Chapter 1
Every morning, young Matthew Conner, eight years old, would wake up in his trundle bed in the one-bedroom apartment he shared with his father. He'd brush his teeth and comb his dark hair, all the while making funny faces at himself in the mirror. Matty was a happy, cheerful kid. Next, he would get dressed and run as fast as he could the three blocks to the cafe, where his papa worked, to have his breakfast.
He liked to sit on a high stool in the cafe's kitchen and watch as his papa worked his magic.
"Good food is magic, Matty," his father would say as he mixed the batter for his blueberry pancakes. "Special magic to everyone all across the whole world. Why, even the Queen of England herself has to pay homage to the cooks who make her morning oatmeal and crumpets.
In the olden days, kings would rate their wealth by the richness of the delicious food on their banquet tables. One time a king even knighted a cut of beef it was so good. "I dub thee, 'Sir Loin'." I bet he knighted the castle's cook, too. That's the magic of food. It takes the wizardry of guys like you and me to cook it."
He laughed like he always did when he told Matty that story and plated a Spanish omelet for Matty's breakfast. "Can you tell what I did differently today?"
Matty would taste and say solemnly, "Papa, yesterday you cooked mine with jalapeno peppers and this one has none." And his daddy would shout to Alice and Mae the waitresses, "He did it! My boy, Matty, is going to be a master chef one day. World mark down my words, you'll see!"
And young Matty would laugh with the joy of his life.
Then came the bad day. When he got to the restaurant. A fire truck was there and a crowd of people and an ambulance.
His papa was gone.
And so was the magic in Matty's world.
"No next of kin?" The social worker flipped through the papers. Her voice was hushed, but Matty could hear her from where he sat on the plastic chair outside her office.
"None that we can locate," replied the police officer. "Father was James Conner, single parent. Mother died when the boy was an infant. No grandparents, no aunts or uncles."
Matty stared at his sneakers--the ones his Papa had bought him just last month, saying he was growing like a weed. The laces were undone, but he made no move to tie them.
Marco, the cafe's manager, had stayed with him at the hospital while the doctors spoke in low voices about "massive cardiac arrest" and "nothing could be done." But Marco had a large family of his own and couldn't take in an eight-year-old boy, no matter how many times he'd ruffled Matty's hair and called him "piccolo."
"We'll find you a family to live with soon," the social worker promised, kneeling in front of him with a smile that didn't reach her tired eyes. "But for now, you'll stay at Horizon House. It's a nice place with other children."
Matty nodded because that seemed to be what she wanted. He clutched his Spiderman backpack while she took his little suitcase filled with his clothes--and followed her to the car.
Horizon House was a square brick building with small windows and a chain-link fence around a patchy yard. Nothing like the cozy apartment above the Chinese grocery where he and papa had lived with the fire escape that they had turned into their own tiny herb garden.
"This is Matthew," the social worker announced to the group home supervisor, a large woman named Ms. Winters, with a voice that boomed even when she was trying to be gentle. "He's joining you."
Ms. Winters smiled, revealing a gold tooth. "Welcome, Matthew. We're just about to have lunch. Are you hungry?"
Matty wasn't. His stomach felt like it was full of rocks, but he nodded because saying no seemed harder.
The dining room smelled wrong--not like his papa's kitchen, with its aromas of garlic and herbs and butter browning in a pan. This place smelled of bleach and old cooked food smells.
"Meatloaf today," Ms. Winters said, steering him to a table where four other children sat. None of them looked up as he approached. "Children, this is Matthew. Make him feel welcome."
The meatloaf was tasteless and the mashed potatoes were too salty. Matty took one bite and couldn't manage another.
"You gonna eat that?" asked a boy his own age across from him, already reaching for Matty's tray.
Matty pushed it toward him and watched as the boy shoveled the food into his mouth, not tasting it, like he was just filling.
The room had two sets of bunk beds. Three other boys shared it with him. Their names--Derek, Luis and Jayden--washed over him without sticking.
"You get the bottom bunk." Luis said, pointing to the empty bunk.
"Okay," Matty whispered, his first words since arriving.
"Watch out. Derek pees the bed sometimes."
