do you…”

“…know Miss Julieta?” he finished Marissa’s question.  “A bum gets around a lot.  Meets some interesting people over time.  Looks like a dead end here, huh?”

“It’s not really, but…” she paused.  But she wasn’t supposed to let anyone know about magic.

“Fresh fruit,” Mr. Palito remarked as he pulled the toothpick from his lip and studied the produce carts in the glass.  “Apples, oranges, lemons, melons, blueberries.  Grapes too. Light purple ones and dark p…”

CRAASH!  The stained glass fell to the ground.  Mr. Palito calmly tucked the stick of wood back between his teeth and sqatted down next to Marissa to look her in the eye.

“If you meet kids who think they’re better than you,” he said to her, “remember that most of them couldn’t survive a week on their own in Santa Efigenia, let alone their whole life.”

“I will,” she said.  He meant she was stronger.

“You go learn some… stuff.  I’ll keep an eye on the scruffs.”

“Thank you, Palito.”

“See ya later, kid.”  He tussled her hair then walked to the door.  “Guess I’d better get a broom to clean this up.”

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

Marissa walked hesitantly along the wide cobblestone lane, uncertain of where she was going.  Mercado Trocado was more crowded and active this morning than it had been the day she went shopping, even though none of the stores looked open yet.  Persons on flying brooms glided to the ground and all the stained glass Floo stations along the lanes were constantly erupting in flames as people arrived.  Boys and girls with adults pushed large luggage trunks on wheeled carts, people carried caged owls and even a few fluffy cats, and everyone talked and waved at others as they met.  She looked for other children in uniforms but it looked as if she was the only girl dressed for school, so Marissa followed the lively groups that seemed to all be heading towards the center of the parkway.

“Good morning, young lady,” said a voice at her side.  She turned to see it was twirly-mustached Mr. Longtoes who smiled and began strolling along beside her.  “Have you found where you’re going?”

“Um… that way,” she replied, pointing in the direction the crowd moved.  Marissa was unsure how she would travel to school.  Maybe one of the magic firepits led there or maybe the wizards just disappeared all the children to school at once.  She would watch everyone else and figure it out so she wouldn’t look like she needed help.

“Just where I was headed also,” Mr. Longtoes said.  “May I walk with you?”

She nodded her head and they continued following the flow of people until they reached the area where the old, old wooden train cars sat in the parkway.  Boys and girls added their trunks to a small mountain of others stacked behind the last car.  A young blue suited man with a wand motioned his empty arms as if he were lofting something into the air, and each time he did another of the trunks would fly up and load itself into the train.  Marissa could see children boarding and others looking out windows of the first three whitewashed passenger cars.

“We’re riding the old train to witch school?” she questioned.

“You’re much too young to fly your own broom to Witness Stone,” he replied.

“But there’s not even an engine.  Or tracks to go anywhere.”

“That’s what Muggles need to move a train,” he laughed, “not wizards.”

Marissa supposed that was true.  When the train was ready to leave, wizards could probably wave their wands for magic rails to appear and the passenger cars would roll away without needing any engine to pull them. Maybe they would roll right through the unbroke window and out Miss Julieta’s samba school.  Magic was exciting.

“How could a proper girl possibly survive with only one trunk, mother?” a teenaged girl in a very nice silk dress and sparkling jewelry said to an older woman.  Marissa saw the tall golden blonde walking by from the luggage area and realized she looked exactly like the fashion model girl in the wand shop, only a few years older and curvier.

“Don’t worry, Cecelia. Your father tipped the porter to take your second trunk and Celestia’s as well,” the mother assured her as they passed.

Marissa thought five of her full backpack could fit in one of the large trunks.  Maybe witch kids packed them with lots of schoolbooks and extra school things.  No one could possibly have that many clothes to fill one.

“Show your ticket there,” Mr. Longtoes said, pointing to a door at the back of the first car where another man in a sky blue suit directed passengers into the train.  “Enjoy your trip, my dear.”

“I will,” she said as he turned to leave.  “And thank you again for my shoes.”

Marissa heard a flutter of feathers beside her right ear and turned to see Spero landing on her shoulder.  Another rustle from behind told her Fides and Amor had set down on her backpack.  “Hey!” she scolded them.  “You were supposed to go back with the boys.  They only let owls, cats and toads at witch school.  And they’ll all eat you!”  She wasn’t really sure about toads, but had seen a large one with a very wide mouth.  Spero did not seem scared.

She stepped over beside a tall tree where she shooed the swallows into its branches.  As they chirped in protest, Marissa watched a large cauldron near the front of the train being stirred by a wizard in sky blue cloak and blue-winged pointy hat.  It overflowed with soap bubbles that floated like clear balloons and the wizard handed the biggest ones out on strings to small children.  Older boys and girls in fancy clothes and dresses gathered near the passenger cars to meet friends they hadn’t seen over the summer.  Some showed off new brooms or animals.  In the middle of all this, two large bodies suddenly collided in front of Marissa and tumbled to the grass on the parkway.

