It was a cousin.
They should have known.
It was little Evie, hiding underneath the picnic blanket, listening to her big cousins.
“What in the world were you doing under there?” Alma asked.
Evie shrugged. It was a little like an Abuelita shrug and a little like an Alma shrug and a little bit like her very own kind of shrug.
And after the shrug, she opened her eyes wide and stuck her hand into her pocket and pulled out one pair of gold-and-pink dangly clip-on earrings.
20No One and Everyone
-Del-
Del hadn’t thought she’d ever see those earrings again. And certainly not from Evie.
Del lunged for her magical pink-and-gold dangly earrings. Alma gasped.
Evie closed her hand tightly around them. “You can have them back,” she said. “But only if you don’t have any more fights. Not ever again.”
“Evie Maria,” Del said. It was very serious when they used each other’s full names. “You give those back right now. They’re mine.”
“Delfina Ann,” Evie said, every bit as serious, “Abuelita said magic doesn’t belong to anyone.”
Del stopped her lunging. Alma’s mouth stayed open. Evie had said something that even her big cousins had to stop and think about.
They had heard Abuelita say that before. The day of the stoop sale. Abuelita said that magic doesn’t belong to any one person. Magic belongs to everyone. And no one.
Alma and Del sat down. They had to sit down to think. Evie sat down too. She wasn’t thinking, but she liked copying what her cousins did.
“She’s right,” Del said. “The best kind of magic is hand-me-down magic.”
21Felix Sanderson’s Lucky Day
-Alma-
Even though it had been a few days since the stoop sale that started it all, Alma couldn’t stop thinking about one thing. One person, actually.
“Evie,” she said after thinking it through, “who is Ethan Copper’s best friend?” Ethan Copper was the boy who was moving away from the neighborhood with his family. Alma knew his best friend would be the sad boy who had watched her at the stoop sale.
“Oh that’s easy,” Evie said. “Felix Sanderson.”
“Felix!” Alma exclaimed, much to her cousins’ confusion.
“Who is Felix Sanderson?” Del asked.
“A boy I know,” Alma said.
“From the lake?” Del asked, all turned around and confused.
“He’s not from a lake!” Evie said. “He lives at the bottom of the street!”
“And he’s best friends with Ethan Copper, who moved away?” Del asked. Alma watched as Del thought about it. Del’s face made a lot of movements when she was thinking. Her eyes squinted and her nose wrinkled and her mouth flipped up and down from mini-smile to mini-frown.
“I would hate if my best friend moved away,” Del said at last. “Even though she hasn’t lived here for very long at all.” Del grinned. It made Alma grin too.
“I would hate that too,” Alma said. “I like having my best friend live so close.”
They looked very hard at each other. Alma knew they were both thinking the same thing. They didn’t need any more luck. They were already the luckiest people on all of Twenty-Third Avenue. Maybe they were the luckiest people in the world. Because from now on they would always be two floors away from their best friend.
“I bet Felix Sanderson could use some luck,” Del said.
Alma didn’t give an Abuelita shrug to that. She gave a big, enthusiastic Alma nod. “He could maybe even use some magic,” she said.
Del and Alma and little Evie walked down Twenty-Third Avenue. They passed by the sobbing tree with its drooping branches. They waved to Cora and Javi playing with Oscar in the park. They saw Titi Clara and Uncle Andy on their stoops, calling to each other across the street. They passed by all the brick buildings with all their special details. Year-round Christmas lights around one building’s window. A bright green birdcage hanging from one neighbor’s tree. A polka-dotted doorknob and a knocker shaped like a giraffe. They walked by every wonderful bit of the street.
And like magic, at the very end of Twenty-Third Avenue, they found Felix Sanderson right where they thought he might be. Sitting across the street from the Coppers’ building, watching the new neighbors move in. He had striped shorts and a pink shirt and over that a brown vest, like the kind Alma’s father had worn to her cousin Flor’s wedding. Alma liked that Felix Sanderson didn’t dress like other people she knew.
Evie waved at him. Evie was good at waving at people. She loved being friendly. Felix waved back. He looked like he could use some friendliness.
“We have something for you,” Alma said. She did an Abuelita shrug.
“It’s something magical,” Del said.
Alma didn’t contradict her cousin. She just clipped an earring onto Felix’s vest. It was a pretty fancy vest, so the earrings made sense there. Del clipped the other one on.
Maybe some people would think it was strange, to have magical earrings clipped onto their clothes. But not Felix Sanderson. He smiled. He had been wishing for some friends. And it seemed he had come into a little bit of luck at last.
Acknowledgments
It has been a pure joy to work on this book, and so many people added to that joy.
Many thanks to my agent, Victoria Marini, for making it happen.
Thank you to my editor, Mabel Hsu, for heaps of creative insights, bundles of care and thought, and for loving my characters with me.
Thank you, Katherine Tegen, for years of support as I find new kinds of stories I want to tell.
A very special thank-you to incredible illustrator Luisa Uribe. You truly made Alma, Del, and their neighborhood come to life, and I’m so grateful for your big-hearted, beautiful illustrations.
Thank you so much to Alexandra Hernandez, Bianca Vargas, Kayla Ruiz, Nivia Scallon, and Frank Scallon for reading, answering questions, and helping me make Alma and Del’s world sparkle.
Thank you to the smart, thoughtful, and talented bookmakers, book lovers, book designers, and book collaborators who helped me turn