Derek, a freckled redhead who looked no older than six, punched Luis in the arm. "Shut up! I do not!"
Ms. Winters showed him where to put his few belongings. There was a small dresser drawer for each boy and a communal closet.
"Bathroom's down the hall," she explained. "Showers are in the morning, five minutes each. Lights out at eight-thirty for your age group."
She left, and Matty sat on the edge of his assigned bed, still clutching his backpack. He'd never had to share a room before. In their apartment, his trundle bed had pulled out from under his father's, and they'd lie there in the dark, his papa talking about a new dish or laughing about the picky customer who'd sent back his soup for being too spicy.
"What you got in there?" Derek asked, pointing to the backpack.
Matty hugged it closer. "Nothing."
"Okay," Luis said, sitting beside him. "Look, I got this GI Joe figure." He grabbed an action figure with a missing arm from his bunk. "My brother got it for me before he went to juvie."
Matty hesitated, then unzipped his backpack and showed the little boy his papa's pocket watch, a tin measuring cup and a tattered recipe book.
"Cool," Luis said.
Matty nodded and tucked it away.
That night, after the overhead lights had been switched off and only the dim glow from the hallway seeped under the door, Matty lay awake. Unfamiliar sounds filled the room--Jaden's soft snores, Luis muttering in his sleep, and the creaking of the bunk above him as Derek tossed and turned in the thrall of a nightmare.
In the apartment, there had been different sounds--the hum of the refrigerator, the distant honking of taxis, his papa's gentle breathing. Sometimes, his papa would work the late shift and Matty would fall asleep to the TV playing on low volume, knowing his papa would be there in the morning, the smell of coffee perking and bacon frying.
Now, there was only the harsh smell of some kind of cleaning chemical and the hollow feeling in his belly.
Carefully, making sure the others were asleep, Matty reached under his pillow for the pocket watch. He gripped it, feeling its weight, imagining it still warm from his father's pocket.
"Food is magic, Matty," his papa's voice echoed in his memory. "And we wizards who cook well are special."
But there was no magic here. No wizardry in the cafeteria's offerings. No happy smiles and laughter.
For the first time since the ambulance, since Marco's words "I'm so sorry, son" had landed on him, Matty began to cry, huge sobs tore out of him he clutched papa's pocket watch--the only bit of his papa's magic he had left.
And as sleep finally claimed him, Matty made a silent promise to his papa. Someday, somehow, he would find that magic again.
Chapter 2
Eight years later, sixteen-year-old Matthew Conner's clear blue eyes looked out at the world with reserved cynicism.
He knew three things to be true.
1) Nothing is for free, everything comes with a cost.
2) Nobody cares--He was the only person he could count on.
3) Self pity is a curse that makes you weak.
Those three were first among other lessons he had learned the hard way.
Matthew was big for his age, his handsome face marred by crooked nose-twice broken nose from two desperate brawls with a kid named Butch who had stolen his father's watch. Butch was now serving time in juvie after he stabbed another kid in a fight over who got the top bunk.
They had all learned not to mess with Matthew.
He walked to the Chicago Farmer's Market from Roosevelt High School, where he excelled despite his circumstances, or maybe because of them. A fifth-grade teacher named Miss Brown had told him over and over that knowledge can't be taken from you. Meaningful words to a kid who had nothing but a busted pocket watch, a battered recipe book, a tin cup and a distant memory of a magical kitchen.
The late afternoon sun bathed the farmers' market in a golden light that made the weathered wooden stalls look somehow magical. Matthew adjusted his backpack higher on his shoulder and entered through the east entrance to Mr. Pietro's flower stand where the Easter lilies and roses perfumed the air.
"Ah, Matty, my young friend!" Pietro called out, his Italian accent still thick in spite of forty years in the United States. "Come, come. I have something new to show you." He beckoned Matthew closer with gnarled hands stained green from decades of cutting stems.
Matthew approached with his customary wariness, but there was a softness in his eyes reserved only for this place, these people.
"Saffron crocus," Mr. Pietro said, gesturing to a bucket of flowers with delicate, elongated petals in vibrant orange and yellow. " The stamens give us the spice saffron. Takes more than fifty thousand of these plants to make a pound of the saffron that turns the risotto golden."