“Team of destiny!”  “Conda rules!”  A pair of shouting brawny teen boys rolled about the ground pummeling each other in greeting.  They both wore bright soccer jerseys with a picture of a fat snake wrapped around three gold rings.  Marisssa didn’t know what team that was.  As she tried to step around them, another large body knocked her aside and dove onto the pile.  The group of boys rose yelling and shoving each other and moved off to board the front entry of the passenger car.

Marissa waited in the ticket line as students hugged parents before they boarded the train.  She heard a lot of ‘I love you’ and ‘love you too’.  A five year old insisted on kissing his big sister’s harlequin toad goodbye.  One girl cried like Professor Merrythought said she had done when she first went to school.  Marissa calmly ignored all the displays of affection.  A street kid knew not to show feelings and look soft.  But she wondered if all the families noticed that she was the only one who came by herself.  She wondered if they would think she was a stranger who didn’t belong.  At least in her bright school uniform and shiny shoes they wouldn’t know she was only a street beggar.

“Ticket please,” prompted the conductor.  He glanced skeptically at Marissa’s height for a moment, then punched the card and pointed her up the steps.  “First years in back half of first car,” he directed.  She nervously climbed the wooden steps through the door into the car.  A long carpeted aisle separated seat rows on either side.  Uphostered chairs in pairs of two alternately faced forward or back so that all passengers were sat in groups of four.  Noise filled the long room, especially in the front half where older, more talkative teenagers sat.  The young first year students of  Marissa’s age were a bit quieter.  She saw that the next to last row at the back of the car was empty, opposite two young Japanese girls dressed in white shirts and black skirts with robes folded upon their laps.  At last she found someone else wearing school uniforms.

“Um… can I sit there?” Marissa asked politely.

“Yes,” one of the girls replied.  “It’s not taken.”

As she turned to slide off her backpack, Marissa accidentally bumped two older girls coming up the steps.

“Sorry,” she said to them.  The black girl with beaded braids just smiled and turned to open the back door which led to the next passenger car.  But the brown-skinned girl with frizzly black hair met her eyes and looked at Marissa as if she knew her.

"You're not supposed to be here,” the girl stated firmly.  “You told her no.”  She continued to stare directly at Marissa who did not know what to say in return.  Maybe the older girl meant she was in the wrong place to sit.

“Constanca?” her friend called to the girl who stood unmoving before Marissa.  “Do you know her?”

“No.  I…”  The frizzly-haired girl shook her head as if to clear her thoughts, but then looked confused.  She seemed to forget what she had just said.  “I just saw…  No,” she said walking off into the next car.  Marissa gave her own puzzled look then took the seat by the window so she could watch when the train began rolling through the city.

“I’m Sakura and this is my cousin Anna,” said the girl sitting across from her.  Both of the slender girls had dark pretty eyes and straight jet black hair trimmed neatly at their shoulders.“What’s your name?”

“Marissa,” she replied as she slid her backpack beneath the comfortable cushiony seat.  When she sat back her feet hung a few inches from the floor.  She wriggled her toes inside the smooth slippy socks to relax them.

“We’re playing cards after the trip begins.  Do you want…”

A bloodcurdling scream interrupted  Sakura’s words as a flailing body frantically climbed over the seat behind Marissa.  The chubby girl fell into the chair beside her and shrieked at a black spot moving across the back of the seat.  Four boys seated across the aisle pointed and laughed.

“It’s only a spider…ers,” Marissa corrected herself as three more crawled over the cushion after the first.  As she caught them in her hand a very long pink line snaked over the seat and licked the small spiders out of her palm, then slid back.

“They’re just breakfast for my Puffskein,” came a girl’s voice from the seats in front of them.  “I forgot to feed him before we left.”

“I hate spiders!” called back the girl next to Marissa, still cowering down in the seat in case more of them came after her.  “And creepy wet tongues are gross too.”

The two Japanese girls giggled at the other girl’s reaction.  “How can you become a witch if you’re afraid of spiders, Rosaria?” asked Sakura jokingly.  Marissa had to smile at the pigtailed girl also.  She’d had much uglier insects than spiders crawl over her in the alley at night.  When she was very, very hungry with no food she had even eaten some.

“Marissa, this is Rosaria Castilhos.  Anything that crawls or squirms horrifies her.”

“Thank you for saving my life,” the girl said to Marissa.  “Is it okay if I sit here?”

“Uh, sure,” Marissa replied.  “I don’t think catching bugs counts as saving your life.”

