Many years ago, in a town of cobbled streets, there was a girl who never wanted to go to sleep. They called her Petiza. She had a blonde bob with bangs, a dress that swung open like a bell when she ran, and a secret: she saw stories in everything. In the pot simmering with cinnamon. In the old doors on her street. In the candles flickering down the street, house to house.
One night, on a branch of the tree in the yard, a bird she had never seen before came to rest: green, turquoise and orange, with a black mask and a long tail like two pendulums. Tick… tock. It was the torogoz.
“Are you the girl who is always watching?” it said. “Here. This is for you.”
And it let fall a feather from its tail. But when Petiza picked it up, it was no longer a feather: it was a golden pencil with a little star lit at its tip.
Petiza raised the pencil and drew the first letter of her name in the air. A great golden P that stayed shining in the night. And out of that P came her first story: what she saw in the smoke of the comal, in the clouds over the volcano, in her little brother and sister's laughter. Everything she drew became a story, and every story, when it ended, rose into the sky as a spiral of sparks.
That night Petiza learned that contar means two things. It means to tell a story. And it means to count. What you imagine counts, too.
Petiza grew up. As an abuela, under the same tree, with candles lit and something sweet on the table, she told her stories to her grandchildren. And one night, when she finished, she handed the golden pencil to the children and said:
“Now it's your turn.”
Ever since, the pencil passes from hand to hand. Every time someone draws a story, a new spiral appears in the sky. Look closely: you are in one of them.
