Zezé stared out of the window and sighed. He was hungry but momma would not be home for a few hours. Hopefully she would remember to bring food. She probably would, she was pretty good about remembering him.
The view was breathtaking. The Guanabara bay in Rio de Janeiro. With the Sugar Loaf mountain at one end, the navy headquarters to the other. The lights of the hotels illuminating Copacabana beach. The most beautiful view in the city, surrounded by squalor and poverty, it was one of the many discrepancies of Rio. One of the most beautiful places in South America in one of the richest countries in natural resources in the world, with so much poverty. Zezé was a good example of the unfairness of it all. His mother had been seduced by a gringo, and then left alone to have a baby. He left for his rich country and then forgot all about the young girl he had seduced.
Maria had been thrown out of her house, under shouts from her parents of what a disgrace she was, left to fend for herself. She worked as a maid in the house of a rich family, with a salary that only left enough money to pay the rent on the shack they lived in and keep Zezé dressed and badly fed. He went barefoot, rarely had school since most of the time the professors were either protesting the current government or taken to some mysterious place for interrogation by the government. He could read and write, but he was truly an expert in getting by with very little. He refused to steal, something his mother had taught him, and since he idolized his momma and if she said not to do it, he would not do it, even if it meant going hungry when other boys had food. His momma made all the sacrifices she could to keep her baby alive, and though she turned to drugs and alcohol when she couldnt pay for his food so she'd get money selling herself, one way or another she made sure he was alive. though he was young he understood what his momma did to keep him fed so she did his best to be a good boy, to make up for the pain of what she did, or the pain of the beatings when the clients got nasty. Though he hated when his mother came home drugged or drunk, he understood why she did it. even at 9 years of age, he understood only to well, having grown up before he should have needed to.
He ran the beaches of Copacabana, offering to help tourists - thanks to the English his good for naught father had taught his momma he could do this when many of the other people couldn't -, offering to wash dishes in restaurants, washing the windshield of cars for change, and most days he managed to buy some food. Today it had rained which meant that he could not wash windshields and most restaurants hated when he tried to ask for help when wet, so he had stayed home. He sighed, it was the winter holidays, far too much rain, which meant danger for most inhabitants of the Favela (slum). The soil was wet, and mudslides could happen any moment. Momma would be worried, nervous.
That night, after momma arrived, a feast of party left over from the house she worked in, on the table - they would eat well tonight! - Zeze was setting the table (plastic tablewear and chipped glasses) when a low rumble they knew well and dreaded made them look at each other. Momma grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and threw him out of the shack they lived in, ran with all her might, only hearing the rumble of an entire mountain sliding down towards them got closer and closer…
The next morning Zeze could do nothing but stare at the ruin that had been the part of the favela he had lived in. He was hungry, cold, scratched in a number of different places. None of that registered however… all he could think was that he was alone… alone in a world that disliked him and would not help him. He would have to fend for himself, he didn't even know who his Momma's family had been, going with the social worker to the orphanage was out of the question, asking help to the drug lord no chance… all he had was himself.
two years later much of the sweet and hard working boy was gone. He lived in the streets, knew how to trick people, cheat people, how to find food, money, clothes and places to sleep and find his way in the world. It was not an easy living. He was known to the police; after all he was a rather good pickpocket and also quite good as slipping out of their grasp. He knew it would not be long before he ended up in FEBEM (Brazilian Juvenile correctional facilities) but so far he had managed to survive and stay out.
The day the Owl found him, Zeze ignored it, deciding it was a crazed bird or some joke by someone. It kept coming so he struggled to read the foreign language. It had been a long time since he had read it, the last time the night his mother had died in the mud slide. It hurt him to read it, it made him think of his mother, which reminded him of how much she would hate what he did to survive, though he knew she would understand. It also reminded him of a happier time, he had had no idea back then how easy he had had. Over and over he read it, hardly believing what he read, doubting he understood.
Maybe his English was not as good as he remembered, surely no one would pay for him to go to a school in another country? Would help him with all the expenses and even give him pocket money? Surely not. Still he knew where the embassy was, it said there would be a door to the side, where he could find the 'underage wizards supervision officer ' that would escort him to England. Surely not. Zeze considered it all night, sleeping in the rough shack he had build for himself - the latest of many, it was often that his hideout, den or shack was destroyed by the rain, by the city's cleaning crew or taken over by someone bigger and stronger. In the morning, he decided to go, he would not lose anything, and maybe he could scope some tourist to rob.
He picked pockets on the way, and when he met the lady, the officer, was relieved to find she spoke some Portuguese, surely she would explain that he would have to pay all of that somehow. No, they knew how his father was, and though the man would not accept him as his son, it was enough to get him accepted into the school and the government would provide for him. She also explained all of the unexplained things that happened over the years with him, probably also how he managed to escape the police so often, and how he survived the mudslide that had killed his mother.
He should come back the next day, when they would leave for England. Just as he was going out of the Embassy the police finally caught up with him… he was sent to Febem for two years and was sure that the one chance he had of having a better life was gone.
Two years later Zeze found himself standing at the train station, angrier, tougher, even more skilled in the less than respectable skills one needs to survive in the streets, eager to take all he could from this school. He had also learned he had some kind of power, and through the help of some Wizards in Brazil learned to use some of his 'magic' to avoid problems and authorities. He already hated this place. He missed the beaches in Brazil, he missed the heat, even in winter better than this wet and cold place, but surely being fed and warm was better than sleeping on a cardboard box under a bridge right?
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