[Critique Group 1] Leonard's comments re: DeAnna for Aug.

[tuchyner5 at aol.com]

I really love this piece.  



It has a surprise ending   that pulls it all together.  



It really touched my heart.  



Definitely publishable.  



The picture painted of the 3 little girlswas really good, both of their physical characteristics and an inner part ofthem.  



It was just an interesting local colorstory, until the fairy in the tree appeared. That was a really powerful trick.I can’t think of anything I would want to change. 




 


YOUBELIEVE IN MAGIC?



ByDeAnna Quietwater Noriega



 



               Early one June afternoon, three small girls sat in a row on the steps of a twostory house in the middle of the block. It was an old neighborhood of workingclass homes. Most of them needed paint and the cars parked along the street orin 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. Nomatter 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- keptShetland pony. Bows, (nicknamed for the ribbons tying the ends of her long darkbraids), was the smallest of the three friends. She sat on the bottom step ofher grandmother’s house, drawing circles in the dirt with the big toe of onegrubby bare foot. 



               “Do you believe in magic,” she asked? 



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



               Buttons chewed meditatively on a grass stem before giving her consideredopinion. “I think if you pray and light a candle, you can sometimes get stuffyou really want, but I don’t guess that is magic. My mama says God sometimessays no, but he always listens.” 



               “My mom reads me books at bedtime like Peter Pan and stories aboutfairies and stuff,” Bows explained. “If magic was real and you could rub amagic lamp and get wishes, what would you wish for, do you think?”



Bones looked shyly down and said:”I’d wish to bepretty like you, Bows. Even teachers smile when they see you. Old Mrs. Whitakerdoesn’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 hairthat wouldn’t always be falling in my eyes,” she said decisively. “And I’d liketo travel around and see new places. What would you wish for Bows?”



“I don’t know. Sometimes I think I would like togo some place where you can read lots and lots of books and not have to stop togo to bed if you don’t want too. Then I could get really smart and I could geta 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 theporch 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 herleft. Lou smiled and ran a graceful long fingered hand through the froth ofpermed black curls framing her friend’s wistful pixie face. 



“Yes, things will change, but not everything. WhenI get settled in New York,you can visit and you know I’ll write and tell about everything! We’ll keep intouch and always be best friends. Tell her Deedee!”



The petite girl on the other end of the swingjumped 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 allgood, you silly! We have always been best friends and we always will be! Thathasn’t changed and it won’t if we work to keep it that way. Come on. Let’s seeif Gran has any iced tea!”



>From the green depths of the oak tree in the frontyard, a small wizened face smiled. Fairy godmothers would have a place in theworld as long as little girls still had dreams and believed hard enough in the


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