Tag Archives: Family

The Twin Jinn

Using Magic on Humans

I was amused Saturday when Amazon noted The Twin Jinn and the Alchemy Machine was No. 1 in Alchemy. Well, that was unexpected. But turning metal into gold is one of the talents of the magical beings I created for this series for middle grade readers.

Jute and Fina Jinn can fly, be invisible, shrink, and cast spells. But sometimes the best magic they do is to help humans change for the better. That’s what happens when they attend school in a small town in The Twin Jinn and the Alchemy Machine.

In the first, The Twin Jinn at Happy Jack’s Carnival of Mysteries, the twins and their parents perform a magic act in a traveling carnival after escaping from their power-hungry master. In that book, Jute and Fina help a new friend, Jonathan, overcome his shyness.

In The Twin Jinn and the Alchemy Machine, their parents, Elwin and Mira, move to a small town where hopefully they will not be discovered. They live in an apple orchard and the twins attend fifth grade in a local school. Elwin and Mira also feel it’s a good way for their children to learn more about humans although they are supposed to keep their magic hidden. (Good luck with that.)

One of their lessons about humans is dealing with a boy named Brian Morgan, a bully who picks on his classmates. He makes fun of the twins because they look and dress differently. He calls them names like Hoot and Greener, Cute and Cleaner,  and Toot and Weiner.

Here’s a scene from the first chapter, when at recess Brian makes fun of the clothes Jute and Fina wear.

Fina jabbed a finger against the boy’s chest so hard and fast he hopped backward.

“Be careful or I will put a spell on you,” she said.

Brian’s eyes locked on Fina’s.“Go ahead and try, Fina. I dare you.”

“Oh, yeah?” she said. “How would you like it if I turned you into a little pink pig? Or a big, hairy bug?”

Fina could make either of those two spells happen. She was thinking about which one would be better when Jute tapped her shoulder.

“No, Fina,” he whispered. “Don’t do it.”

Fina nodded. If she changed Brian into a pig or a bug, she wouldn’t be able to turn him back into a boy. Humans can’t handle that kind of change. Neither can animals. Fina found that out after she shrunk a goat to only a few inches. She thought she was saving the animal from an unhappy life. Fina planned to make the goat full-sized when she found a good home, but her mother told her it was impossible. Resa the goat would be tiny forever. Fina learned a lesson although she loved the goat that was now her pet.

Fina made a low laugh.

“Well, Brian, I guess I will let you go for now. Besides, recess is over.”

Jute and Fina do get into trouble when they use a magic spell to stick Brian to his seat and the floor. No matter what he tries he can’t get himself free. Eventually they let him go. Their teacher suspects they are responsible although he can’t figure out how. Because jinn can’t lie, they admit to doing it. Fina tells him, “We used magic.” That earns them a visit to the principal’s office.

Then there is the scene in which they are waiting outside the principal’s office when their class walks past them to the library.

Brian was in back of the line. He mouthed the words, “Crook and Steamer.”

Fina stuck out her tongue, but Jute had a better idea. He made a spider appear on the back of the boy’s shirt. The spider was as large as a stone good for throwing. It wasn’t poisonous, and it wouldn’t bite. But the spider would give the boy a scare. Jute watched Brian follow the others to the library. So far, the boy hadn’t noticed, but Fina did. She covered her mouth as she squealed.

“Oh, Jute, good one,” she whispered.

“I wonder when Brian will see the spider,” Jute whispered back.

“I think we’ll hear all about it, don’t you?” Fina said.

“Uh-huh.”

But after their parents are called to the school, they insist the twins find another way to help Brian be a better human than the ways they were using. They succeed, but I will let readers find that out for themselves.

By the way, Brian never knows the family’s true identities as jinn or genies. But there are two humans who do — Alice, who owns the orchard where the family lives, and Winston Moody, who has a farm next door and cleans their school —  naturally with good reason. More about them soon.

Here are the links to The Twin Jinn at Happy Jack’s Carnival of Mysteries and The Twin Jinn and the Alchemy Machine.

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Memoir

North Fairhaven Girl

I get nostalgic for my hometown of Fairhaven, Mass., when I read Chris Richards’ posts on Substack in his series Long Ago & Close By. Fairhaven is located in Buzzards Bay and across the Acushnet River from New Bedford. It has a rich history, including the first man to sail solo around the world, whaling, the first Japanese person to live in the U.S., generous gifts by a local who got rich from oil, and much more.

But I am writing about North Fairhaven where I grew up, and to be specific, Jesse Street, a modestly sized road that links Main Street with Alden Road. Like this part of town, Jesse Street was a bit of a melting pot with Polish, French Canadian, and Portuguese families, many of them immigrants like my grandparents — and mostly, Catholic. My neighbors’ last names were Potkay, Bissonette, Tenczar, Lyonaise, Fauteux, Beaumont, Correia, and Silveira.

