Chapter 1

============================================================

DEDICATION

For every child who has ever opened a letter and found a friend inside.

============================================================

Ms. Torres had the worst timing.

It was the last Friday before winter break, and the entire fifth grade was already mentally gone — thinking about snow days and presents and two glorious weeks with no homework. Then Ms. Torres stood at the front of the room and said the words nobody wanted to hear.

"One more project before break."

The class groaned.

"This one is different," she said, smiling in that way teachers smile when they know something you don't. "You're each going to be assigned a pen pal."

"Like, writing actual letters?" asked Jordan. "With paper?"

"With paper. With stamps. The old-fashioned way."

"Can't we just text?" asked Bailey.

"No. That's the whole point. Your pen pals are students at a school in Zambia — the Lusaka Unity School. They're the same age as you. You'll exchange letters for the rest of the school year."

Eleven-year-old Cora Nakamura sank in her seat. She loved reading. She loved writing stories. But writing to a stranger? A stranger in another country, who she'd never meet, about... what? The weather?

"What are we supposed to say?" Cora asked.

"Whatever you want. Tell them about your life. Ask about theirs. Be curious."

Ms. Torres handed out slips of paper with names on them. Cora unfolded hers.

CHILESHE MULENGA, AGE 11, LUSAKA, ZAMBIA

Cora stared at the name. She couldn't even pronounce it.

"Chi-LEH-shay," Ms. Torres said, seeing her confusion. "It means 'promise' in Bemba."

Promise. Cora wrote it on the slip of paper. Then she went home and stared at a blank piece of notebook paper for an hour.

"Dear Chileshe," she wrote. Then she crossed it out. Too formal.

"Hey Chileshe!" Too casual for someone she'd never met.

"Hi Chileshe. My name is Cora and I live in Portland, Oregon."

Okay. That was a start. She kept writing.

She signed it "Cora" and drew a small picture of Biscuit at the bottom.

The next day, Ms. Torres collected the letters and mailed them.

"Now," she said, "we wait."

============================================================

Waiting was excruciating.

"How long does mail take to get to Zambia?" Cora asked her dad.

"Two to three weeks, probably."

"THREE WEEKS?"

"Welcome to the pre-internet era."

January crawled by. Cora checked the classroom mail basket every morning. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

Then, on a gray Tuesday in early February, Ms. Torres placed a stack of thin airmail envelopes on her desk.

"They're here."

The class erupted. Cora tore open her envelope with shaking hands.

The paper was thin and light blue. The handwriting was neat and careful, with round letters.

"Dear Cora,

Thank you for your letter! I was so happy to receive it. You are my first pen pal too, so we can figure this out together.

My name is pronounced chi-LEH-shay. You can also call me Chichi — that is what my friends call me. I am 11 years old too. I live in Lusaka, which is the capital city of Zambia. My family has a small house near the school. I have two sisters (Bwalya, who is 14, and Mutale, who is 7) and no brothers. I also have no dog, but there is a cat who lives in our yard. We call him Chairman because he sits on everything like he owns it.

My favourite food is nshima with relish — nshima is like a thick porridge made from maize. You eat it with your hands and dip it in relish, which can be vegetables, beans, or meat. My mother's nshima is the best in Lusaka (I think every child says this about their mother's cooking!).

After school I help my mother sell vegetables at the market. Then I do homework, and if there is still light, I read. I love books about animals and adventure. We don't have many books at school, so I read the same ones many times. My favourite is a book about a girl who travels across Africa on a bicycle.

Your dog Biscuit sounds wonderful. Is Biscuit a big dog or a small dog? And your father makes ramen — what is ramen exactly? I have never had it.

Please write back soon!

Your pen pal and friend, Chileshe (Chichi)"

Cora read the letter three times. Then she pulled out a fresh piece of paper and started writing immediately — about ramen, about Biscuit (medium-sized, with one brown ear), about Portland's rain and mountains. She drew a picture of a bowl of ramen with labels for all the toppings.

============================================================

Over the next two months, Cora and Chichi exchanged five letters. Each one was longer than the last.

Chichi told Cora about the market — the colors, the smells, the way her mother could calculate prices faster than a calculator. She described Lusaka's rainy season ("the rain is warm, not like your Oregon rain, which sounds very cold and gray"). She told her about her school, which had forty kids in one classroom and shared textbooks between three students.

"We take turns reading," Chichi wrote. "Monday, Wednesday, Friday it is my turn with the science book. Tuesday and Thursday it belongs to my friend Grace."

Cora was stunned. She had a bookshelf in her room with probably sixty books on it. She'd never thought about what it would be like to share one book between three people.