“You don’t have any bugs, do you?” the girl inquired suspiciously.  Marissa shook her head no as Rosaria brushed off the beautiful dress she wore and carefully checked that no more spiders were coming over her seat.

“ALL ABOARD!” shouted a loud clear voice outside the passenger cars.  “Witness Stone Line departs in five minutes.”

A few more children rushed up the steps and along the aisle to where they had saved seats.  The conductor stepped inside and stood at the open door.

“Let’s watch,” said Sakura as she leaned out the open double pane window.  The other Japanese girl, whom Marissa noticed hadn’t said a word yet, stayed in her seat.  “Oh, Anna.  Don’t be so nervous.  Come wave goodbye to your mom.”

Marissa sat up on her knees to look out the window next to her and moved over so the girl Rosaria could look out too.  Anna timidly stood beside Sakura who showed her where their parents were standing in the crowd outside.

“Mama!  Papa!” Rosaria called out.  As the three girls waved, Marissa watched the blue-cloaked wizard from the bubble-making cauldron pace up and down along the passenger cars.  He stopped and motioned his wand towards the large pot near the front of the train. A long clear bubble stretched out from the cauldron and bounced into the air above him.  He spread his arms wide and the bubble grew to an enormous width and height, tall as the surrounding buildings.  It floated above the train roof and Marissa turned her head upward to follow, but the eaves over the windows stopped her from seeing where it went.  Then the wizard conjured more giant bubbles from the cauldron as small children oohed and aahed.

“What is he doing?” Marissa asked the girl beside her as she pulled her head in.

“Silly,” Rosaria replied as if Marissa were joking.  “He’s blowing up the train.”

“He magics an explosion to move the…” she left her question unfinished.  She had expected magic rails, but now she was just confused.  Maybe wizards were crazy.

“Haven’t you ever watched the train leave?” said Sakura.

“No.  This is my first time,” she said.  “I’m a… a Mubble.”  She hoped it wouldn’t make the girls not like her if she let them know that, but they probably could already tell she had no witch family since she had no one to wave to.

“That’s Captain Caerulus,” Sakura said of the bubble-making wizard.  “He makes the balloons that fly us to Witness Stone.”

“Fly us?” she asked with surprise.  As Rosaria giggled at her the entire passenger coach shivered and lifted up a few inches.  Marissa’s eyes widened as she stretched back out the open window and looked down to the following cars where she could see groups of enormous clear bubbles attached to the roofs. The clustered globes continued expanding and she gasped in astonishment as she saw the entire train rise another few feet from the ground.  The crowds outside clapped and waved as the passenger cars rose above them. A white steam rose from beneath the train, surrounding its wheels in clouds.  She saw the blue cloaked wizard leap up to the outside platform at the front of the first car.

“Last call to board!” called out the conductor at the entrance behind her.  Marissa thought anyone getting on now would have to jump very high to reach the steps.  She watched him close the door then turned back to see a trio of dark blue shapes landing on the windowsill outside.

“Look at the little birds,” smiled Sakura.  “They want to ride with us.”

“Oh, no!” cried Marissa.  She reached her arm out the window to shoo them away but the three swallows simply hopped from her reach.

“Don’t you like birds?” asked Sakura.

“I told them they can’t come,” Marissa said in frustration.  “But they won’t listen to me.”

“Oh, they’re your pets?”

“No.  They’re just wild birds that like me.  That’s Amor,” she said of the one pecking back as Anna tapped on the glass, “and Fides and Spero.  But the letter said we can only bring owl birds.”

“Well, if they’re wild they can go where they want, can't they?” Sakura stated.  As if  accepting her decision, Spero fluttered up through the open window and onto Marissa’s shoulder.  Rosaria jumped and scooted away a bit.

“I don’t know if I like little birds,” she said uncertainly.  “They hop around too fast.”

“They get rid of bugs,” Marissa told her.  “Every one they can catch.”

“Really?” Rosaria replied.  “Then I do like them.”

The passenger cars rose higher and higher from Mercado Trocado until all the waving families were small dots like the people Marissa had seen from the Italia skyscraper.  Billowing white mist obscured the wheels and underside of the whitewashed cars.  Outside on the front platform, Captain Caerulus charmed the train westward towards the Amazon rainforest.

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

A lone drifting cloud cast its shadow on cracked sidewalks along Rua da Vitória.  Mr. Palito passed the vacant lot where the boys often played soccer and carefully stepped over a sleeping vagrant who leaned on a boarded storefront.  The shadow darkened as he turned onto a narrow sidewalk between empty buildings.  He noticed three tall figures in dark clothing gathered at the far end of the passageway.

“Your scummy friends didn’t tell you this is my block now?” Palito asked them as he flicked a toothpick from his mouth into his fingers.  Without speaking in response, the group slowly advanced towards him.  He backed away a few steps.

