Cornelia Travnicek: Feenstaub.

Excerpt:

" I’M GOING WITH Cheta today," I say and pull the book away from him.
"Why me?"Cheta asks and reaches for his book.
"Nobody’s going today,” says Magare.
"When I say I’m going with Cheta, I’m going with Cheta."
Magare shrugs his shoulders: "Have you looked outside?”

I LOOK OUT. In the sky above the city two dragons are fighting. One is spewing fire, the other ice. I stop under the trees at the entrance to our house and hold on to the beaded curtain. When the dragons’ bodies collide, the soundwaves almost knock me over. The sky darkens, as if the fighters were kicking up dust, above us. A sudden rain washes everything away.

"No one’s going today," I say as I turn my wet face to the others.

LATER I LIE on my back and flick a coin towards the ceiling, over and over again. It’s raining on our canopy of leaves. Next to me, Cheta is still reading. He has a whole pile of books. No one tries to take them away. I stick my left thumb through a belt loop on my pants. The tips of my shoes point towards the heavens. I whistle a tune.
Cheta throws a pillow at me, shooting my coin out of its trajectory. It falls to the ground and rolls away.
"Dude?"
"Stop whistling, can’t you see I’m reading!"
"Shit." For a second, I hug the pillow resting on my chest, press it firmly against me. Then I hurl it at Cheta as hard as I can. The pillow lands smack into his book and the old, well-thumbed-through thing splits into several sections.
"Hey!" he shouts.
"Hey yourself," I retort, as if I’m tired.
The beaded curtain at the entrance moves. Magare walks in. Raindrops cling to his forehead. Cheta picks up the pages that have fallen out of the book.
Magare yanks his shirt over his head and wipes himself with it. He often finds an opportunity to yank his shirt over his head. Then he drops it next to me, takes a plastic package out of his pocket and throws it into my lap.
"Do it to me man."
"Do it to yourself."
I laugh. He laughs.
I move closer to him, he turns towards me. I open the bag and sprinkle some of the golden dust on the palm of my hand.
"Heads up."
I cup my hands towards Magare’s face.
"On three!"
I count one, two, and on three I blow the golden dust right in front of Magare’s nose and mouth, a glittering cloud rises. Magare takes a deep breath, so deep it looks as if his ribs are piercing through his skin.
"Think of something nice," I say.
And I laugh again.

THEY SAY, IF YOU think of something nice, a good memory, while you breathe in the fairy dust, you can fly.

WHEN THE RAIN lets up, we sit outside. The sky is cloudless; we can’t even tell where the drops are coming from. I look up into the trees. There’s a parrot.
"There," I say, and point at it, but no one follows my finger with their gaze. The parrot is ruffling his tail feathers with his beak. He’s red, with a bit of blue. I tilt my head, put my arm down in the wet grass, slide lower and lower, my eyes glued to the parrot. The leaves around him sparkle in a steady rhythm: lush green, bright silver, lush green, bright silver. Around the eyes the bird is white. He also looks at me sideways.

Another reason why I can’t stop with the fairy dust: without it I can’t see colors anymore.

As if by accident, Magare rests the back of his hand against mine.

THE CITY HAS two banks on a large river. Nobody is interested in what lies in between. Our island is no man’s land. Here time passes more slowly, or it goes faster on the shores of the city, depending on how you look at it. They say, all kids leave no man’s land one day. When they grow up. But one kid doesn’t. Me. I refuse to grow up.

EVERY TIME Krakadzil scrutinizes the treasure chest, I feel the same look settle on me afterwards. As if I were a fake gold coin. Once he grabbed me by the chin, turned my head in one direction and the other, pinched my chin, then spat out: “No beard, huh?” "No beard," I replied, jutting my chin forward.

(pp. 26-34)

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