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he adds.
    Tía Lola nods.
“Yo sé.”
    Of course she knows! She is a
santera
, Miguel reminds himself She works magic.
    At lunch the next day, Miguel finds a half-dozen chewy fritters in a plastic container. Mort has four and Miguel two. Tía Lola says the chewy treats are called
empanaditas de queso
, and they are made of cheese and dough fried in peanut oil.
    The following morning, Mort reports a piece of luck to MigueL His pop just found out he’d won five hundred dollars on his weekly lottery ticket! Since Mort helped pick out the winning number, his father is going to buy him his very own heifer to show at the county fair that August.
    “Awesome,” Miguel says, trying to make his voice sound as if he thinks that is an exciting purchase. Meanwhile, his own lucky surprise arrives in the mail. A Sammy Sosa Louisville Slugger his father has sent up from New York for good luck in the upcoming tryouts.
    Every day when he wakes up, Miguel takes imaginary swings at an imaginary ball with his newbat. He flexes his arms, but the muscles are still pretty soft. Still, he definitely feels stronger. Tía Lola’s special magic rations in his lunchbox are working.
    He asks her about the jars she brought from the island. She explains that they are potions made from
hierbabuena
and
guayuyo
and
yema de huevos
to put on sores and cuts.
    “Magic potions?” he wants to know.
    She smiles and pushes the hair back from his eyes.
“Todo es mágico si se hace con amor, Miguel.”
    That is too corny for words—in English or Spanish. Everything is magic if made with love? Oh, please, and
por favor.
    But, of course, it is just like a
santera
to be secretive, Miguel thinks. He winks back, pretending to go along with Tía Lola. After all, in this country, she can probably be arrested for working magic so her nephew can make the local baseball team.
    That night on the phone, Miguel confesses to his father that Tía Lola is putting magic foods in his lunchbox to help him make the team.
    “It means a lot to you to make that team, doesn’t it,
tigueritol”
his father observes.
    It does mean a lot. After all, his only two friends are already on the team, “Ah, Miguel, come on, you’re a shoo-in,” Sam keeps saying to him.
    Dean agrees, “Yeah, you’re Dominican, I mean, baseball’s, like, natural for you,”
    When Miguel tells his father what Dean has said, his father gets annoyed, “You’ll make the team because you’ve been practicing hard, that’s why,” Papi often says that the worst thing you can do to people is make assumptions about them. Stereotyping, he calls it.
    Perhaps he, Miguel, is making assumptions about Tía Lola. Maybe she isn’t working magic on him. After all, she tells him the name of everything she cooks and exactly what she puts in it. Besides, she also fixes the same things in Juanita’s lunchbox, and Miguel hasn’t noticed any improvements in the little-sister department.
    What Miguel doesn’t tell his father is that Tía Lola isn’t the only one who is trying to work a little magic. Often, when he is driving to townwith Mami to get groceries or do some Saturday errand, Miguel will think to himself:
If the traffic light changes to green before we reach the corner
,
I’ll make the team.
    Sometimes just before they reach the corner, the light changes to green, Miguel feels a rush of relief and joy-But just as many times, the light is still red. Miguel sits in the front seat beside his mother, scowling, and thinking, Í
mean, the very next light, not this one.
    He worries that he is letting himself get too jumpy and superstitious. But he keeps hoping his wishes will come true:
    If the phone rings in the next minute, I’ll get an A on my math exam.
    If we pass seven red cars before we get home, I’ll make a lot of new friends.
    If I see a falling star…a double rainbow…a unicorn…a space alien
—
    This wish requires higher and higher stakes—
    My
parents will get back together again.
    The weekend of