None still live there, but I remember which houses used to be theirs. There were five older ones, all with front porches. During my childhood and afterward, homes, mostly affordable ranches, were constructed in the spaces between them, including the land my grandfather once farmed. Their yards were always well-kept.

But let me back up. My family’s name is Medeiros. My grandparents, Manuel and Maria Medeiros, emigrated from the Azores Islands in the early part of the 20th century, part of the large influx from those islands and Madeira to the New Bedford area. Their land, which extended to Main Street, was large enough to have barns filled with chickens, grapevines, and fields to grow corn and other vegetables, strawberries, and gladiolas my grandfather sold in his farmstand.

They had many children, including my father, Antone. I lived with them for the first few years of my life before my parents built their own home on a piece of my grandparents’ land. An aunt did the same next door.

My dad told us he paid a kid who went to the local vocational school $20 a week to help him build the house. My mother, Algerina was proud she laid the floors herself. That’s Mom holding onto me while I stand on a stack of lumber. The cinderblocks they used for the cellar are in a pile.

Over the years, they made improvements like finishing the attic and building stone walls on two borders. Like his father, my father kept a large garden. Here they raised their family of three daughters and one son.

(My father, known locally as “Hawk,” was heavily involved in local sports. My mother was always on the sidelines. They were involved in town events and performed in St. Mary’s benefit shows.)

Dad holds me when I was a baby in front of my grandparents’ home on Jesse Street. The land to right is where he and his sister built homes.

I loved visiting my grandmother, who always seemed to have a rosary in one hand. After school, she served me tea with milk and lots of sugar. Sometimes my aunts sewed clothes for my dolls. Dad’s siblings and their families gathered on weekends. The cousins played in the backyard and under the grape vine’s trellis.

The grounds for the Our Lady of Angels Feast, which is held on Labor Day weekend, is located at the bottom of Jesse Street. On the third day, a hand-carved statue of Mary — brought to this country by immigrants from the Azores who were grateful they had made it here safely — is carried in a parade along Main Street by a team of men. My father did it, and now, my brother, Tony does. The statue is kept at St. Mary’s Church, located opposite the end of Jesse Street. I look forward to a post by Chris about the transformation of that church’s building, which was initially a basement.

The feast grounds were lit up with lights strung on long wooden poles, painted blue and white that were installed weeks before. I recall standing in line at the feast to buy malassadas, a fry bread rolled in sugar. A group of women, mostly dressed in black, kept guard as the dough rose in a vat. We kids attended the auction because there was the chance someone would win the bid for a large sweet bread and announce, “Cut it up for the children.” The feast had band music and games of chance. My father worked in the beer stand, and at night, we kids sat on the cases in the back. When we were older, my sister and I volunteered in the concession stand.

Then there was the Holy Ghost Feast, where people were treated to free sopa or soup in the hall’s basement. The best part was the chunks of bread you could dip in the broth.

The rest of the time, Jesse Street was a quiet spot. In the warmer months, we rode our bikes. My sisters and I played whiffleball in the yard — a ball hit over the fence was an out — and other games like croquet, jump rope, and hop scotch. We ate pears and butternuts from trees on the street.

In the winter, we slid on the snowy surface of Jesse Street, which had enough of a hill to make it a decent ride. My father stretched out on his belly on the sled and we kids would do the same in a stack on top of him. Our names were painted on its wooden slats. I smile thinking of that.

Here’s one memory: a neighbor across the street used to play drums in a strip club. When I was a teenager, I recall walking home to hear him practice with a recording of that oh-so-familiar ‘ti-da-da-da, ti-da-da-da” through the open windows of his house. It was a bit embarrassing.

I remember wishing as a child my family would move to the southern part of town, where the houses and buildings are grander. But, of course, that didn’t happen. That’s okay. Jesse Street was a good place for this girl to grow up.

A final note: I want to thank all the new subscribers who have come via Chris Richards’ recommendation. I post about a variety of topics, including my experiences and the books I write.

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Christmas

Ho Ho Ho

It started the day after Thanksgiving when my father would answer the phone with “Ho, ho, ho.” Up to that holiday, it was “Gobble, gobble, gobble.” As you can see my father got into the spirit of things.

My father Antone Medeiros, known in my hometown of Fairhaven, Massachusetts as “Hawk,” has been gone nine years now. But his spirit, his joy for the simple celebrations of life continue.

I can see him wearing his homemade holiday vest, and even a Santa hat, well, when he wasn’t wearing one of those cowboy hats he was known for.

Dad didn’t grow up with much. His parents, immigrants from the Azores, had a large family. They had chickens and large fields to grow vegetables my grandfather sold in a farmstand on the edge of their property. There were children who didn’t make it to adulthood after falling ill.

