chapter 23
ZAVION
Something hard was in the pocket of Zavion’s new blue jeans.
He stuck his hand inside.
A marble.
A big marble.
Blue like the sky when there’s no rain. Green too, like a mountain. And some red and orange. Like fire? Flashes of light?
Zavion had other questions. One, really.
Whose marble was it?
Then another question followed.
Where did it come from?
And the question that bit hard on the heels of the others.
Did Zavion have to give it back?
Zavion was used to finding the answers outside of himself like on his Spanish pop quiz, where one side of the paper had numbered Spanish words and the other side had lettered English words.
1. El perro goes with E. Dog 2. El gato goes with L. Cat 3. El pájaro goes with O. Bird
But he didn’t have answers to his questions now.
The marble felt smooth against the inside of Zavion’s fingers. It felt good to wrap his hand around something whole. It made him feel big. Like he could sweep his other hand across the sky and gather the hurricane up tight, gather all that wind and rain, close his fist hard around it, and blow the dust away.
The desire for this hurricane-crushing ability surprised Zavion. It pounded over the memories that had taken permanent residence inside him. Snakes. Oily water. A dead body.
The marble made him feel like he could jump back into New Orleans, jump with his knees bent and his thigh muscles gripping—like he was doing the standing long jump—and land with both feet hard, right into the middle of his street, right next to where his house used to be, with a huge splash that would send the three-feet-deep water into the sky, miles high and miles wide.
Zavion held the marble up to his eye. He could just make out Papa in the dining room, hunched over another tiny canvas. A blue, green, red, and orange Papa. Like a painting of Papa. A painting of Papa painting.
That struck Zavion as funny and so he laughed. Which felt strange. He hadn’t laughed in a long time. And something about laughing made him feel…hopeful.
The door blew open and Osprey ran in. “Zavion!” She flung her cold hands around Zavion’s neck. “What do you have in your hand?” she said.
She didn’t miss anything.
“What do you have in yours?” said Zavion. A leash dangled behind her with a washcloth tied to one end.
“This”—Osprey pulled the leash close to her side—“is Fluffer.” She reached down and patted the washcloth.
“Where’s Flower?”
“She ran away. Now, show me what’s in your hand!”
“Nothing’s there,” said Zavion, slipping the marble back into his pocket.
“Do you have a secret?” said Osprey.
“Well, I wouldn’t tell you if I did, right?”
“Would you tell Fluffer?”
“Not even Fluffer.”
Osprey stood on her tiptoes and grabbed Zavion around the neck. She leaned in close to his ear. “Do you have a magic?” she whispered.
A magic. Zavion liked that.
It sounded like his wishing rocks with their white stripes lined up on his windowsill.
Yes!
The marble was just like his wishing rocks.
He squeezed it in his hand and smiled. He could feel the bright blue, green, red, and orange radiating their colors against his palm. Like the moon on the river. Or the sunset over a marsh.
Like a magic.
“Yes,” said Zavion, still smiling. “I have a magic.”
And if the marble was a magic, then wasn’t the person who put it in the pocket of the jeans a magician? And didn’t magicians make things appear just where they wanted them to?
That meant the marble was supposed to come to him.
Didn’t it?