Moments later the dazed vagrant staggered to his feet and ran fearfully from the loud anguished scream that echoed from around the corner.  Who it came from he did not want to find out.

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

“It’s more like a wizard blimp than a train, really,” Sakura said.  “If you compared it to Muggle transportation I mean.”

Marissa could tell that Sakura was very smart.  She told her all about the Witness Stone Line as they watched the city pass by below.   Sao Paulo had seemed endless, but eventually the crowded tall buildings gave way to poorly built shacks, then to the fields, roads and wooded hills of rural areas.  Sakura said the bubbles wouldn’t burst because they were ‘impervious’, so it didn’t matter if the swallows flew up and poked at them.  Marissa was glad the train wouldn’t fall out of the sky because the stubborn birds had followed her.  She was also glad that the three girls she sat with didn’t seem to mind that she was a Muggle-born (not Mubble, she had said it wrong).

“Look!” Marissa cried out as she pointed to a large approaching object that at first she had thought was a drifting cloud.  “It’s another wizard train!”

“First year students,” came Captain Caerulus’ voice throughout the passenger cars, “those of you who can look out our starboard windows will see the Rio de Janiero flight about to join us.”

Across the sky, three ornately trimmed wooden coaches, misted in cloud, floated beneath a fifty-foot high cluster of clear bubbles.  Refracted sunlight cast colorful spectrums across the bubble surfaces.  As they neared, Marissa could see other children waving from the windows.  She looked back as the Rio cars slowly lined up behind their own train, then heard a ‘clank!’ as they locked together and enormous bubbles squished into each other overhead.

“Now the train is seven cars long,” Marissa said.  She knew how many seats were in this passenger coach and figured out seven times it in her head.  It could be almost five hundred people except for the space all those trunks took up.

“It gets longer than this,” Sakura informed her.  “My big sister told us about it.”

“There’s even more coming?”

“Oh, yes.  The Bela Horizonte and Salvador flights join us at Brasilia.  Then Fortaleza and Recife hook on when we pass over Xingu river.  And there’s… hmm…”  She tried to think of one she had missed.  Anna leaned over and whispered in Sakura’s ear.

“Inner Iguacu.  That’s where our other cousins live now,” Sakura added.  “Most of the smaller cities have just two coaches.”

“Upperclassmen may leave their seats when okayed by the conductors,” came another annoucement of the captain’s voice.

“Is that us?” Marissa asked Sakura and stood on her seat to see the conductor at the far front of the passenger coach.  “Can I walk through the whole train?”

“No,” she replied as Rosaria giggled at her again.  “Upperclassmen means sixth and seventh years.  We’re first years. We have to stay in our seats for attendance.”

“Oh,” Marissa said with some disappointment.  “What’s attendance?”

“The House Leaders take roll of all the new students.  My sister says it happens later after more flights join us.”

Two of the large teens in soccer jerseys that she had seen earlier were coming loudly down the aisle to the back of the passenger car.  Younger boys gave admiring looks as they passed.  The door to the next car opened and a third jerseyed teen from the cars behind entered.  “Rezende, Fonseca!” he greeted them loudly.  “Conda rules!”

“Enjoy shovelling dragon dung all summer, Cabral?” replied the one called Fonseca as they stood in the aisle beside Marissa’s section.

“Hell, I signed up to apprentice at the reserve before they told us Ramo Cavaleiros was our new Quidditch coach.  My father wouldn’t let me back out.”

“Man, you just missed the most intense training camp ever!” the one called Rezende said.  “Coach Cav worked our butts off, Stenio.”

“So what’s this prophecy crap Braganza owled me about?” Stenio Cabral asked the two.  “Something about an oracle and we’re all going to be legends.”

“Cavaleiros says we’re the best school team he’s ever coached,” Fonseca said.  “And he hasn’t even seen us with our star chaser yet.”

“He says he believes we could be the team from the prophecy.  The team of destiny.”

“Man, I flunked divination twice,” Cabral told them.  “I still don’t know what the hell you guys are talking about.”

“The Olinda Oracle!  My old man talks about her every time the national teams play.”

“Coach Cav says like a hundred years ago there was this famous seer in Olinda.  She had a vision that one day Brazil would win three World Cups in a row.”

“No team’s ever done that,” Cabral declared.

“Exactly!” Fonseca confirmed.  “Whoever does will be like Quidditch legends forever.”

“The prophecy said the players would come from a team unbeaten in every game it plays.  Cavaleiros told us if we win all our games this school year we’ll be the team she foretold and it will be our destiny to join the national team and lead it to victory.”

“Unless you’re set to become a dragonherder instead of a worldwide Quidditch star.”

“Hell no,” Cabral replied.  “If Ramo Cavaleiros believes it’s us, then I believe it.”