Unlike his father, mine never drank. I recall him telling me how he had to walk to the corner bar to fetch my grandfather, loading him onto a sled, and dragging him home in the snow. 

But Dad enjoyed being the center of attention, telling jokes and singing. In that photo above, my father did a belly flop in the snow as my mother took his photo. That’s my sister Christine on the left and me on the right. (He did that in pools, also.)

I honestly feel Dad could have been a movie star or a comedian, but he wasn’t an ambitious person. He supported his family — I have three siblings — as an autobody repairman, or tin knocker as it was called then.

Later, when St. Mary’s Church had an annual variety show for many years, he had an outlet for that kind of showmanship. My mother was there on stage with him, and later, my brother. Mom made him outrageous costumes, including for Halloween and town events.

Whenever Dad went somewhere and left our mother and us to wait in the car, we knew he wouldn’t be back any time soon because he would end up gabbing with people he knew. “Oh, he’s coming,” one of us would say as we watched the large window at Trippy’s Variety in North Fairhaven. “Oh, no, he’s not.”

For a few years, during the holidays, my parents along with their friends showed up late at people’s homes to sing, including one song in Portuguese, at their door, and they would be let in to schmooze. (My younger sister and I came along when we were little.) And I knew my Dad pretended to be Santa for holiday parties for kids in need.

Dad was a coach for youth sports in Fairhaven for many years: football, softball, basketball. He used to give the players on the peewee football team name funny nicknames like “Crazy Legs.” Many of his former players came to his wake. As they went through the receiving line, I asked each one what my father called him. They smiled and told me.

Perhaps, if you knew my father, you have a memory to share as well.

So, now, that it is Christmastime, I think of how much he enjoyed this time of year. It wasn’t about presents. It was about making other people feel good, making them laugh. Thank you, Dad. I haven’t forgotten.

And for those who do celebrate Christmas, ho, ho, ho.

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Azores

Bom Dia from the Azores

After four days in Madeira, we landed in São Miguel, Azores, the island where my father’s parents lived before they emigrated to the U.S. My parents visited São Miguel in February 2000, which my mother wrote about in a small notebook I took on this trip.

The Azores has nine major islands in the Atlantic — about a thousand miles from Portugal and 2,400 miles from the U.S. As a child, I believed that’s where Atlantis was located.

Our daughter Emily joined Zack, Julia, Brian and us, arriving from Lisbon at the airport in Ponta Delgada within minutes of each other. I already posted about the food we ate. Let me share some of the highlights.

FARMS: While Madeira’s number one industry is tourism, it is agriculture on São Miguel, including fishing, of course. Yes, tourists come here, but they are not the center of attention. I saw large fields and herds of cows. It was corn season, as it was back in Western Mass. where we live. We visited a pineapple plantation, which grows the fruit in greenhouses. The island has a tea plantation — we brought back bags of green tea grown there.

FURNAS: The five of us rented a house in Furnas, located in the eastern most of three active trachytic volcanoes. (That was the view from the back porch.) It is a charming village, where people get bread delivered in the morning in bags tied to their front door. It was an easy walk down to the active part of the village where there were restaurants and shops. Coming back meant trudging up a hill. Still, the streets were wider than those in Madeira and not as steep.

The village’s center, where we were staying, had springs and geysers of varying temperatures and chemical compositions, some much too hot to touch. People who lived there used the hot springs for cooking, including bags of corn. There were pipes where you could collect mineral-rich water, even cold. The air from their steam smelled of sulphur and iron. 

The village has a hot springs spa, which we enjoyed one day.

HYDRANGEAS: The bushes grew all along the roads, a massive and impressive display of blue blossoms.

TILE WORK: I enjoyed the intricate tile work, often done as murals such as the one in the photo above. Also notable was the intricate stonework on walkways like the one in Ponta Delgada shown above. 

PORTUGAL VS. SCOTLAND: Brian was excited that we would be there when Portugal played Scotland in a UEFA Nations League game. We watched the opener in a small bar then saw the rest at the restaurant that broadcasted it on a wide screen TV. Cristiano Ronaldo, the football aka soccer superstar who grew up in Madeira, scored the winning goal.

SUNRISE AT NORDESTE: One morning, Hank and I got up before dawn to accompany Emily to Nordeste to watch the sunrise. To get a full view of the sunrise you need to either hike or drive down an insanely steep road (a sign at the top warns about driving). Emily, who snapped that photo above, walked farther than us.

MEN OUTSIDE COFFEE SHOPS AND BARS: It was common to see men smoking, gabbing, and drinking on tables outside coffee shops and bars. As in Madeira, people smoked openly in public.

