By evening she still hadn't returned. Nelio thought that she must have realised that she wouldn't be allowed to stay, and so she wasn't going to bother to get the chickens or come back. Nascimento was pleased and said that he would kill her if she ever appeared on their street again. When Mandioca pointed out that Nascimento had been knocked down by a xidjana, a violent fight broke out, and Nelio had great difficulty stopping it. It began with Nascimento throwing himself at Mandioca. But when Alfredo Bomba got mixed up in it, their anger turned on him. Nelio had learned that fights among street kids followed their own rules and could develop in the most unexpected directions.

'She's gone,' he said when the fight was over. 'Maybe she'll come back, maybe she won't. For now we can forget that she was ever here.'

They started getting ready for the night.

'What should I think about now?' asked Tristeza.

'Think about the night at the marques's house,' Nelio said.

'I've stopped thinking about my bank,' Tristeza said proudly.

'You can think about it once a week,' said Nelio. 'But never in the afternoon when we're having our siesta.'

In the morning of the following day Deolinda came back. Nelio found her once again sitting under his tree. When he went over to her, she pulled two chickens out of her bag.

'Where did you get them?'

'An ambassador was having a big dinner in his garden. I climbed over two fences and went into the kitchen when no one was looking.'

Nelio didn't know what an ambassador was. He hesitated for a moment, wondering whether he should tell Deolinda that he didn't know. Then his curiosity got the better of him.

'An ambassador?' he said.

'An ambassador for a country far away.'

'What country?'

' Europe.'

Nelio had heard people talk about Europe. That's where the marqueses came from, and all the others who were cooperantes and had small pouches with money on their bellies.

He tasted one of the chickens.

'Not enough piri-piri,' he said.

Deolinda opened her bag and took out a little glass jar.

'Piri-piri,' she said.

The group had cautiously approached. Nelio divided the two chickens among them. At first Nascimento refused to take his share, but finally he snatched a piece and sat down a short distance away. From that moment on, Deolinda was one of them. Nelio remembered Cosmos asking him who he belonged to, and then from that moment on he was one of them. Now they had taken in Deolinda, and Nelio knew that the group was complete. No other new members would join unless one of them disappeared.

When the chickens had been eaten, Nelio told Nascimento to come closer.

'From now on Deolinda will be one of us. This means that no one can hit her without first asking my permission. Since she's new, she'll get only a half-share of our money. When we think that she deserves it, she'll get the same as everybody else. And no one calls her a xidjana unless she agrees to it. At the same time, Deolinda can't take advantage of the fact that she's a girl. She has to act exactly like the rest of us.'

Nelio thought about whether he had forgotten anything. After a moment's hesitation he added one thing.

'If Deolinda wants to be alone when she pees, she can. And she can also have a blanket if it's cold at night. But she has to get the blanket herself

Nelio looked around to see if anyone wanted to say anything.

'What do we need her for?' Nascimento said. 'She's neither black nor white, and she'll bring bad luck.'

To everyone's surprise, it was Tristeza who spoke up. 'Maybe that's a good thing. When she's with us, she's a xidjana. When she's with the whites, she's white. She can be both them and us.'

A good answer,' Nelio said. 'Soon you will earn your trainers.'

It didn't take long before Nelio saw that he had been right about taking Deolinda into the group. She was clever at begging, and she was quick to see possibilities in various situations that cropped up on the street. And besides, she could fight and defend herself. Soon nobody dared to accost her without risking that she would demonstrate her superior strength. Only Nascimento openly continued to show his dissatisfaction. Nelio began to suspect that one day Nascimento might leave them to join another band of street kids. He took Nascimento behind the petrol station and asked him straight out if he was thinking of leaving.

'No,' Nascimento said.

Nelio could hear that he was lying. But there was nothing he could do if Nascimento decided to leave.

It took a long time before Nelio began to understand what had driven Deolinda to the streets. Whenever he asked her about it, she would only snarl that it was nobody's business. It wasn't until Nelio opened her raffia bag while she was asleep and found inside a photograph of a man and a woman that he began to have some inkling of what some of the reasons might be. The man's face had been obliterated. The facial features had been scraped away with a nail or a stone. Nelio put the photograph back, ashamed that he had looked in her bag. No one should ever be forced to reveal a secret; and no one had the right to obtain information by stealth to satisfy his curiosity.

Nelio recalled something his mother had once said: No one is allowed to break his way into another's person's heart like a thief in the night.

Nelio soon noticed that Deolinda and Mandioca had become friends. They often squatted on the street, whispering to each other until they burst into laughter. If Nascimento was nearby he would angrily prowl around them without daring to interrupt their camaraderie. But they didn't seem to pay any attention to him.

One evening when Nelio was on his way home to his statue, he noticed that Deolinda was following him. His first thought was to stop and tell her to go back to the others. Then he realised that he might have a chance to find out what had driven her on to the streets. When he reached the small plaza, which was now deserted except for the sleeping nightwatchmen and the man who sold chicken thighs from his coal-fired drum, Nelio sat down at the foot of the statue. Deolinda had stopped at the street corner and was trying to hide in the shadows. But he called out that he had seen her. He thought she might be embarrassed at being caught.

'Who gave you permission to follow me?'

'I wanted to see where you live,' she replied, looking him straight in the eye.

'You can follow me for the rest of your life, but you'll never find out where I live.'

'Why not?'

'Because I just disappear.'

'I'd like to see that.'

Nelio nodded. 'If I manage to disappear without you noticing, what will you give me in return?'

She took a step back. 'I won't do xogo-xogo.'

Nelio was embarrassed. He knew what xogo-xogo was, but he had never done it. He knew that he wasn't old enough yet even to want to do it. 'I just want to know where you're from. Nothing else.'

'Why do you want to know that?'

'You can't go on being part of the group if I don't know where you're from. What did you do on the day before you sat down in my place in the shade of the tree? Why did you sit there? I have lots of questions.'

She was thinking about this. Then she nodded. 'You won't be able to disappear without me noticing. So I agree to answer your questions.'

'Turn round and close your eyes. Cover your ears. Count to ten. Can you count?'

'I can do everything. I can count and read and write.'

'Where did you learn all that?'

She didn't answer.

'Turn round,' he repeated. 'Close your eyes and count out loud to ten. And cover your ears too. If you cheat, you'll be struck blind.'

Nelio saw that she shuddered. She had heard about his supernatural powers.

She turned, shut her eyes and started counting. Nelio opened the hatch and quickly crawled inside the horse. He could see her through a hole next to the horse's mane. She finished counting and turned round. The plaza was deserted, there was no place he could have hidden, and he wouldn't have had time to run to the corner and disappear.