About the Author Jennifer Prado has a degree in Fiction Writing from the University of Wisconsin - Madison. Her short fiction has appeared in the following Internet literary magazines: EWG Presents, Fiction Funhouse, In Posse Review's - Multi-Ethnic Anthology, Nuvein Magazine, Pindeldyboz, Small Spiral Notebook, The Dead Mule, The Muse-Apprentice Guild, Tower of Babel, and Word Riot. She has recently completed her first novel, Reinventing Julia, and is searching for an agent.

The bus pulls into the entrance of the rest stop and hits a bump, waking several of the passengers who have wilted in the heat like cut flowers. I stretch in my chair and look out the window to watch the orange dust that whips low to the ground and the children with toothpick legs who run barefoot to greet us. They push in front of one another to show us the popsicles and ears of boiled corn that they are selling.

The bus driver has decided to take a twenty-minute break and locks the door of the bus when all of the passengers have descended and then heads to the luncheonette to smoke a cigarette and talk to another bus driver. I have my backpack on in the front, marsupial like; it is the only way I have learned to prevent someone from taking it from me.

Obediently, the passengers form a line at the cash register and everyone buys a carbonated soda or a salty pastry to pass the twenty minutes. There is a girl of about twelve at the side of the cash register who is tugging on people's sleeves for their small change. Her dress is faded yellow and her knees and bare feet are covered with scabs, her face is streaked with dirt and her hair is clumped in matted tubes of unbrushed hair. She has no voice and gestures wildly, aggressively. Many people brush away her gripping hands with disgust, as though they want to go and wash themselves before eating. She turns her head and I see that she has the most beautiful blue eyes I have ever seen, which seems a shock in a country of brown eyes.

They are large and dark, more blue that the ocean or the sky, almost frightening in their foreignness.

"What blue," I say out loud.

The passenger in front of me has heard and announces,

"You are a very ugly little girl, but I will give you this for the sake of your beautiful eyes."

He tucks a small note into her open palm and she smiles in a proud way that makes me believe that she is not deaf and had understood. I imagine her future. Her eyes are her means to survival, yet they will constantly attract people who will hurt her. She will never know the things I took for granted as a child. A clean bed. Regular meals. A safe place to ride my bicycle. An education. Choices. I hand her my backpack and nod.

“Take it.”

Note: I would like to encourage readers, who want to help street children, to contribute to UNICEF. Their site is http://www.unicef.org.