Chapter 1

Every morning, young Matthew Conner, eight years old, would wake up in his trundle bed in the one-bedroom apartment he shared with his father. He’d brush his teeth and comb his dark hair, all the while making funny faces at himself in the mirror. Matty was a happy, cheerful kid. Next, he would get dressed and run as fast as he could the three blocks to the cafe, where his papa worked, to have his breakfast.

He liked to set on a high stool in the cafe’s kitchen and watch as his papa worked his magic.

“Good food is magic, Matty,” his father would say as he mixed the batter for his blueberry pancakes. “Special magic to everyone all across the whole world. Why, even the Queen of England herself has to pay homage to the folk who make her morning oatmeal and crumpets.

In the olden days, kings would rate their wealth by the richness of the delicious food on their banquet tables. One time a king even knighted a cut of beef it was so good. “I dub thee, ‘Sir Loin’.” I bet he knighted the castle’s cook, too. That’s the magic of food. It takes the wizardry of guys like you and me to cook it.”

He laughed like he always did when he told that story and plated a Spanish omelet for Matty’s breakfast. “Can you tell what I did differently today?”

Matty would taste and say solemnly, “Papa, yesterday you cooked mine with jalapeno peppers and this one has none.” And his daddy would shout to Alice and Mae the waitresses, “He did it! My boy, Matty, is going to be a master chef one day. World mark down my words, you’ll see!”

And young Matty would laugh with the joy of his life.

Then came the bad day. When he got to the restaurant. A fire truck was there and a crowd of people and an ambulance.

Papa was gone.

And so was the magic in Matty’s world.

“No next of kin?” The social worker flipped through the papers. Her voice was hushed, but Matty could hear her from where he sat on the plastic chair outside her office.

“None that we can locate,” replied the police officer. “Father was James Conner, single parent. Mother died when the boy was an infant. No grandparents, no aunts or uncles.”

Matty stared at his sneakers—the ones his Papa had bought him just last month, saying he was growing like a weed. The laces were undone, but he made no move to tie them.

Marco, the cafe’s manager, had stayed with him at the hospital while the doctors spoke in low voices about “massive cardiac arrest” and “nothing could be done.” But Marco had a large family of his own and couldn’t take in an eight-year-old boy, no matter how many times he’d ruffled Matty’s hair and called him “piccolo.”

“We’ll find you a family to live with soon,” the social worker promised, kneeling in front of him with a smile that didn’t reach her tired eyes. “But for now, you’ll stay at Horizon House. It’s a nice place with other children.”

Matty nodded because that seemed to be what she wanted. He clutched his Spiderman backpack while she took his little suitcase filled with his clothes—and followed her to the car.

Horizon House was a square brick building with small windows and a chain-link fence around a patchy yard. Nothing like the cozy apartment above the Chinese grocery where he and papa had lived with the fire escape that they had turned into their own tiny herb garden.

“This is Matthew,” the social worker announced to the group home supervisor, a large woman named Ms. Winters, with a voice that boomed even when she was trying to be gentle. “He’s joining you.”

Ms. Winters smiled, revealing a gold tooth. “Welcome, Matthew. We’re just about to have lunch. Are you hungry?”

Matty wasn’t. His stomach felt like it was full of rocks, but he nodded because saying no seemed harder.

The dining room smelled wrong—not like his papa’s kitchen, with its aromas of garlic and herbs and butter browning in a pan. This place smelled of bleach and old cooked food smells.