written by Thom Garrett
edited by Danna Colman
“Is not!”
“Is too!”
“Is NOT!
“Is TOO!”
The two boys, huddled together in a damp alley, were the best of friends despite their constant bickering. Each orphaned, each homeless, they had found one another on the street and formed an unbreakable, if contentious, bond.
The object of their current altercation was an enormous black umbrella.
“You’re a dolt! How would you even know?”
“You can tell just by looking at it! Have you ever, ever seen another like it? It has to magicked!”
The umbrella had flipped off the top of a carriage drawn by a fine horse as it rattled along the cobblestone streets of north Philadelphia. It had landed at Oscar’s feet, so by rights it was his, but he and Jack shared everything.
The boys squatted, their legs and arms bent like crabs, and they studied their prize. It was unquestionably a very fine umbrella, the likes of which they had never seen. It was almost as tall as Oscar, the shorter of the two, with a carved ivory handle and a knob at the top that looked like gold. It was easy to see that this was a unique, and possibly enchanted, brolly.
