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hand, his school shirt was sticking to his back, and a sweat drip was winding down his hairline. That first dive into the deep end was a beautiful thing.
    “Let’s do it,” he said to Gigs. “I’ll see if Ma needs anything first. It’s Aunties. And Louie’s birthday.”
    “Bonga Swetso!” said Gigs, punching him on the arm.
    Frankie punched him back with equal enthusiasm. Gigs had been saying “Bonga Swetso” with monotonous regularity since the Aunties’ last visit. Bonga Swetso, the Aunties had been very pleased to tell Gigs, was the four-year-old Frankie’s phrase for “goody.” He’d made up lots of words and phrases when he was that age, the Aunties said, but Bonga Swetso had been everyone’s favorite. The best by far. They couldn’t think how they’d failed to tell Gigs this before.
    How indeed?
Frankie had thought, knowing instantly that Gigs would seize Bonga Swetso and run with it.
    They stopped together at Ronald’s corner and crouched down, but the dachshund wasn’t there.
    “Down at the river,” said Gigs. They peered through the fence slats at the trim lawn and carefully pruned shrubs in Ronald’s section. On extremely hot days, Ronald’s naturally bad personality tipped over into real malevolence and his owners took him to the river for a dip in a vain effort to improve his mood.
    “Bonga Swetso!” said Gigs, standing up. “Swim. Then we’ll get an ice cream. Then I’ll do some practice and come up to your place. What’s Louie’s cake?”
    “Black Forest cherry,” said Frankie. He’d put the cherries to soak in the Kirsch this morning, under Ma’s watchful eye.
    “With chocolate curls?” said Gigs.
    “Of course.”
    “And we haven’t tested Louie,” said Gigs. “I’ll bring the sphyg. That’ll be everyone, then. We can start pasting everything onto the cardboard. Bonga Swetso!” He banged shut Mrs. Da Prini’s letter box and smacked his hands together in satisfaction.
    Gigs was in one of his bossier moods, but Frankie rather enjoyed a bossy Gigs. It was certainly infinitely preferable to the sulking version. After school on Sydney’s first day, they had climbed the Zig Zag in almost complete silence. Gigs had trudged past Ronald and ignored Marmalade; Frankie had closed Mrs. Da Prini’s letter box with almost furtive care.
    It was the Aunties and Bonga Swetso that had saved the day. Gigs had come up with the sphygmomanometer after dinner to do the stress test. It was as if he was swathed in an invisible black cloud. He’d eaten three brandy snaps without cracking a smile. And then Frankie had fixed the sphygmomanometer cuff to Alma’s hambone arm and everyone, including Gigs, had started laughing.
    It was the next day, when Sydney had joined lunchtime cricket, that really sealed the deal, though. Frankie had been thinking about that with great pleasure every day for the last two weeks.
    “Bonga Swetso!” he said with a laugh, as they turned the corner for the top.
    Frankie opened the back door to the smell of warm honey and toasted walnuts.
Baklava
. He was expert at figuring the different cakes under construction, usually just from the smell (for which he awarded himself an A+) or sometimes from the bowls and ingredients on the bench (B+).
    Ma was brushing the filo pastry sheets with melted butter, a steady painting motion. Frankie stood for a moment watching the white pastry become transparent. It looked like wet, brown paper, brittle and eminently breakable, but Ma could wield the ghostly sheets with no difficulty at all.
    Frankie liked to watch Ma while she baked. She was like a practiced conjuror, her movements sure and splendid. Ma did everything in the kitchen with great calm. No matter how many cakes were in process, no matter how many different tasks needed to be completed in short order — creaming butter, toasting nuts, melting chocolate, greasing pans — she never rushed or panicked. And, as if in response to her unruffled presence, the