There are two hands open in front of her. In the palm of one of them lies an object she has never seen before, with some scribble marks on it. The hands close. A voice says in a dramatic way:
“Abracadabra!” and shakes the two fists up and down. “Now tell me where it is!”
Paidia looks at the hands. Easy! She points to the hand where the toy was a moment ago. Slowly the fingers uncurl and the hand opens. It's empty! She hears her own delighted giggle. The voice says:
“You see? It's magic!”
So maybe that was the answer, Paidia thought: they needed to work some kind of a spell, or say a magic word.
“Abracadabra!” she said out loud. Nothing happened. “Open sesame!” “One, two, three, open up!” Again nothing happened. “Kufungua mwenyewe!” Paidia had heard this somewhere but had no idea what it meant.
“What was that?” asked Muko, intrigued by the foreign- sounding words. He heard her pronounce more incantations but was himself intent on examining the numbers. They were all arranged in columns and rows. There were a couple of shapes