AGUA DE PAU: This village was the former home for my grandparents. We attempted to visit the church Nossa Senhora dos Anjos (Our Lady of Angels), but it was locked. My parents attempted a visit three times, according to my mother’s travel diary. A feast honoring Nossa Senhora dos Anjos is held at the bottom of the street in Fairhaven, Mass., where I grew up. Four men from the village, grateful for making it safely to the U.S., had a life-sized statue of Mary carved from one piece of wood. The 700-pound statue is carried by men during a parade. My father was one of those men, and now my brother Tony is. I was sorry I couldn’t see inside the church, but I slipped my late mother’s memorial card in the door.

CATS: Unlike dogs, cats seemed welcome in restaurants and coffee shops. Of course, they are useful animals that help to keep down the rodent population. (We saw lots of bait stations in black plastic boxes.) But Hank, who is more than fond of the animal, seemed to attract them. When we ate lunch one afternoon, the table we chose had a cat sleeping on a chair. It woke up and climbed onto Hank’s lap. The cat stayed there throughout his meal, much to Hank’s delight as you can see above.

BEACHES: São Miguel has more than 20 volcanic, black sand beaches. Zack went swimming among the high waves at Ribera Grande, a popular place for surfers. We discovered the best beach in Agua de Pau on our way to the airport. Zack, who had brought along his bathing suit, took a swim and then let it to Hank.

MEETING PEOPLE WITH MY LAST NAME: My first last name is Medeiros, in which the ‘s’ is pronounced in the Azores as if it has an ‘h’ after it. I met several people with that last name, many of who had relatives in Massachusetts cities like Fall River. I learned later from my brother that my grandparents’ last name might have been Mattos, but was changed by immigration officials.

BUTTER: I forgot to mention the butter of Azores in my last post on food. Made from the milk of local cows, it is the best butter ever. I froze two large blocks, and when we flew back, I wrapped them in plastic inside my suitcase. I am saving them for special occasions.

THE END BUT NOT REALLY: Did I see and experience enough when I was in the Azores and Madeira? Hardly. But it made me excited to revisit, to explore more where my family came from, perhaps even to find family although I know many of them moved to other continents such as Africa and South America. I have been practicing Portuguese although many people speak English. Eu retornarei.

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Uncategorized

Bom Dia from Madeira

The roosters began crowing around 3 a.m. They kept it up as that first morning’s light grew, stirring the barking dogs in the neighborhood. Then the church bells started ringing on the hour and half hour. Bom dia from Funchal, Madeira.

I was on my first trip back to Europe after a very long time, thanks to our son Zack who generously bought Hank and I tickets on Azores Airlines. He came along with his sister, Julia and her friend, Brian. Julia handled finding us a short-term rental and car. This was the first leg. Next, we would fly to San Miguel in the Azores, where our daughter, Emily would join us.

Visiting these Portuguese islands has special significance because of my family’s origins there.

Today, tourism is the number one industry in Madeira. The tile-roofed and stuccoed-wall homes tucked into this island of volcanic origin, its tropical vegetation, and the ocean beyond are stunning. Madeira, only 360 miles from North Africa’s coast, is 34 miles long and 14 miles wide. Ruivo Peak tops at 6,106 feet — one of the destinations Zack, who likes challenges, ran on the island.

As we walked around Funchal that first day, servers, obviously recognizing us as tourists, waved menus to lure us into one of the city’s many restaurants. Friendly staff served us seafood and coffee. I had learned enough Portuguese to greet people politely and show my appreciation, but everyone we met spoke English.

Street scene in Funchal, Madeira.

But Madeira wasn’t a draw for tourists during the early 20th century when so many people, including my mother’s parents left for the U.S. (My father’s parents came from the Azores.) The island’s people were impoverished and there were economic opportunities elsewhere, such as New Bedford, Mass. with its textile and fishing industries. Grandmother Angela, or vovó as we called her, was 16 when she came by ship with her older sister. She met my grandfather Manuel, avô, who came from the village of Gaulo. Both worked in the textile mills and had a house with enough land to raise vegetables, grapes for wine, and hay for their goats.

That first day we explored Funchal’s center. A point of interest was a museum for Cristiano Ronaldo, the superstar football aka soccer player from Madeira who is a forward on the Portugal national team and Al-Nassr FC. Julia and Brian wanted to get shirts, especially since the Portugal team would be playing Scotland in a few days.

(I give kudos to Brian who managed driving a rental car that accommodated five people through the incredibly steep, narrow, and curvy streets of Funchal without a mishap.)

This trip, staying in a comfortable rental and eating seafood in restaurants, was a far cry from my first trip in Europe, when I hitchhiked, traveled on the money I had made washing dishes, and was taken in by perfect strangers. Someday I may write about that experience. But this trip was special, spending time with family exploring these Portuguese islands. For the next few posts, I will share my observations. Obrigada.

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