“Team of destiny!” yelled Rezende as he and Fonseca jumped up and slammed chests against each other.  “Team of destiny!”  They tackled Stenio Cabral and pushed themselves out the door to the next car.

“Is ‘Quidditch’ the name of the witch school soccer team?” Marissa asked after the noisy teens were gone.  All three of the girls, even quiet Anna, broke out laughing for no reason.  Marissa considered that maybe she should have sat with boys instead of silly girls.

“You really are a Muggle-born,” Rosaria said as she giggled.

“Well, it’s a funny name for a team,” she said defending herself.

“It’s not soccer,” Sakura said as she and Anna quieted themselves.  “Quidditch is a wizarding sport, played on brooms.”

“The flying brooms?”

“Yes,” confirmed Rosaria.  “It’s only the best game in the universe. There are four teams at Witness Stone, one for each house.  Um… sorry I laughed after you saved my life,” she added apologetically.

“That’s okay,” Marissa said.  Maybe she could get used to a group of girls.  She just hadn’t been around any much since Melinha had gone.  At least they said they were sorry when boys never did.

For a while they played a card game called Exploding Snap, which Marissa found she was pretty good at once she learned the rules.  But they stopped after the conductor told them they were being too loud when Rosaria screamed every time a card blew up.  The train continued along and Marissa watched each time another flight joined the lengthening Witness Stone Line.  Soon there were almost twenty coaches and they had left all the cities and towns behind as the train flew over the dense tropical forests of Amazonia.  She knew there was ground beneath it somewhere, but all that was visible was a canopy of lush green treetops.  In the early afternoon they came to a great range of dark rainclouds pouring down upon the forest, and the train rose higher to pass above it until Marissa could see only a thick blanket of clouds below that reached to the horizon.  The three swallows sat contentedly on her windowsill.  A little cart had rolled through and given all the passengers fat sandwiches and drinks.  Marissa had never had a whole sandwich by herself before, so the food cart lady cut one in half for her and Anna Yamazaki to share.  Then Anna had happily fed almost all of hers to the birds after seeing Marissa give them crumbs.  She wondered if swallows could get too fat to fly.

“Good afternoon, children,” echoed a voice.  “First year students, your attention please.”  Mr. Argiletum, the Witness Stone librarian and trip supervisor, introduced himself and the House Leaders.  He stood at the front of the first passenger car, but his voice was magically turned up like a loud radio so all the train cars could hear.  He wore a bland beige suit and robe with a funny eyeglass on only his left eye.  Sakura had told her that House Leaders were the boy and girl bosses of the buildings where all the kids sleep. Marissa thought it must be like big hotels or something.

Mr. Argiletum explained that Baltazar Varnhagen and Tania de Feiticeiros would take attendance from the end of the train, Milo Timbira and Alika Escuro would begin in the middle cars, and Solinho Braganza and Cecelia Bella de Barros would begin here in the first passenger coach.  The pairs would move in opposite directions until all had met each of the arriving first years.

The Indian girl Tania de Feiticeiros waved at Sakura and Anna as she left to the other cars.  Sakura told Marissa that Tania was best friends with her older sister, but her sister graduated last year and was beginning Mermish language studies this fall.  Marissa knew some English words, and knew Sister said prayers in Latin, but she had never heard of a language Mermish before.  Then Rosaria talked to Marissa about the swallows for awhile and she asked if Marissa could train them to eat the ickiest bugs first.  After a time the House Leaders and another girl with them were near their section.

“We’re next,” Sakura anxiously informed the other girls.

The two House Leaders  turned to them but were still discussing the boys across from them.  “So mark Ribeiro as a legacy for us and Ferreira as a request by Department of Sports,” said the large teen in the jersey with a fat snake and gold rings.  Sakura had said he was the captain of a Quidditch team.  Then they looked at the four girls.

“Names?” inquired the tall golden-haired blonde.  She was the beautiful teenaged girl that had passed by Marissa outside the train.  Her slightly smaller mirror image, still chatting with the first year boys across the aisle,  was the fashion model girl from the wand shop.

“I’m Sakura Miyashiro,” the Japanese girl volunteered first.

“Sayuri Miyashiro’s sister?” asked Cecelia Bella de Barros, and Sakura nodded her head in reply.

“Well, we know where she’s going,” said the other House Leader.

“This is my cousin Anna Yamazaki,” Sakura added.  “She would like to…”

“Yeah, yeah.  Woolly too,” said Sol Braganza, who didn’t care to talk with girls as he had with the two boys in the seats across from them whose fathers were star players for a team called the Iguacu Fallers.  “So who are you, pigtails?”

“Rosaria Castilhos,” replied the girl next to Marissa.

“Like Castilhos Brooms?”

“Yes,” she confirmed.  “That’s my family’s business.”

