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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal>DO YOU BELIEVE IN MAGIC?<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>By DeAnna Quietwater Noriega<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal> Early one June afternoon, three small girls sat in a row on the steps of a two story house in the middle of the block. It was an old neighborhood of working class homes. Most of them needed paint and the cars parked along the street or in the graveled drives looked tired and well-used. Louisa Mary Lijewski (bones) was a painfully thin girl of seven with perpetually skinned knees. Paula Skiba, (Buttons) had coarse straight black hair that was her mother’s despair. No matter how carefully she rolled it up on plastic curlers each Saturday night, by the end of Sunday mass it straggled down like the mane of an ill- kept Shetland pony. Bows, (nicknamed for the ribbons tying the ends of her long dark braids), was the smallest of the three friends. She sat on the bottom step of her grandmother’s house, drawing circles in the dirt with the big toe of one grubby bare foot. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal> “Do you believe in magic,” she asked? <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal> “Nope,” answered Bones. “My ma says to spit in one hand and wish in the other and see which gets filled up first.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal> Buttons chewed meditatively on a grass stem before giving her considered opinion. “I think if you pray and light a candle, you can sometimes get stuff you really want, but I don’t guess that is magic. My mama says God sometimes says no, but he always listens.” <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'> “My mom reads me books at bedtime like <u>Peter Pan</u> and stories about fairies and stuff,” Bows explained. “If magic was real and you could rub a magic lamp and get wishes, what would you wish for, do you think?”<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'>Bones looked shyly down and said:”I’d wish to be pretty like you, Bows. Even teachers smile when they see you. Old Mrs. Whitaker doesn’t always think you are going to do something bad like pick her flowers, just cuz you are standing looking at them.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'>Buttons’ black eyes sparkled, “I’d want curly hair that wouldn’t always be falling in my eyes,” she said decisively. “And I’d like to travel around and see new places. What would you wish for Bows?”<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'>“I don’t know. Sometimes I think I would like to go some place where you can read lots and lots of books and not have to stop to go to bed if you don’t want too. Then I could get really smart and I could get a good job so my mom wouldn’t have to work so hard to take care of us.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'>Ten years flew by and three young women sat on the porch swing in the shade. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'>“It’s all going to be different after graduation,” mourned Paula. Her shoe button black eyes rested on the slender girl on her left. Lou smiled and ran a graceful long fingered hand through the froth of permed black curls framing her friend’s wistful pixie face. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'>“Yes, things will change, but not everything. When I get settled in New York, you can visit and you know I’ll write and tell about everything! We’ll keep in touch and always be best friends. Tell her Deedee!”<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'>The petite girl on the other end of the swing jumped to her feet to gather her two friends in a group hug. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'>“Of course we’ll both write and with Lou in New York working for the modeling agency and me in California at college, you’ll be able to visit both ends of the country whenever you want. It’s all good, you silly! We have always been best friends and we always will be! That hasn’t changed and it won’t if we work to keep it that way. Come on. Let’s see if Gran has any iced tea!”<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'>From the green depths of the oak tree in the front yard, a small wizened face smiled. Fairy godmothers would have a place in the world as long as little girls still had dreams and believed hard enough in them. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>