Dedication
For my magical treasure,
Fia Frances
—C.A.H.
For Amelia,
so she can see the magic in herself
—L.U.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
1. 86 ½ Twenty-Third Avenue
2. Fitting In
3. Tuesday’s Last Customer
4. A Belief in Silliness
5. Part-Time Magic
6. Stoop-Sale Surprise
7. Rainbow Pants and a Striped Hat
8. Oscar and Ice-Cream Sandwiches
9. Crowns for Queens
10. Perfect Day
11. The Big Fight
12. On the Nightstand
13. An Almost Apology
14. Nowhere to Be Found
15. A Big, Big Mistake
16. No More Words
17. Curious Cousins
18. Belonging
19. Not a Unicorn, Not a Mouse
20. No One and Everyone
21. Felix Sanderson’s Lucky Day
Acknowledgments
Excerpt from Hand-Me-Down Magic #2: Crystal Ball Fortunes
About the Author and Illustrator
Copyright
About the Publisher
186 ½ Twenty-Third Avenue
-Alma-
The Curious Cousins Secondhand Shoppe was located in a brick building with a purple door and flower boxes full of purple pansies at 86 ½ Twenty-Third Avenue. It was Alma’s favorite building on the street, but competition was tough. She also loved the bakery that always smelled of cinnamon. She loved the building next door with its stained-glass windows and the one next to that with an enormous flower wreath on its door and a baby-size gnome perched on its stoop.
Alma had been missing Twenty-Third Avenue. She had been dreaming about being right here, with her best friend in the world, her cousin Del. Del’s real name was Delfina, but she said that never felt right to her. Del was always the name that fit her best.
“You’re here you’re here you’re here!” Del cried the second Alma stepped out of her parents’ old-fashioned green car.
“I’m here I’m here I’m here!” Alma shouted back, and in no time at all, the girls were hugging and screeching and talking so fast that no one else could possibly catch a word of it.
“You two might as well have your own secret language,” Alma’s mother said with a laugh. “The rest of us don’t have a chance of keeping up.”
“We should totally invent a secret language!” Del said, missing the point.
“Or learn how to communicate without words!” Alma said. She stared down her cousin. She raised her eyebrows. She stared even harder. Del stared back, and Alma was sure they were talking through their brains.
Del must have thought so, too, because she exclaimed, “You want a tour of the shop! I heard you! You said you’d been waiting all day to see it!”
Alma still had her polka-dotted suitcase next to her on the sidewalk. She had actually been thinking that she’d like to go up to her new apartment and take a deep breath. She and her parents had driven six hours from their old home on the lake to their new home in the city. Along the way, they had stopped for grilled cheese sandwiches and at a gift shop to buy a frame for the picture Alma had taken of the lake. She wanted to hang it above her bed at her new home, in her new bedroom, above the Curious Cousins Secondhand Shoppe.
But more than that, she wanted to have a best-friend cousin and an awesome first day and a secret no-words language with Del. “Okay,” Alma said. “Maybe for a minute.”
Every summer, Del spent a month at the lake with Alma and Alma’s parents. And every Christmas, Alma spent a few nights with Del and Alma’s father’s side of the family. There were dozens of cousins and titis and tíos. So many that Alma always lost track when she was trying to count them up.
This would be the first time Alma lived near her whole family. She loved visiting for Christmas, and she loved when Del visited her for the summer. She was pretty sure she would love living here too. But she would miss the icy-blue lake and her big bedroom that looked out at the dock. She loved drawing, and it was especially fun to draw the lake as she admired it from her window. She would miss the fireplace in the living room and how quiet it got at night.
It was very rarely quiet at 86 ½ Twenty-Third Avenue. The first floor was the Curious Cousins Secondhand Shoppe and Abuelita’s garden out back, with its huge four-person hammock and dozens of herbs. The second floor was Abuelita’s home. Del lived on the third floor with her family. Their cousin Evie and her family lived on the fourth floor with Titi Rosa. Alma and her parents would be moving into the apartment on the fifth floor. She would have to get used to the long walk up the four flights of stairs. She would also have to get used to the hustle and bustle of the city, her nosy little cousin Evie, and enormous family dinners at Abuelita’s.
It was a lot to get used to, but Alma was ready. She was almost sure.
2Fitting In
-Del-
Del was sure that Alma would like the old rocking horse best of all. It was made of worn velvet and squeaked when it rocked. They found it all the way in the back of the store.
“I think the horse is magical,” Del said. “I’m pretty sure. Can you feel the magic? I think it belonged to a princess, maybe. Sometimes I think it’s trying to talk to me. I bet someday it will ride away, right out of the shop, right out of the whole neighborhood! Don’t you think?”
Del was sure her cousin would agree with her. That’s what cousins were for, after all.
“It’s pretty,” Alma said. But she didn’t say much else. Del would just have to try harder.
Del showed Alma the basket of scarves and the one dozen jewelry boxes. She showed her where they stored furniture and shoes and coffee mugs. Alma found the display of tiny spoons from faraway countries and cities all over the world. Del had been collecting them for years. Abuelita promised they would go to every spoon city someday.
“Look, it’s Paris!” Del told Alma.
Alma’s eyes shone, finally. “Is there one for Puerto Rico?” she asked. “I’ve always wanted to go.”
“Of course
