Barbecue in the backyard; stereo shoved over by the bedroom window, blasting out "Green Onions" by Booker T. & the MGs: these spells for the enchantments of my childhood gave rise to "Wallamelon." These spells--plus the responses I got when I answered that perennial question "What do you want to be when you grow up?" "A magician," I always replied. Not with a tuxedo, a tall hat, and rabbits, I patiently explained. I wanted to do real magic...

"BABY, BABY, BABY! Baby, Baby, Baby!"

Cousin Alphonse must have thought he looked like James Brown. He looked like what he was, just a little boy with a big peanut head, squirming around, kicking up dust in the driveway.

Oneida thought about threatening to tell on him for messing his pants up. Even Alphonse ought to know better. He had worn holes in both his knees, begging "Please, please, please" into the broken microphone he'd found in Mr. Early's trash barrel. And she'd heard a loud rip the last time he did the splits, though nothing showed. Yet.

"'Neida! Alphonse! Come see what me an Mercy Sanchez foun!" Kevin Curtis ran along the sidewalk towards them, arms windmilling, shirt-tails flapping. He stopped several feet off, as soon as he saw he had their attention. "Come on!"

Oneida stood up from the pipe-rail fence slowly, with the full dignity of her ten years. One decade. She was the oldest kid on the block, not counting teenagers. She had certain responsibilities, like taking care of Alphonse.

The boys ran ahead of her as she walked, and circled back again like little dogs. Kevin urged her onto the path that cut across the vacant lot beside his house. Mercy was standing on a pile of rubble half the way through, her straight hair shining in the noonday sun like a long, black mirror. She was pointing down at something Oneida couldn't see from the path, something small, something so wonderful it made sad Mercy smile.

"Wallamelons," Kevin explained as they left the path. "Grown all by they selves; ain't nobody coulda put em there."

"Watermelons," Oneida corrected him automatically.

The plant grew out from under a concrete slab. At first all she could see was its broad leaves, like green hearts with scalloped edges. Mercy pushed these aside to reveal the real treasure: four fat globes, dark and light stripes swelling in their middles and vanishing into one another at either end. They were watermelons, all right. Each one was a little larger than Oneida's fist.

"It's a sign," said Mercy, her voice soft as a baby's breath. "A sign from the Blue Lady."

Oneida would have expected the Blue Lady to send them roses instead, or something prettier, something you couldn't find in an ordinary supermarket. But Mercy knew more about the Blue Lady, because she and her half-brother Emilio had been the ones to tell Oneida about her in the first place.

"Four of them and four of us." Oneida looked up at Mercy to see if she understood the significance.

Mercy nodded. "We can't let no one else know about this."

"How come?" asked Alphonse. Because he was mildly retarded he needed help understanding a lot of things.

Oneida explained it to him. "You tell anybody else, they'll mess up everything. Keep quiet and you'll have a whole watermelon all to yourself."

"I get a wallamelon all my own?"

"Wa-ter-mel-on," Oneida enunciated.