The tall blonde girl leaned over and whispered something to the Quidditch captain, then wrote something on the clipboard she carried.  But with a bird feather,Marissa saw, not a pencil or pen,.  “And what is your name?” she said to Marissa with a snobbish voice and a look to show she was very unimpressed by her presence on the train.

“Marissa,” she said, and smiled. As a beggar she was used to people talking to her like that, and she didn’t let it bother her.  Sister Angelica had taught her she should never let people who act bad make her act bad back.

“Is she really supposed to be here?” Sol Braganza asked Cecelia doubtfully.  “She looks like she’s eight or nine.”

“I have my letter,” Marissa replied. She pulled out her backpack and unzipped it, then stopped.  “Um… but it’s way at the bottom.”

“Where’s your wand then?” he demanded.

“Right here,” Marissa said, slipping it from the side where it was the last item she had tucked in.

The Quidditch captain began laughing loudly as he saw it.  “That looks like plastic wands that Muggles play with,” he said mockingly.  “Hocus pocus!  Hocus pocus!”

The younger boys across the aisle laughed along with him, as did the younger blonde girl who had turned to join her sister.  Rosaria smiled too though she tried not to, but the two Japanese girls frowned.  They didn’t think his teasing was funny. 

“Those are the cheap U.S. factory wands my uncle is trying to get rid of,” Cecelia said disdainfully.  “They work so weakly even the poor natives don’t want them.  So he sells them to welfare Muggle-borns.”

“I saw her at Tio’s shop,” added her younger sister.  “She was wearing raggedy poor people clothes.”

Marissa didn’t say anything.  They were trying to see if they could get her upset.  It was better to ignore mean words and show you were too strong to be hurt by them.  If she showed them she was weak it would just prove to them that they could tease her more.

“Well, look, Celestia,” the older sister commented.  “She can't afford to tailor her secondhand uniform to fit, either.”  She meant Marissa’s loose shirt whose sleeves were a little wide too.  It was the very best shirt she had ever had, but not anything as nice as the perfectly fitted silk dresses that the curvy Bella de Barros sisters wore.

“Oh, I would just die if I had to buy used clothes at Cansado’s,” grieved Celestia.

Marissa had thought school uniforms would make her fit in with all the children.  But the blonde girls wanted to make her feel ashamed that she didn’t have as pretty of clothes as they had.

“What’s your last name?” Cecelia asked her after they had made all their mean comments.

“I don’t have one.  I… don’t have any parents.”

“So they died,” Cecelia Bella de Barros said bluntly.

“I don’t know,” Marissa said coolly.

“What part of your family do you live with now?  Where do you live?”

“In Sao Paulo,” Marissa said.  Sakura, Anna and Rosaria all watched with discomfort as the House Leader kept asking her questions.

“Well, duh. We’re all Paulistas,” broke in Sol Braganza.  “They’re from Liberdade,” he said pointing at Sakura and Anna, “and we’re from Jardins.  What neighborhood are you from?”

She didn’t want to tell them because she knew what they would say, but Sakura had said she had to answer anything the House Leaders asked because they were the bosses.  She wanted to do good in school, so she turned and looked Cecelia directly in the face.  “Santa Efigenia,” she said.

“She means Boca do Lixo,” corrected Celestia scornfully.  “The mouth of garbage.”

“Oh, that’s why you have no last name,” declared Cecelia. “You’re one of those homeless Muggles who steal money and dig in dumpsters.”

She could see the taunting girl expected her to deny it, but Marissa made no response.  She simply met Cecelia’s accusing stare and let no emotion show on her face.  She wouldn’t be ashamed and wouldn’t let them think they hurt her.

“Oh my gosh,” said Cecelia when she saw Marissa would not reply.  “She really is!”

“She probably smells like a dumpster too.  They never wash themselves.”

“That’s not very nice!” Sakura protested.  “To make up lies just because she’s Muggle-born.”

“You should be quiet,” Cecelia cautioned the young girl, “or you might have detention before we even get to school.”  Sakura was taught to respect House Leaders and so unwillingly silenced herself.

Cecelia turned and whispered something to Celestia, furtively pointing at Rosaria.

“Rosaria, that is such a pretty dress,” the younger blonde said to her sweetly.  “Won’t you stand up so I can see it better?”

“Oh, okay,” Rosaria agreed hesitantly as Celestia took her hand to help her up from the seat.  “Mama chose it.”

“You wouldn’t want to get odors on it,” she said, glancing at Marissa.  “Come sit up front with the better people.”

Before Rosaria could respond the younger Bella de Barros girl was pulling her away up the aisle.  Cecelia Bella de Barros scratched a firm mark across the page on her clipboard as she and the Quidditch captain opened the back door to move to the next passenger car.

“They must be kidding,” said Sol Braganza in disbelief.  “Witness Stone sent an acceptance letter to a Muggle gutter girl?”

