Years passed, and the nameless child grew tall enough to reach the highest kitchen cabinets, though his frame remained thin, almost gaunt. Eli had grown too, from an infant to a toddler and now a child of five, with bright eyes and his brother's dark hair.

  Their circumstances hadn't improved. The apartment was different—they'd moved three times when rent went unpaid—but the conditions remained the same: peeling wallpaper, unreliable plumbing, and the constant smell of mildew. Their mother drifted in and out of their lives, sometimes disappearing for days before stumbling back, eyes gzed and temper short.

  One evening, the boy sat by their cracked window, watching children with backpacks walking home from the school three blocks away. He'd observed them often, these normal children with their colorful clothes and loud conversations, their compints about homework and teachers.

  "What's that pce?" Eli asked, climbing onto the milk crate beside his brother to peer out the window.

  "School," the boy replied. "It's where kids learn things."

  "Learn what things?"

  "Reading. Writing. Numbers." The boy's knowledge came from bits of overheard conversations, glimpses through school windows during his neighborhood scavenging, and the occasional discarded workbook he'd found in dumpsters.

  Eli's face lit up. "Can I go there?"

  The question hit the boy like a physical blow. Of course Eli should go to school. Every child should. But school meant registration, which meant documentation, which meant questions neither of them could answer.

  "I don't know," he said honestly.

  That night, after Eli had fallen asleep, the boy stared at the ceiling, thinking. He couldn't give his brother much—their meals were meager, their clothes secondhand, their toys salvaged from trash. But education? That was something people couldn't take away once you had it.

  In the morning, he made a decision.

  His first attempts at earning money were discouraging. No one wanted to hire a skinny kid with no ID who couldn't prove his age. But the boy was nothing if not persistent.

  He started with simple things—collecting bottles and cans for the recycling center, helping elderly neighbors carry groceries, waiting outside supermarkets to help shoppers load their cars for tips. The money was pitiful, but he saved every penny in a coffee can hidden beneath a loose floorboard.

  As weeks passed, he grew bolder. He offered to sweep storefronts for the small businesses in their neighborhood. He learned which restaurant owners would pay him to wash dishes off the books. He discovered he could earn more by cleaning yards and garages than by begging outright.

  And when honest work wasn't enough, he stole. Nothing major, nothing that would attract serious attention—candy bars from convenience stores, wallets from unattended purses, loose change from fountains. He felt no guilt; necessity had burned such luxuries from him long ago.

  Six months of this hustle bought him a decent second-hand outfit for Eli, a backpack, and enough cash to approach his mother with his proposal.

  She was having a retively lucid day, smoking by the window with her eyes more focused than usual. The boy stood before her, straight-backed and determined.

  "I want Eli to go to school," he said without preamble.

  His mother exhaled a stream of smoke. "Schools ask questions."

  "You need to register him," the boy said firmly. "Make him exist officially."

  She snorted. "He doesn't exist any more than you do. No birth certificate, no paperwork."

  "You could register him now," the boy persisted. "Say he was born at home. People do that."

  His mother's eyes narrowed. "That costs money. And dealing with government people."

  "I'll pay for everything." The boy pulled out a small wad of carefully counted bills. "Whatever it costs to get him papers, plus clothes, supplies, whatever school needs. You won't have to spend anything."

  His mother's eyes narrowed, calcuting. "And what about you? Want me to register you too?"

  The boy shook his head. "Just Eli. I'll keep earning money."

  "Why not yourself?"

  "There's not enough money for both," he said simply. It was only partially true. The full truth was that he'd long ago accepted his non-existence as fact. His focus was entirely on Eli, on giving his brother the chances he'd never had.

  His mother studied him for a long moment, then shrugged again. "Whatever. I'll see what I can do. But if they start asking about living conditions or other crap, we're pulling him out."

  The boy nodded, knowing it was the best he'd get.

  Two weeks ter, Eli started kindergarten at the local elementary school. The boy had scrubbed him clean in their temperamental shower, dressed him in the new-old clothes, and packed a lunch that had cost him a day's earnings.

  "Will you be okay?" Eli asked, clinging to his brother's hand as they stood outside the school building. His excitement was tempered by anxiety at their first real separation.

  "I'll be fine," the boy assured him. "And I'll be right here when you get out. Three o'clock, right here."

  Eli nodded solemnly. "And you'll want to hear everything I learned?"

  "Everything," the boy confirmed. "Every single thing."

  True to his word, the boy was waiting when school let out, ignoring the curious gnces of parents and teachers. Eli burst from the building, face alight with excitement, and unched himself into his brother's arms.

  "I learned letters today!" he excimed. "A is for apple, B is for boy, C is for cat!"

  "Show me," the boy said, and Eli dragged him to a bench where he proudly demonstrated how to write the first three letters of the alphabet in shaky, oversized forms.

  That night began a new ritual. After dinner—usually something simple the boy had prepared—Eli would show his brother everything he'd learned that day. The nameless child absorbed it all with hungry intensity, memorizing letter shapes, phonetic sounds, number symbols.

  Weeks became months. The boy continued his patchwork of odd jobs and occasional theft, always ensuring Eli had what he needed for school—new pencils when the old ones wore down, repcement notebooks when the first were filled, the occasional field trip fee. Their mother remained rgely uninvolved, having fulfilled her part of the bargain by registering Eli and thereafter ignoring the whole educational enterprise.

  One night, as Eli practiced reading from a tattered primer, he paused and looked up at his brother.

  "You should learn too," he said with a child's straightforward logic.

  The boy shrugged. "I am learning. You're teaching me."

  "No, really learn. Like, do the worksheets and everything."

  And so began a new phase of their arrangement. Each day, Eli would bring home extra worksheets or copy assignments into a spare notebook. Each night, the brothers would sit together at their salvaged table, working through the day's lessons side by side.

  Progress was slow at first. The boy's hands, accustomed to rough work, struggled with the precision of writing. But his mind was sharp, desperate for the knowledge he'd been denied, and his determination was boundless.

  By the time Eli was seven, the nameless child could read at the same level, their progress linked like everything else in their lives. By eight, they were tackling multiplication tables together, the older teaching the younger how to make the tedious calcutions into a game. By nine, they were reading chapter books salvaged from little free libraries, taking turns with the difficult words.

  Their system wasn't perfect. Sometimes the boy's work kept him out te, leaving Eli to handle homework alone. Sometimes their mother's chaos disrupted their studies—a boyfriend who didn't like the noise, a party that spread into their sleeping corner, an episode that required quick evacuation until things calmed down.

  But they persisted. The boy made sure Eli attended school every day, regardless of circumstances. He monitored his brother's progress with fierce pride, saving every good grade report, every teacher's positive comment. He viewed each of Eli's achievements as validation of his own sacrifice.

  One evening, as they sat with a shared social studies textbook, Eli looked up at his brother.

  "Don't you want your own name?" he asked. "The teacher said everybody has a name."

  The boy considered this. "I don't need one. I know who I am."

  Eli frowned. "But what do I call you when I talk about you at school?"

  The question caught the boy off guard. He'd never considered how Eli might expin their situation to outsiders. "What do you call me now?"

  "My brother," Eli said. "But sometimes the teacher asks for names when I talk about my family."

  The boy shrugged. "Then make one up. Whatever you want."

  Eli's face lit up with the responsibility. "I'll pick a really good one."

  The nameless child smiled and ruffled his brother's hair. "I'm sure you will."

  Names, school records, legal existence—these were concerns for a world the boy had never belonged to. His world was smaller, focused entirely on the bright-eyed child beside him, the only person who had ever truly seen him. And that, he had decided long ago, was enough.