3. Life in London
The Brown family lives in Greenwich, a town in the southeast of London. Greenwich has a large park, excellent educational facilities, and good access to the city center, making it a popular area for families.
With Louis in tow, the Brown family returned to their apartment located along the Thames River.
"Think of it as your real home," said Emily, Emma's kind-hearted mother, who warmly accepted Louis’ stay. And thus, a new life began for both Louis and Emma.
A week after Louis began living with the Brown family, they slowly started to learn more about him.
Louis is a six-year-old boy. Recently, his house had been raided by burglars, and it was burned to the ground. He had escaped alone. While he does have relatives, they live very far away.
The Browns had planned to consult the police, but Louis adamantly refused, so they decided to continue living together for a while. It seemed that Louis also had a school in London he wanted to attend. He could withdraw a reasonable amount of money using the card he had brought with him when escaping. The Browns, who work in IT and are a high-income household, were somewhat financially comfortable.
There was an extra room in the Browns' apartment, so they made it Louis’ room. Louis' room is next to Emma's, and since he started living there, Emma invited him to play every day.
Emma’s current favorite activity was pretend play, including doctor, shopkeeper, tea party, and train play. Every day, they played a different pretend game. Although Louis was mostly just there beside her, Emma had fun playing by herself.
"Hey, let’s play pretend again today!"
"What are we pretending to be today?"
"Hmm, let's pretend to be magicians!"
"Sure."
"Yay! I'll go get my wand, wait here!"
With that, Emma went to the living room to get something.
When Emma came back to Louis' room, she said, "This is your wand, Louis," and handed him something. Louis couldn’t help but laugh when he saw it—it was a cat teaser.
"Is this a wand? A cat's following it."
"Ah! Louis smiled for the first time!"
Emma was so happy that Louis had smiled that she completely forgot about their pretend play and started playing with their British Shorthair cat, Luna, instead. The Browns, who had been watching them from the living room, were also happy to see Louis smiling and enjoying himself.
After a while, Louis started attending elementary school in London. It seemed he had personally handled the paperwork to transfer to the school he wanted. Louis was the kind of boy who did everything on his own, and when he came home first on weekdays, he almost always helped with the household chores. The Browns were incredibly relieved.
One day, Emma peeked into Louis’ room again, inviting him to play.
"Hey, let’s pretend to be magicians!"
"Are we going to play with Luna?"
"No, we’re going to cast spells and make things float!"
"Then we need to study some spells."
"Study?"
Louis then took an old-looking book from a bag in the corner of the room and handed it to Emma.
"What’s this?"
"It’s a magic book. Specifically, a spell book."
"Wow! It looks like the real thing!"
"The spell to make things float is probably on this page."
"Wow, this is amazing! To be able to study magic is like a dream!"
"If you’re so happy, I’ll let you borrow this book."
"Really? Thank you!"
Emma happily started reading the magic book right there. Then, she immediately turned toward Luna, who was nearby, and recited a spell.
"Raizen!"
Emma said the spell seriously, but Luna just rolled around on the floor. Emma smiled and started reading the magic book again. Even though Emma wanted to play pretend, she seemed to be genuinely enjoying herself.
"I’ll give you a wand someday."
"Thank you! But my mom said that toy wands are dangerous because the tips are sharp."
"You’ll be fine when you get bigger."
"That’s true!"
From then on, Emma began reading the magic book almost every day.
