Sparrow wasn’t late for class. He had no other clothes so there was no point getting changed. He just tried to wipe off the manure as best he could and then shuffled into the arched wooden building.

The students around him wrinkled their noses as they shifted away from him until he had an entire corner of the wooden bamboo floor all to himself.

Sparrow felt like crying. He was ready to give up. That’s when Master Lee appeared out of thin air right in front of him. Master Lee was an elderly figure. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor.

‘So,’ the master said, in a low voice like dark honey falling. In a moment he disappeared, and then reappeared at the front of the room. ‘You all aspire to be magicians, I take it?’ Around the room many students, including Sparrow, nodded.

Master Lee paused for a breath, ‘What will our first lesson be? Teleportation?’

He shifted from one side of the room to the other, and then back again.

‘Invisibility?’ he said, disappearing in front of them.

‘Heat?’ he held out a hand and a ball of flame rose from it.

‘Wind?’ he said, rising slightly in the air while waves of wind blew beneath him.

‘Yes… wind is close.’ Master Lee said, lowering himself to his feet. ‘Our first lesson is going to be – how to breathe.’

Many students around the room laughed, particularly the nobility.

‘How to breathe?!’ Rhino-xi said, ‘Please. I have been doing that since I was born.’

Master Lee nodded. A slow smile spread on his face, ‘Yes, you can breathe. But I don’t think any of you know how.’

He took two slow steps forward and was no longer hunched the way he had been, ‘Let me give you some advice. If you can control your breathing. You can control your body. If you can control your body. You can control your emotions. And if you can control your emotions you can control your mind.’ He paused, gazed straight into Sparrow’s eyes. Master Lee’s pupils were grey-blue like opals or old mountain rock. He opened his mouth again, ‘If you can control your mind. You can control the world around you.’

One of the noble kids, a girl Sparrow’s age, yawned. ‘That’s boring,’ she said.

The magician scowled. ‘Every year, someone says this.’

He slowly waved his hands and in front of them a pit of snakes appeared, hissing, squirming over each other.

The magician’s voice became deeper, almost angrier. ‘You say this is boring. Okay. Well, I guess I’m going to have to make it a little more interesting.’

He waved his hand, and a small candle hanging on a piece of string appeared.

‘You are each going to walk across this pit of snakes with the candle fixed around your neck. You will control your breathing, because if you blow this candle out, then you lose, you fail my exercise.’ The old master glared around the room. ‘Who wants to go first?’

No one put their hands up. After a minute of silence, Rhino-xi pointed towards Sparrow.

‘Him sir. He said he wants to go first.’

Sparrow looked at the boy, and then at Master Lee and began shaking his head, ‘No, no, please no, I don’t.’

The master’s gaze shifted from Rhino-xi to Sparrow and back again.

‘Lads. I heard there was a disagreement between the two of you.’ He nodded to Sparrow. ‘Very well. Since your friend has volunteered you. You shall walk the snake pit…’

Rhino-xi’s laugh was cut short as the master continued, ‘But… as the first person to raise his hand Rhino-xi shall go first. And the other boy will go second.’

Rhino-xi’s mouth dropped and Sparrow wanted to laugh. Only he didn’t, because a moment later, he realized that once Rhino-xi had been eaten by the snakes, Sparrow would be next.

Rhino-xi’s knees shook as Master Lee put the candle around his neck. The candle hung just in front of Rhino-xi’s nose and mouth. Master Li lifted a finger and the candle flame flickered to life.

Rhino-xi, who was practically hyperventilating, blew it out instantly with his breath.

Master Lee shook his head, ‘Breathe in and out slowly – In and Out – and now listen to the way your chest rises and falls – survey the valleys and peaks. Try holding it for a moment.’ He waited as Rhino-xi held his breath, then nodded, ‘Only when you are calm will the snakes not attack you.’

Rhino-xi jerked his head up and down. Once again Master Lee raised a finger towards the candle and the flame sprang to life.

With the whole class watching him, Rhino-xi inched forward towards the snake pit that had opened up in the middle of their classroom.

The snakes hissed and slithered over one another. The candle in front of Rhino-xi was flickering forwards and backwards – almost blowing out, but not quite.

‘Keep your breath still boy,’ Master Lee said.

Rhino-xi put one foot and then a second foot into the snake pit. He inched forward little bit by little bit, his breath was pushing the candle flame closer and closer to being put out. The snakes began to descend on Rhino-xi’s leg. A python twice the size of any other in the pit sniffed at Rhino-xi’s foot.

Rhino-xi lost his nerve. He screamed and lept two meters backward out of the snake pit. But he didn’t stop there, he clambered over the other students, and ran straight out the door of the classroom, yelling for his life.

Master Lee barely raised an eyebrow. ‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘Sparrow. I believe it’s your turn.’

Sparrow looked up at the old man, not sure whether to be more shocked about the fact he was about to walk through a snake pit, or the fact that the old master somehow knew his name.

The students around Sparrow wrinkled their noses as he moved toward the front. He tried to hide his red face. No matter how much of the muck he’d wiped off, he couldn’t get rid of the smell of manure from him. As they were his only pair of clothes he’d have to find a river later, and wash them.

But as he got closer Sparrow’s mind drifted toward the snake pit. The closer he got, the angrier the snakes seemed to become. Sparrow gulped as a candle and string were placed around his neck.

