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Copyright © Paula Fábrio, 2023 Illustrations copyright © Laura Athayde, 2023 All rights reserved to EDITORA FTD Rui Barbosa, 156 — Bela Vista — São Paulo — SP Zip Code 01326-010 — Phone (0-55-11) 3598-6000 www.ftd.com.br CONTACTS DIRECTOR Ricardo Tavares de Oliveira PUBLISHING MANAGER Isabel Lopes Coelho FOREIGN RIGHTS Tassia Oliveira foreignrights@ftd.com.br

To my best friends: books.

There once were three inseparable friends.

And there was Fernando the Cat, who had lost a piece of its tongue.

But the three friends also lost something important, as important as a piece of the tongue. Such as the entire tongue, perhaps.

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smiles various

with me experiences

stories

he ar t

The first of the three inseparable friends had curly, frizzy red hair that stuck way out by the side of her ears, much like the hair of certain clowns. Everyone found this funny, except for the girl and the girl’s mother. Every time they called her crazy wig, she swallowed her tears and spent hours locked in her room, half of the time making up terrible names for those who had insulted her. The other half she travelled very far, following the path of the stars in the sky—that is when she fell in love with astronomy, the science that studies stars, and started to research this subject. And read, read, and read. And thus, she grew; she grew a lot and became the tallest girl in the group. And the most intelligent one too. Her name was Maria Eduarda. Maria Eduarda lived on the street of the inseparable friends.

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The second inseparable friend was called Nayara, and her hair was also curly, but with thin, black strands of hair, as light as cotton, which would frizz upwards, out of control, in a tangle with no beginning or end. Usually, nobody talked about this. But when other kids got very upset with Nayara, or felt envious of her, an angry foam would come to their mouths and they would say: “You look like a baobab!” Most of the boys and girls of Nayara’s age had already seen a photograph or a drawing of a baobab, with a treetop that looked just like a big head with hair that was shaggy and a little scary. And thus, as she got older, Nayara would shrink, and shrink and shrink, so that nobody would notice her shaggy-haired presence. And so she became the shortest girl of the gang. And the sweetest one too. With so much tenderness left over, she adopted a cat, Fernando the Cat, whose tongue, at that point, was safe and sound.

Nayara also lived on the street of the inseparable friends.

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The third inseparable friend had hair as straight as a chewed mango. However, at the time, for some reason, or for many reasons, nobody spoke badly of this hair that looked like chewed mango. But everyone talked bad about the girl who had a huge chin and a mouth as mushy and old as that of a ghost. This was the case of Amanda. There were even those who called her jaw. And nobody wanted to chat with her. And because she had no one to talk to, her mouth started to eat, and eat, and eat. And thus, Amanda became the fattest girl in the gang. And the most loyal one too, because she spoke very little and listened a lot.

And, of course, Amanda lived on the street of the inseparable friends.

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