She told Chichi about Portland — the food trucks, the bridges, the way the mountains appeared on clear days like a magic trick. She described her school's library ("we have thousands of books, you can borrow as many as you want"), and then felt weird about it, like she was bragging.

Cora went through her bookshelf that night and picked out her three favorite books. She wrapped them carefully and asked her dad to help her mail them.

"This might cost more than the books," her dad said, looking at the international shipping rates.

"I don't care. Can we use my allowance?"

Her dad looked at her. "I'll cover it," he said.

Three weeks later, a letter arrived with a drawing of Chichi holding a book and grinning. "THE BOOKS ARRIVED!" she wrote, and every letter was capitalized. "My sisters and I are sharing them. Mutale is reading the one about the dragon. She says to tell you it is 'the best book in the entire world of books.'"

============================================================

In April, Ms. Torres arranged a video call between the two classes.

Cora was nervous. She'd been writing to Chichi for four months but had never seen her face or heard her voice. What if it was awkward? What if they had nothing to say in person?

The classroom TV flickered to life. On the screen, a room full of kids in green uniforms waved and cheered. The camera was shaky and the sound was slightly delayed, but the smiles were enormous.

A girl with short braids and the brightest smile Cora had ever seen leaned toward the camera.

"CORA! Is Cora there?"

"I'm here!" Cora scrambled to the front of the room. "Chichi?"

"Yes! I can see you! You look like your drawings!"

They both laughed. The whole class was laughing — kids on both screens pointing and waving and trying to talk all at once.

"Is Chairman still sitting on everything?" Cora asked.

"He sat on my homework yesterday! My teacher did not believe me when I said a cat ate it."

The call lasted thirty minutes. It was chaotic, loud, and perfect. By the end, kids were comparing shoes, showing off lunch boxes, and trying to teach each other words.

"Biscuit" in Bemba was — well, they didn't have a word for biscuit, which became a whole discussion about cookies versus biscuits versus scones that lasted five minutes and solved nothing.

After the call, Cora sat at her desk and realized her face hurt from smiling.

Ms. Torres printed a screenshot from the call — the whole Lusaka class waving, with Chichi front and center. She gave a copy to each student.

Cora taped hers to her wall, right next to her bed.

============================================================

In May, Chichi's letter was different.

It was shorter than usual. The handwriting was the same careful rounds, but something in the tone had shifted.

"Dear Cora,

I am sorry this letter is short. Things are hard right now. My mother was sick for two weeks and could not sell at the market. When she was not selling, we had less money. My school fees are due and my parents are not sure they can pay them. If they cannot pay, I may have to leave school.

I do not want to worry you. I am sure it will be fine. My father is working extra hours.

I finished the dragon book. It was wonderful. I pretend sometimes that I have a dragon and can fly away from problems.

Your friend always, Chichi"

Cora read the letter at her desk and felt her stomach drop.

Leave school? Because of money?

She brought the letter to Ms. Torres. "Can we help?"

Ms. Torres read the letter carefully. "This is a real situation that many families face, Cora. School fees in Zambia can be a barrier to education."

"But she loves school. She shares textbooks between three kids because she wants to learn that badly."

"I know. Let me talk to the Lusaka Unity School and find out more."

That night, Cora couldn't sleep. She kept thinking about Chichi — about her careful handwriting, and the dragon book, and Chairman the cat, and the way she'd smiled on the video call like the whole world was wonderful.

How could someone that brilliant, that curious, that alive — be pulled out of school because of money?

============================================================

Cora started with a conversation.

She stood in front of her class and told them about Chichi's letter. She told them about school fees in Zambia, and how many kids — smart, eager kids — had to drop out because their families couldn't afford them. She told them about sharing textbooks between three students, and studying by the light of a kerosene lamp, and walking two miles to school.

"Chichi isn't the only one," Ms. Torres added. "Several students at the Lusaka Unity School are at risk of dropping out."

"How much are the fees?" Jordan asked.

"About two hundred dollars per student per year."

The room went quiet.

"That's... that's less than my birthday present last year," Bailey said slowly.

"I know," said Cora. "And it's a whole year of education."

They brainstormed. A bake sale? Too small. A GoFundMe? They were too young to set one up. A car wash? Maybe.

Then Cora had an idea.

"What if we did a Read-a-Thon? People sponsor us for every book we read. We're already readers — we just need sponsors."

The class loved it. Ms. Torres helped them organize. They made posters, set up a tracking board, and sent sponsor sheets home with every student.

For two weeks, the fifth grade read like their lives depended on it. Jordan read fourteen books. Bailey read nine. Cora read eleven.

When they counted the sponsor pledges, the total was $1,847.

Enough for nine students' school fees for a year.

============================================================

Three weeks later, a package arrived at school from Zambia. It was lumpy and covered in stamps.

