I breathed in the steam of her tea, then took a gentle sip. Al­though her cloudy gray eyes had been disturbing at first, after I'd been sitting and drinking with her for just a few minutes, any sense of discomfort faded away. "Now you tell me your trou­bles," she said, "because my guess is you got no one else worth tellin' em to."

"I just had a bad day, is all." I didn't say anything more, hop­ing I wouldn't have to get into it―but Miss Leticia wasn't going to let me off the hook.

"Hmm," she said when she realized I wasn't talking. Then she rapped her knuckles against one of her leg braces. "These braces here give me support. I don't mind, on account of I know my legs need it―otherwise they hurt something awful. I know you're hurting as well. Ain't no shame in needing a little sup­port." She took a long, slow sip of her tea. "Now, why don't you tell me what happened that's got you so upset?

"Clammed up, are ya? Hmm. Must be a lot going on in that head of yours."

Then she smiled a little too mischievously for a woman of her age. "What could it hurt to let some steam out of that pressure cooker?"

I sighed. "Well, I was in this spelling bee, and―"

"Ah," she interrupted, "I knew you were the type for casting spells!"

"No, not casting spells," I told her. "It's about spelling words."

"Spells, spelling; it's all the same," she said. "Puttin' letters in order is no different than puttin' words in order. There's a magic to both of them, true enough."

Though I knew the notion was crazy, it was exciting to think that something as ordinary as spelling could have a kind of power. Maybe there was more to me than offends the eye!

When I told her about the words I'd been forced to spell, she pursed her lips and said, "My, my, my, what a place we live in. I think the people around this town are just unnaturally cruel."