9yo Suziq Wants -

She wants to be fast enough to beat Adam in the hundred-meter sprint. She wants the stray cat with the torn ear to finally let her touch its fur. She wants her drawing of a dragon-horse hybrid to be pinned on the classroom wall, not just because the teacher feels sorry for her, but because it is genuinely, strangely beautiful.

At nine years old, Suziq wants a treehouse. Not the prefabricated plastic kind found in catalogues, but a real one—a crooked, nail-bare, secret-smelling fortress built into the arms of the old mango tree at the edge of her grandmother’s field. She has drawn its blueprints on the backs of school worksheets: a rope ladder that tickles your feet, a tin roof that sings in the rain, and one small window facing exactly east so the morning sun can wake her up for no reason at all. 9yo suziq wants

But a treehouse is only the beginning. Suziq also wants a pair of roller skates that light up when she spins. She wants her big brother to stop calling her "little mosquito" in front his friends. She wants to understand why adults whisper the word money like it’s a sick bird they’re afraid to hold. She wants to be fast enough to beat