Baby Saja wanted to win the North Pole's grand talent showcase. He was the youngest performer ever to sign up. The problem stood in front of him now: the icy stage rose taller than his whole apartment building. Its steps were carved from blocks of blue ice, each one higher than his head. He stood at the bottom in his pink argyle sweater and purple pants. His pink shoes squeaked on the frozen floor. Somewhere above, three judges waited behind a long table. Baby Saja climbed onto the stage anyway. He walked to the center and looked up. The judges did not look down. They talked to each other. They shuffled papers. One yawned. Baby Saja was so small that the polished silver microphone stood twice his height. He could not even reach it. He waved both arms. He jumped. Nothing. "Down here!" he called. His voice came out thin against the huge cold space. The judges kept talking. His calico cat had followed him up the steps. She sat beside his pink shoes, orange and black patches bright against the white ice. She flicked her tail. Then she looked from Baby Saja to the tall microphone and back. Baby Saja understood. He crouched low. "Can you carry me up?" he asked. The cat only blinked. So he tried something else. He grabbed the metal stand with both hands. He pulled himself up, shoe over shoe, gripping the cold pole. His fingers slipped. He caught himself. The cat pressed against his back and pushed. He climbed higher. His head reached the round mesh top of the microphone. Now he stood level with the judges' eyes. He held the stand tight and opened his mouth. He sang the only song he knew, the one his mother sang at their window above the city. His small voice went straight into the microphone. The sound filled the whole icy hall. The judges stopped talking. All three turned. One dropped her pen. They stared at the tiny boy with blue hair, clinging to a microphone taller than himself, singing like the stage belonged to him. The song ended. For a moment no one moved. Then the middle judge leaned forward and spoke into her own microphone. "We see you now," she said. "You're through to the final round." Baby Saja's arms shook, but he grinned. His cat wound around his ankles. He had made them look. He had made them listen. The judge raised one hand. "But the final is different," she said. "You perform on the great glacier stage. No microphone. No stand to climb. Just your voice, alone, across the ice." Baby Saja looked at the microphone he had fought so hard to reach. In the final, it would be gone. He let go of the cold metal and lowered himself back to the floor, already trying to think how a voice as small as his could carry that far.

The day after the judges sent him through, Baby Saja came to practice on the glacier stage. It stretched wide and flat, a sheet of open ice with no microphone and no stand. He walked to the center in his pink shoes. His feet shot out from under him at once. He landed hard on his back. He stood up and tried again. One step, then a slip. His arms flew wide. He grabbed at nothing and fell a second time. The ice was smooth as glass. He could not find his footing long enough to even open his mouth and sing. His calico cat sat at the edge, watching. She dug her claws into the ice and crossed easily. Baby Saja had no claws. He crawled to the center on his hands and knees, but a singer could not crawl. "Your shoes are wrong," said a voice behind him. A boy stood at the edge of the stage. Purple hair hung over his face, hiding his eyes. He wore a purple sweater with a yellow collar underneath. He did not smile. He did not offer a hand. He only pointed at Baby Saja's feet. "Those slip because the bottoms are flat," the boy said. He crouched and pulled something from his pocket. Two strips of rough cloth, the kind used to grip cold pipes. He held them out but did not step onto the ice. Baby Saja crawled to the edge and took them. "Who are you?" "Someone who has fallen here before," the boy said. He watched as Baby Saja wrapped the cloth around each pink shoe. The rough fabric covered the smooth soles. Baby Saja pushed himself up. He set one foot down. It held. He set the other foot down. It held too. He took a step, then another, out toward the center of the glacier stage. The cloth bit into the ice. He did not slip. He reached the middle and stood tall. For the first time, his feet stayed under him. He turned to thank the boy. The stranger was already walking away, hands in his pockets. "Standing is the easy part," he called back. "Now make them hear you without the microphone." Then he was gone past the edge of the ice. Baby Saja stayed at the center, steady at last. His cat trotted out to join him, and this time he did not fall. He opened his mouth and sang one note. It came out small. It faded before it reached the empty seats. The huge cold space swallowed it whole. He closed his mouth. His feet were fixed now. But the stranger was right. Standing was only the beginning. He had solved the ice beneath him. The problem above him remained: a voice this small, alone, must fill the whole frozen hall.

