[Critique Group 1] August Submission 665 words

[Deanna Noriega]

DO YOU BELIEVE IN MAGIC?

By DeAnna Quietwater Noriega

 

                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. 

                "Do you believe in magic," she asked? 

                "Nope," answered Bones. "My ma says to spit in one hand and
wish in the other and see which gets filled up first."

                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." 

                "My mom reads me books at bedtime like Peter Pan 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?"

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."

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?"

"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."

Ten years flew by and three young women sat on the porch swing in the shade.


"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. 

"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!"

The petite girl on the other end of the swing jumped to her feet to gather
her two friends in a group hug. 

"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!"

>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. 

 

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