Inside were twenty-three handmade cards — one from every student at the Lusaka Unity School. Each card had a drawing and a message.

"Dear Cora and all of Room 14,

You have done something we will never forget. Because of you, nine students will stay in school this year. My friend Grace will become a teacher. My friend Mwansa will become a nurse. And I will become whatever I decide to become, because I will have the chance to decide.

My mother says that when people far away care about people they have never met, it proves that the whole world is one family. I think she is right.

With so much love, Chichi (and Chairman, who is sitting on this card as I write)"

Cora held the card and cried. Not sad tears — the kind of tears that come when your heart is so full it overflows.

============================================================

Summer came. School ended.

But the letters didn't stop.

Cora wrote to Chichi all summer — about her family's camping trip, about the new book she was reading, about Biscuit learning a new trick (sitting, which wasn't that impressive, but Biscuit was proud of it).

Chichi wrote about the rainy season ending, about her mother's vegetable stand doing well, about reading the books Cora had sent for the fourth time.

In August, Chichi sent a photo. She was standing in her school uniform, holding up her end-of-year report card. She was first in her class.

"I am first!" she wrote. "My parents cried. Bwalya said she is jealous. Chairman did not care. But I care, and I wanted you to know, because none of this would have happened without a girl in Oregon who sent me a letter about ramen and a medium-sized dog."

Cora pinned the photo next to the video call screenshot on her wall.

Two girls. Two countries. Ten thousand miles apart. Connected by paper, stamps, curiosity, and the stubborn belief that a stranger could become a friend.

============================================================

The pen pal project continued into sixth grade. New fifth graders took over, writing to new students in Lusaka. But Cora and Chichi kept their own correspondence going — private now, separate from school.

They'd exchanged thirty-seven letters. Cora had learned basic Bemba greetings. Chichi had learned to draw manga-style characters (Cora had sent step-by-step instructions). They'd sent each other recipes — nshima with relish and ramen with all the toppings.

Cora smiled so wide her brother asked if she was okay.

"More than okay," she said.

"Dear Chichi (and the Lusaka Unity School Library),

Here are forty-two books from Portland, Oregon. Some are adventure, some are fantasy, some are about regular kids figuring out the world. All of them changed me a little bit. I hope they do the same for your students.

Being your friend is the best thing that ever happened to me. I didn't know when I wrote that first letter that it would lead to all of this. I thought I was just doing a homework assignment. But Ms. Torres was right — writing to you taught me something no textbook could.

The world is smaller than we think. And the people in it are more alike than they are different.

Keep reading everything. Keep being first. Keep sitting on things, Chairman.

Your friend forever, Cora

P.S. I taught Biscuit a second trick. He can shake hands now. Still not that impressive, but I'm proud."

She sealed the box and addressed it to Lusaka, Zambia.

Then she picked up a fresh piece of paper and started her thirty-eighth letter.

============================================================

The Lusaka Unity School Library opened on a Wednesday in January.

Chichi sent Cora a letter with seven photographs. The first showed a small room with wooden shelves along every wall. On the shelves were books — not many, maybe two hundred. But they were organized neatly, each one with a handwritten label on its spine.

The second photo showed a line of kids stretching out the door, waiting to check out their first book.

The third photo showed Chichi behind a desk, holding up a brand-new library card system she'd designed herself — index cards in a shoebox, each one with a student's name and the books they'd borrowed.

The fourth photo was Cora's forty-two books on a special shelf labeled "FROM OUR FRIENDS IN PORTLAND."

The fifth was Chairman sleeping on top of a stack of picture books.

The sixth was the entire school — kids, teachers, parents — standing in front of the library with a hand-painted banner that read "LUSAKA UNITY SCHOOL LIBRARY — WHERE EVERY STORY BEGINS."

The seventh photo was just Chichi, sitting cross-legged on the library floor with a book open in her lap, reading. She was smiling, but she wasn't posing — she'd been caught mid-page, lost in a story, and someone had snapped the picture before she noticed.

Cora put all seven photos on her wall.

She sat on her bed and looked at them — at the library that had started with three shared textbooks and a girl who read the same books over and over because there were no others. A girl who now had two hundred books and a shoebox full of library cards and a room of her own to share them in.

The world was so big. And yet somehow, Cora thought, it was exactly the right size.

============================================================

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Crimson Ark Publishing publishes fiction for readers of all ages, drawing on the spiritual principles and rich cultural heritage of the Bahá'í Faith. Our stories explore themes of unity, justice, courage, and the transformative power of love — through characters and communities that reflect the beautiful diversity of the human family. Every book is an invitation to see the world not only as it is, but as it could be.

Visit us at crimsonarkpublishing.com