Ukusik had been gazing at the illegible line for a while now, but still could not figure out what the words were. Of the next row, only the first half is left: Ukusik, you— Clap. Ukusik closed the notebook that she had rescued from the fire. The two names on the cover were intact. 'A gift from Antosha and Matvey.' Ukusik sighed and turned off her bedside lamp. 'Not hungry?' Leto watched as Ukusik stirred her porridge with a spoon. 'I'm practicing how to write.' 'Well, someone's eager, huh?' 'I need to learn how to write these words, so I can ask the teacher what they mean.' Leto took a closer look at the trails Ukusik was making on the surface of her porridge. 'What's that? Learning a new language?' 'No!' In the evening, Ukusik stood on Rhodes Island's outdoor terrace, raising a piece of paper to the wind and letting it be blown into various shapes. Then she let go and let the wind blow her eyes dry, but found someone standing behind her as she prepared to leave. 'Raidian?' Raidian combed Ukusik's ear plumage with a practiced hand and said, 'I picked this up outside.' It was Ukusik's writing class exam, with a few scribbles next to the full-marks score. 'Not even the teacher recognized those words.' Ukusik's eyes grew wet again. 'Matvey said he and Antosha wrote so much for me, but I couldn't read any of it!' Raidian did not interrupt her. 'All those stories he never told me, all his adventures with Antosha, even the poem he wrote for my next birthday! He said he wrote it in the notebook! Why couldn't he have given it to me sooner? Why let it fall into a fire? I could have protected it! I could have protected them!' Raidian hugged Ukusik to calm her down. She knew what she needed most right now. 'I'm sorry, Ukusik, I can't read those words either,' she said. 'However...' Ukusik turned on the lamp again. She opened the notebook. Once again, she looked at the tattered papers. The writings on the page began to move, forming familiar letters that said, 'Ukusik, you got first-place today! That's way better than we did when we were your age.' Ukusik laughed. 'What are you laughing at? It's time for bed. Don't tell me you want a bedtime story?' Ukusik nodded. 'Alright. Let Antosha tell you how he managed to offend every professor in the faculty on his very first day after getting into college...' Ukusik closed her eyelids and watched the story emerge before her mind's eye as sleep overpowered her. Before she fell asleep, she forced her eyes open and took one last look at the three woolen dolls she had made in crafts class. Raidian was right, she thought— 'However, they can be any words you want them to be, and have any meaning you want them to have. They belong to you, and they'll always be with you.'