The flame fluttered just a thumb length from his nose. Master Lee bent down and looked into Sparrow’s soul.

‘Sparrow,’ the man said, ‘peaks and valleys. Feel the breath as it rises to fill your stomach, slowly exhale. And notice how your muscles feel.

Master Lee watched as Sparrow took three long calming breaths, ‘That’s good.’ Master Lee said, ‘The muscles in your back, around your shoulders, they’re looser. You’re not standing so taunt’.

‘I think I understand master.’ Sparrow said, ‘I understand your lesson. Can I? Can I go and sit down now?’

Master Lee just laughed. ‘I know you’re scared Sparrow. But one day, you’ll look back on this day and on all the scary moments of your life and you’ll rejoice in them. You’ll be grateful for every single one because of the way they made you feel alive.’

Master Lee sighed at the lack of comprehension on Sparrow’s face, ‘No, you can’t sit down. You can’t go back to your seat. Not until you’ve crossed this snake pit.’

Sparrow’s breaths began to quicken. He tried to put the snakes out of his mind. Go slow. He thought. Go slow.

Sparrow put a single foot into the snake pen, and then a second foot. He looked down, trying to keep his breathing in check. But the snakes. The snakes didn’t touch him.

Slowly. Sparrow shuffled one foot forward, and then the other. He was moving slowly through the snake pen. All the snakes stuck their forked tongues out and tasted the air, then made their way to the opposite sides of the pen from him.

Sparrow almost felt like a man walking on water, but the candle in front of him was flickering. He paused for a moment and took a deep breath in the middle of the snake pit.

The candle flame barely moved as he breathed out. Sparrow began to walk forward once again.

‘WHAT?!?’ Sparrow heard from behind him. It was Rhino-xi’s voice. ‘How come they’re moving away from him?! Is this some sort of spell? He cheated. He cheated like he cheated when he fought me. Why don’t the snakes attack him?!’ Rhino-xi shouted, ‘Go on, you stupid snakes, bite his butt off.’

Sparrow tried to fight the urge to smile while keeping his breathing slow and steady. Finally, he was only a meter away from the edge of the snake pit. Suddenly, the giant python rose up in front of him.

It had coiled its body so that its head was the same height as Sparrow’s. The python’s snake eyes stared straight into Sparrow’s.

Sparrow gulped. His flame began to flicker, almost died.

‘Peaks and valleys,’ Sparrow heard Master Lee say. But, it was difficult for Sparrow to remain focused, all he could see was those fangs sticking out.

Like a cat creeping towards a mouse, the snake moved its head closer and closer to Sparrow. Its mouth stretched open, just above Sparrow’s. Sparrow tried to focus only on the feeling of the air on his lip.

In and out, he told himself, in and out. It’ll all be over soon, one way or the other.

Finally, this python touched his arm with its tongue. The tongue withered and shot back into the snake’s mouth. The python clamped its mouth closed, only just missing Sparrow’s shoulder. Then the great python slithered away.

Sparrow looked at his flame. It was barely flickering. He took another deep, slow breath, and then he stepped onto the other side of the snake pit. The whole class, aside from Rhino-xi and his friends, cheered for him, then took a collective breath. Sparrow realised they’d been holding their breaths for him.

Master Lee waved his hand, and the flame in front of Sparrow’s face disappeared. Master Lee bent down and looked into the boy’s eyes.

‘This is most unusual, the snakes didn’t seem to want a bite of you,’ he said, ‘ I was scared when the Python rose up, I thought, surely, surely you are going to run away but you stood your ground.’

Master Lee sniffed and his nose wrinkled, ‘Why do you stink boy?’

‘That’s ox manure,’ Sparrow said, ‘Rhino-xi, the big boy over there and his friends found some and rubbed it all over me this morning.’

A smile spread across Master Lee’s face, ‘Well then, I think, perhaps, young Master Rhino-xi has done you a great favour. I bet that smell is the reason the snakes left you alone.’

The old master shook his head, ‘Still, I thought you were going to run when that Python rose up in front of you. It could have swallowed your whole head boy. I have not seen bravery quite like that since I began to teach at this academy.’

Sparrow just shrugged. ‘If I’m honest, sir…’

The old man held up a hand to silence him, ‘No, you don’t always have to be honest young one, sometimes, sometimes you’re allowed to talk up your successes.’

‘Well in that case,’ Sparrow said with a grin, ‘I was just focusing on my breathing.’

Master Li, put his hand on Sparrow’s shoulder, sniffed and then decided maybe he didn’t like putting his hand on manure. Instead, he held up both his hands to the class.

‘This boy. This young boy Sparrow has done what has never been done in the first year class before. He has managed to cross the snake pit.’

Master Li removed his belt and held it up, ‘I am giving young master Sparrow my belt. He handed it over to Sparrow who stared at the belt, not really sure what to make of the gift.

‘If any of you should wish to take the belt from young master Sparrow and claim it as yours all you have to do is perform the same feat he did and cross the snake pit without blowing out a candle. Now, Is anyone interested?’

The whole class remained silent. There was a slight angry rumble from where Rhino-xi sat, but other than him no one said a thing.

‘Very well then,’ Master Lee said, ‘Class is over. Remember – focus on your breathing.’