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We had this theory that you could learn how to tell, just by feeling, what color so on a lawn, you can tell what color green the grass is, with your eyes closed, depending on how silky-rubbery it feels With clothing, stretchy velvet stuff always feels red when your eyes are closed, even if it’s not red Natasha was always best at guessing colors, but Natasha is also best at cheating at gah kid’s t-shirts and we found a Muppets t-shirt that had belonged to Natalie in third grade We knew it belonged to her, because it still had her name inside, where her mother had written it in perht it back for her, because he was the only one who had money that weekend He was the only one who had a job

Maybe you’re wondering what a guy like Jake is doing in The Gar about Jake is that he always has a good ti, and he likes everyone, but he likes reat ti late But he knows that

We had this theory that things have life cycles, the way that people do The life cycle of wedding dresses and feather boas and t-shirts and shoes and handbags involves the Garood, or even if they’re bad in an interesting way, the Garo when they die You can tell that they’re dead, because of the way that they s theain, and they start to smell like you, that’s when they reincarnate But the point is, if you’re looking for a particular thing, you just have to keep looking for it You have to look hard

Down in the base and beat-up suitcases and teacups by the pound You can get eight pounds worth of prom dresses–a slinky black dress, a poufy lavender dress, a swirly pink dress, a silvery, starry la--for eight dollars I go there every week, hunting for Grande and black and kind of hairy Even when your eyes are closed, it feels black As black as black ever gets, like if you touch it, your hand et stuck in it, like tar or black quicksand or when you stretch out your hand at night, to turn on a light, but all you feel is darkness

Fairies live inside it I knohat that sounds like, but it’s true

Grandmother Zofia said it was a family heirloom She said that it was over two hundred years old She said that when she died, I had to look after it Be its guardian She said that it would be my responsibility

I said that it didn’t look that old, and that they didn’t have handbags two hundred years ago, but that just , where do you think old ladies used to put their reading glasses and their heartneedles?"

I know that no one is going to believe any of this That’s okay If I thought you would, then I couldn’t tell you Promise me that you won’t believe a word That’s what Zofia used to say to me when she toldand half-crying, that her ht maybe Zofia wasn’t really dead But I went up to Zofia’s coffin, and I looked her right in the eyes They were closed The funeral parlor had made her up with blue eyeshadow, and blue eyeliner She looked like she was going to be a news anchor on Fox television, instead of dead It was creepy and it made me even sadder than I already was But I didn’t let that distract me

"Okay, Zofia," I whispered "I know you’re dead, but this is important You know exactly how i? What did you do with it? How do I find it? What am I supposed to do now?"

Of course she didn’t say a word She just lay there, this little s--death, blue eyeshadow, Jake, the handbag, faeries, Scrabble, Baldeziwurlekistan, all of it--was a joke She always did have a weird sense of hurew up in a house next door to the house where irl Her randmother, babysat me while my rand black hair which she wore up in little, braided, spiky towers and plaits She had large blue eyes She was taller than my father She looked like a spy or ballerina or a lady pirate or a rock star She acted like one too For example, she never drove anywhere She rode a bike It drove e?" she’d say, and Zofia would just laugh

Zofia and I played Scrabble all the tilish wasn’t all that great, because we’d decided that she was allowed to use Baldeziwurleki vocabulary Baldeziwurlekistan is where Zofia was born, over two hundred years ago That’s what Zofia said (My grandmother claimed to be over two hundred years old Or maybe even older Sohis Khan He was much shorter than her I probably don’t have time to tell that story) Baldeziwurlekistan is also an incredibly valuable word in Scrabble points, even though it doesn’t exactly fit on the board Zofia put it down the first tiotten forty-one points for "zippery" onher letters on her tray Then she looked over atme to stop her, and put down "eziwurlekistan", after "bald" She used "delicious," "zippery," "wishes," "kismet", and "needle," and made "to" into "toe" "Baldeziwurlekistan" went all the way across the board and then trailed off down the righthand side

I started laughing