That night, back in his family's apartment, Baby Saja could not sleep. His small voice still echoed in his ears, swallowed by the frozen hall. He looked out the window at the rows of lit squares in the tall building across from him. The purple-haired boy had helped him once, then walked away. He knew how to fill that huge space. Baby Saja needed him again, but he did not even know his name. At dawn he went back to the glacier stage. The cloth still gripped his shoes. He wrapped his arms around himself in the cold and looked for the boy. The wide ice sat empty. His calico cat padded out beside him. He waited a long time. No one came. He would not just stand and wait. Baby Saja walked the edge of the stage, checking every dark corner where a boy might hide. He climbed the empty seats. He called out, "Hello? Are you here?" His voice cracked and faded, too small even for the seats. He sat down and put his face in his hands. Then he remembered something the boy had said. Someone who has fallen here before. The boy had practiced on this same ice. Baby Saja crawled to the spot where he had first found the strips of cloth. He searched the ground on his hands and knees. He found a scuff mark near the edge, where rough soles had scraped the smooth ice again and again. Someone had stood there for hours. Baby Saja placed his own feet in the marks and faced the empty seats, the way the boy must have. "You came back," said a voice. The purple-haired boy stood at the edge, hands in his pockets, hair over his eyes. He did not step onto the ice. He watched to see what Baby Saja would do. "I looked everywhere for you," Baby Saja said. "I don't even know who you are." "That doesn't matter," the boy said. "You found my spot. That's where I learned." He nodded at the scuff marks under Baby Saja's shoes. "The cloth fixed your feet. It won't fix your voice." Baby Saja stood taller. "Then teach me. Please. The final round is soon and my voice is too small." The boy was quiet. For the first time, he stepped onto the ice. His purple shoes held; he wore the same rough cloth. He crossed to Baby Saja and stopped an arm's length away. "I'll help you," he said. "But only if you do exactly what I say. No questions about me. Just the singing." "I promise," Baby Saja said. The boy pointed at Baby Saja's chest. "Your voice comes from here, not your throat. That's the first thing you have wrong." Baby Saja had found his guide. Now he had to learn everything the boy knew before the final round arrived, and the boy would only teach him one hard thing at a time.

The purple-haired boy stood on the ice with his hands in his pockets. He had agreed to teach Baby Saja, but only if Baby Saja obeyed every word. Baby Saja waited, ready to sing. Instead the boy pointed at the empty seats. "Don't sing yet," the boy said. "Blow out the birds." Baby Saja blinked. High in the rafters, small birds in tiny sweaters shuffled along a beam. One flapped its wings. Baby Saja looked back at the boy. Blow out the birds made no sense. He almost asked what it meant. He caught himself. The boy watched his face. "You want to ask a question," he said. "Ask one and I walk off this ice." Baby Saja shut his mouth. His teacher meant it. He remembered the empty stage at dawn, the hours he had spent searching. He would not lose the boy over one strange order. But he did not understand. If he did the wrong thing, the boy might leave anyway. He stood still and thought. Blow out the birds. He could not reach them. He could not touch them. He could only push air, the way you push out a candle. Maybe that was the point. Maybe the boy wanted him to breathe hard enough to reach the roof. Baby Saja faced the rafters. He filled his chest from low down, the way the boy had shown him. He aimed his breath up at the little birds and blew, one long push, as if to snuff a flame across the whole cold hall. The birds startled. Wings snapped open. Three of them lifted off the beam and swirled down through the empty seats, then out a high gap in the wall. "They flew," Baby Saja said. He turned, grinning. "Did I do it right?" The boy did not smile, but he stepped closer. "You pushed air from your belly and aimed it high," he said. "That's projection. That's the whole trick. Your throat can't do it. Your chest can." Baby Saja stared up at the empty beam. He finally understood. The order had not been about birds at all. The boy had made him breathe the right way without letting him think about singing. "Now sing," the boy said. "Same push. Aim it at the back row." Baby Saja set his feet in the rough cloth. He drew the breath from low. He sang one note toward the far seats. It did not crack. It carried, thin but clear, further than his voice had ever gone in that frozen hall. The boy nodded once. "That's the start," he said. "You obeyed. So I'll stay." Baby Saja's chest still hummed from the note. He had passed the first test. But one note was not a whole song, and the glacier stage was wider than this hall. He had learned to push air. Now he had to hold it, note after note, all the way to the final round.