“It really is sad,” Cecelia commented.  “Such a proud school admitting people like that.”

Marissa took a deep breath, relieved that they had finally left.  But she heard the boys across the aisle and girls in the seats ahead of them quietly laughing and saying things about her now.  She stared out the window so she wouldn’t have to face the girls across from her.

“We know that’s not true what she said,” she heard Sakura say.  “That you’re homeless and steal money.”

“I never stealed anything,” she said, still turning her head away from them.  “Stealing is wrong.”

“But you…”

“You can sit somewhere else too if you want.  If you don’t want to get my odor on you,” Marissa said dejectedly.  “I don’t care.”

Maybe she had hoped no one would have to know she was just a street kid.  Maybe she had thought with all the nice clothes Professor Merrythought had helped her buy that no one could tell.  The girls had still treated her nice when they found out she had no witch parents and was a Muggle-born.  But now that everyone on the train knew that she had no parents at all and was homeless they wouldn’t want to be around her.  Or be her friends.

Maybe it was better that Cecelia Bella de Barros had found out where she came from.  Now she could just work on learning things and not worry about having friends.  She didn’t need friends at witch school anyway, she had the boys who she was important to.  They were why she said yes to school anyway, so she could get smarter and help the team when she went back.  She was never going to stay and be part of the wizardings anyway.

From the corner of her eye she saw Anna lean over to whisper something to Sakura.  Then Anna got up from her seat like she was leaving.  She took a few steps, then turned around and sat purposefully in the seat beside Marissa.

“We’d rather smell like you than mean, too much stinky perfume Celly Belly de Barros!” Sakura stated clearly for the both of them.  They didn’t see Marissa let herself smile.

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

Baltazar Varnhagen and Tania de Feiticeiros returned to the first passenger car a short while later.  They had already heard of the scene with the Bella de Barros sisters from other sixth and seventh years moving about the train.

“Is she the Muggle-born girl Cecelia was teasing?” Tania asked Sakura.  Marissa was still staring out the window, intent on ignoring the boys across the aisle who had passed rumors about her through all the sections.

“Yes,” Sakura replied.  “She and Celestia were so rude.  And Sol Braganza too.”

“Did they make her cry?”

“NO!” Marissa turned and asserted.  “Girly-girl’s words can't hurt me!”

“Hey, I like her!” Baltazar Varnhagen said to Tania.  “She’s tough.”

“They usually torture new boys, not girls.  But I think you really are the only Muggle-born this year.”

“Learn your spells good and kick Celly’s butt in a duel next year,” Baltazar said smiling at Marissa.  “Then they won’t bother you anymore.”

She smiled half-heartedly in return, but Marissa had already decided she liked Baltazar.  He knew that she was strong and didn’t need them to feel sorry for her.  She had lived her whole life withstanding the mistreatement of much meaner people than the snotty blonde girls.

“Don’t encourage her to get into fights, Zar.  They’ll have five or six new Muggle-borns to tease next year and forget about her anyway.”

“Just trying to help,” he replied.  “So do I have any good Quidditch prospects to interview up here, or has Braganza already stolen them all before the train even started?”

“That would be answer B, I think,” confirmed Tania, looking at her clipboard as they left.

Sakura politely tried to chat with her again, but Marissa did not want to talk anymore since it would only lead to questions about her.  Why bother to say Yes, she did sleep in an alley and Yes, she did eat from garbage cans when all the whispers up and down the seats were already telling everyone that and even worse things about Marissa?  She watched the swallows sleeping outside the window as she rolled the wand that they didn’t like around in her hand.  The small words MageMart© were stamped in the black varnished wood.  Maybe it wasn’t as pretty or as expensive as ones they had, but she would study hard and make it work good.

“All first year students prepare to depart,” came the echoing voice of Mr. Argelitum.  “Dress in robes and stand, then you will directed by rows to line up in your car’s aisle.”

Marissa looked out the window to the forest canopy far below that was visible again now that they had passed the rainclouds.  It looked like they were still too high to land anywhere yet, but she unzipped her backpack and took out her robe, then tucked her wand back in.  Sakura and Anna buttoned their robes and stood waiting.  Marissa held her backpack in front with an arm through one strap, because if she wore it under the robe she would look like a hunchback and get teased for that too.  The three girls looked forward to watch the boys and girls begin lining up.  The first group that stepped into the aisle were four girls, and the much taller of them at the front was the golden-blonde Celestia Bella de Barros.

“She’s a first year?” Marissa said.  “I thought she was…”

“Thirteen or fourteen,” finished Sakura.  “That’s what everyone thinks at first.  But she’s just eleven, the same as us.”

