Naughts and Crosses

Once upon a time there was born a boy-child—with a magic shadow. The birth, on the night of a new moon, took place down a narrow alley. The sun never penetrated there beyond the third-storey windows—which is why the charwoman, his mother, was so long in discovering her child's strange gift. One day, when she and her boy were out playing, the boy stopped for a moment. He stood and smiled at her with the sun at his back—and his shadow lay upon the whitened steps. But the silhouette was not that of a little breeched boy at all, but of a little girl in petticoats—with long curls, where the charwoman's son was close-cropped! "The Magic Shadow" is one of the dozen-plus stories of everyday life—and of not-so-everyday delight and wonder—in Naughts and Crosses, by the author of The Splendid Spur.