The Glow of the Spotlight: My Journey with Rebecca

I try to stay calm, but panic creeps into my own voice as I ask Benny if he’s holding my purse. He shakes his head and claims he saw a boy reaching toward the peddler’s cart, though he thought the boy was only after an onion. I peer over the heads crowding the sidewalk and spot a skinny boy in a gray cap shoving through the shoppers.

I shout for Rebecca. She hurries over, leaving Rose behind, and I struggle to explain while keeping my eyes fixed on the thief. Rebecca grabs Benny’s hand, and the three of us take off after the boy.

My mind races through everything tucked inside that purse. Rebecca’s coin pouch. The money I brought from home. A comb, some tissues, a pad and pencil. A packet of extra taps for my dance shoes. And the nesting dolls, my only way back home.

The moment I realize what I’ve truly lost, I run faster than I ever have in my life, bumping past strangers without a single apology, Rebecca and Benny falling behind. The thief ducks beneath the elevated tracks just as a train rumbles overhead, and I feel its rattle in my teeth. My hands shake with anger and fear.

Just as I close the gap, he vanishes into a knot of rowdy older boys loitering on the corner. They block the whole sidewalk, shoulder to shoulder, and I can’t find a way around them. My legs slow to a stop. Somewhere inside that crowd of boys is my last chance at getting home, and I’m not at all sure I have the nerve to shove my way through, even to save the dolls.