Run, Boy, Run(16)

"With hair from your braid?"

She laughed.

"I didn't have a braid then, stupid. How old are you?"

"I guess nine."

"I'm twelve," Marisza said proudly. "My brother used hair from the tail of our horse."

"Where's your brother now?"

"With my parents in Heaven. Now look and I'll show you. You know why I'm nice to you? Because you're an orphan like me."

Srulik walked beside her. The dogs followed them. She laid the hairs in the grass, looped one end, tied the other to a stem, and scattered crumbs.

"That's all there is to it," she said. "You can go back to your cows."

Before long little birds came along to peck at the crumbs. One couldn't fly away. Marisza ran to it with Srulik on her heels. By the time he reached her, she was holding the bird in her hand. She opened the slipknot, freed it, and pocketed both hairs. "Get it?" she asked.

Srulik got it. But where was he to get such long hairs? His farm had no horse.

"Can you lend me a few hairs?" he asked.

"Sure. But we can hunt together."

They spent half the next day hunting birds. After they had caught enough of them, Marisza gathered wood and kindling for a fire. Srulik was surprised to see she had no matches.

"I'll give you some," he said.

"I have some," she told him. "But I'm going to show you a trick."

She took a round piece of glass and beamed a ray of light with it on a dry leaf. Soon there was smoke. Then a little flame appeared. Marisza added some dry pine needles and the flame flared up.

"How did you do that?" Srulik marveled.

"It's the magnifying glass that does it, not me."

"Let me try."

"First let's cook the birds."

She gave him a knife and he cut the birds' heads off and cleaned them. Marisza coated them with mud. Then she laid them in the coals and they sat down to wait.

"Once I was with my brother in the forest and we found a knapsack," she told Srulik. "There were books in it and three pieces of glass like this. The books had pictures of butterflies and bugs. They must have belonged to a nature teacher. We didn't know what the glass was for. My father taught us things you can do with it. Making a fire is just one."

Marisza showed Srulik how the glass made everything bigger: his fingertips, the grass, even a small ant.

"Let me have it for a second."

It was a wonder to him. He tried lighting a dry leaf like Marisza but couldn't do it.

"Not like that. You have to focus the light in a little point."

"What will you swap for it?"

"What do you have?"

He took out his butterfly pin. Marisza examined it and pinned it on her dress. She handed it back.

"Nope."

"But I didn't tell you yet. It shines in the dark. If you put it in the sun during the day, it gives back the sunlight during the night."

"I'll take it home with me and see. If you're right, I'll swap."

They took the cooked birds from the fire, rolled them in the grass, broke the clay, removed the little morsels, and sat down to eat. Srulik took out his water bottle. Marisza drank without touching it with her lips. When it was his turn, she said, "That's no way to drink. If you're sharing with someone, you don't let your lips touch. Don't you know that?"

He didn't. She showed him how to do it. The meat and bread were a royal feast.

"It's a lot of work," Marisza said. "But we don't have anything better to do and I love baked birds."

"Me too," said Srulik.

"I wish I could hunt grouse like the boys," Marisza said.

"How do they hunt them?"

"With slingshots."

"Are they bigger?"

"Sure. They're even bigger than a pigeon. I'll show you in the morning."

"Can't you catch them with a hair?"

"No. Not even with a horsehair. They're too strong."

The next day she gave him the magnifying glass. "Your butterfly really shines at night," she said.

She also brought him a big piece of sausage. "I stole it," she told him. "I'll split it with you if you'll play a game with me."

Srulik agreed. "What's the game?"

"Let's eat first."

After they ate, Marisza led him to the footpath that ran between the meadow and the wheat field. They sat on the hard earth and she taught him to play jacks with stones. She was awfully good at it.

"It's a girls' game," she said. "But what do you care?"

Srulik tried flipping the stones in the air and catching them like Marisza. It was hard.

"It takes time," she said. "If we play every day, you'll get better."

A sudden breeze billowed her dress.

"You're peeking!" she said. "That's dirty."