The last of those four girls was Rosaria, who looked back to give a meek wave to them before more children filed in behind and they lost sight of her.  Mr. Argelitum with the beige robe and monacle strode along the aisle directing each section into line.  Soon standing first year students filled the length of the passenger coach and he stood at the rear by Marissa who was the last in line.

“That should have been kept in your trunk, young lady,” he said of her backpack.

“Um… I don’t have one,” she replied quietly.

“Hold on to it very tightly then,” Mr. Argelitum ordered.

“Rio ready to depart.”  “Bela Horizonte ready to depart.”  Voices from all the following cities confirmed that their first year students were lined up too.

“What happens now?” Marissa whispered to Sakura in front of her.  Did they just stand here for fifteen minutes until the train reached the ground?

“I don’t know,” she whispered back.  “My sister would never tell us about this part.”

Marissa turned to see Mr. Argelitum.  He raised a wand into the air with a swirling motion and exclaimed “Velivolus!”  His beige robe flowed in waves as he stepped to her side and touched his wand to Marissa’s shoulder.  The fabric of her robe rippled as if wind had passed through it.  Then he touched Sakura and Anna and each student as he passed back up the line.

“What was that for?” Marissa asked.  Anna turned back and whispered in Sakura’s ear.

“She says it means ‘sail’,” Sakura told her.

Mr. Argelitum had returned to the front of the car and addressed the students again.  “Hold the hand of the person in front of you and person behind you.  Keep it held until told to release it.”

“What does he think we are, kindergarteners?” said a boy a few places ahead of Anna.

Marissa did as instructed and saw all the others clutching hands also.  Maybe it was a custom like Ms. Julieta’s twirling.  Then the teenagers all stood at their seats and started calling out numbers.  “Four, three, two, one…”

“Glisseo!”

Suddenly a thunderous clash of sounds filled her ears.  Half of it was the roar of laughter from the watching seventh years, and half was the frightened screams of falling first years as they disappeared one by one before her.  The aisle floor had dropped away and they were all sliding out into the open sky beneath the train.  Marissa gasped and felt herself fall out of the passenger car as she tightly squeezed Sakura’s hand.  Her eyes filled with a view of expansive blue skies and the deep green forest thousands of feet below them.  Wind rushed across her face and Sakura’s and Anna’s long black hair blew up behind their heads as the screaming line of children plummented to earth.  It seemed they fell for a mile before rippling folds began opening like umbrellas to lift Mr. Argelitum and all the first years into a floating chain of billowing black robes.  They really were sailing in the air!

“I guess… it was… a surprise!” Sakura said as she caught her breath.  Now girls were shouting and boys were yelling and Anna Yamazaki was even giggling as she enjoyed the slow descent.  Marissa knew the one voice still screaming somewhere at the front of the line belonged to Rosaria Castilhos.

“Look up there!” Sakura called out.  Her head nodded back towards the clouded bottom of the Witness School Line far above them, where more groups of children floated down.   But Sakura was indicating the three dark blue spots that streaked down at them as fast as bullets.  The feathered flyers arced around in a slowing curve and landed lightly upon Marissa’s shoulders.

“Sorry, Spero,” Marissa told one little swallow.  “I didn’t know I was leaving so fast.”

They gradually neared the rainforest below and the very air of the place was a new experience to Marissa, so thick with moisture she could almost breathe the wetness. As they came closer she was amazed at how immensely large the tallest trees were, many times higher than even the oldest ones in Parque da Luz.  Massive vine-tangled trunks as wide as houses rose above the canopy and thick branches spread wide to the sky with clustered giant leaves.  Rolling hills of foliage in the dense layers below that seemed to blanket the world completely but for a small tan river that cut its path through the forest.  Little wooden boats floated up to a wooden platform built along the shore and she could see people stepping onto the dock.  A pathway led to a wide clearing paved in flagstone and walled in by stone benches.  The floating chain of first years was only twenty or thirty feet from the ground now and Mr. Argelitum was guiding the line towards the courtyard.  As they crossed over the river Marissa could see it was Indian boys and girls arriving in the canoes. They must be coming to witch school too.  And then she saw something else.  Giant, giant bright colored fish were leaping from the water near another canoe still paddling to the dock.  Those must be something magic.

“Anna, Sakura,” shouted Marissa.  “Look at that!”

“Pink dolphins!” Sakura said as she saw what Marissa was looking at.  “There are stories about the boto that…”

“Whoa,” Marissa cried out.  Her backpack was slipping from her arm.  She pulled loose from Sakura to catch it with both hands.  “Got ya!”

“Marissa!” called Sakura.  She stretched out her arm and Marissa tried to grab her hand again but had drifted out of reach while saving the backpack from falling.  The first years line was moving off to land on the flagstone courtyard, but Marissa was floating without control directly down into a group of dark-tanned children stepping from their canoe.

“LOOK OUT!”