The ripples of the water sparkled in silver stripes beside the ferry, seagulls bobbed in the air, and steam from hot, fragrant tea swirled on the deck. Agi held the sesame-covered, ring-baked pastry, the simit, with two hands and bit into it so hard that the seeds fell onto her coat like tiny glitter dust.

"Do you hear, Agi?" asked Uncle Dani, pointing to the bustling city. "That dinging is the tram. And that long bridge there is the Galata Bridge. Today we will figure out three secrets about Istanbul: a pattern, a taste, and a song."

Agi loved secrets. She pulled a hard-covered notebook from her pocket, drew three empty little boxes in it, and wrote on them with big, curvy letters: "PATTERN", "TASTE", "SONG". Meanwhile, the ferry arrived, and soon they were walking along a narrow quay street where cats dozed in wooden boxes, and scents ran after each other: freshly roasted chestnuts, cinnamon, roasted coffee.

A striped cat stopped at Agi's feet. It curled its tail elegantly, then started off, looking back as if asking: "Are you coming?" Agi laughed.

"Let's follow it," said Uncle Dani. "Istanbul is full of guides who aren't even people."

The cat led them through a gateway where flowers made of blue and white tiles wound along the wall. The leaves and petals of the tiles curved as if the wind had blown them. The gate opened into a tiny courtyard where a long table stood. On the table, water rippled in a shallow metal trough. Leaning over it was a mustached man, Master Bülent, and with a thin stick, he dotted colorful drops of paint onto the water's surface. The paint didn't sink but spread out, like when you drop oil on top of soup.

"Merhaba!" he greeted with a smile. "This is ebru, painting on water. Will you try it?"

Agi's heart beat as if it were being applauded from the inside. Stepping next to Master Bülent, she saw that the paint colors – blue, green, warm red – could be drawn into swirling stripes with a thin comb. The master carefully bent an arc with his stick, then another, and suddenly, a slender tulip formed from the wavy patterns. Finally, he placed a plain sheet of paper carefully onto the water's surface, then lifted it – and the pattern remained on the paper.

"This is my pattern!" whispered Agi. In her notebook, she drew a little tulip in the "PATTERN" box.

At that moment, a girl stepped forward from the other side of the courtyard, the master's granddaughter, Leyla. Her hair swung in a ponytail, and she clutched a tiny vial in her hand.

"If you like spices too, I can tell you where the most beautiful ones are," she said with a timid smile. "In the Spice Bazaar."

"Can we go?" asked Agi. Uncle Dani nodded.

The little team stepped out onto the street, where the red tram wound, dinging between the houses. On the sidewalk, the scent of chestnuts swirled; the vendor popped the brown nuts in his palm to cool them, letting them settle into identical, shiny spheres. A man had a large basket on his shoulder, with sesame simit rings towering in it. A cloud of children waving from the tram, and their laughter, swept past them.

Under the huge arch of the Spice Bazaar, it was cool and there were even more scents. Golden saffron, deep red paprika, lemon-yellow turmeric, and purple plum raisins piled in mountains; heaps topped with tiny wooden spoons sticking up like flags. At one stand, an elderly woman, Aunt Zeynep, greeted them in Turkish and smiled as if everyone had time to taste time itself.

"Teşekkürler," said Leyla, and Agi repeated after her: "Te-sek-kür-ler."

The word was foreign in her mouth, but it tasted good. Aunt Zeynep approved with sparkling eyes and offered colorful Turkish delight, lokum, with raisins in tiny cubes. Under Agi's heel, something tiny clinked. She bent down and saw a small silk bag that had slid between the floor and the counter leg. She opened it: inside rested thin, reddish threads – saffron.

"Is someone looking for this?" she asked, looking up.

Aunt Zeynep's hand wandered to her heart in relief.

"Ah!" she nodded, first speaking in Turkish, then slowly in English too: "This is treasure. Thank you."

"Köszönöm," repeated Agi in Hungarian, and Aunt Zeynep after her: "Kö-szö-nöm." The sounds laughed.

They received tea in thin-walled, tulip-shaped glasses. The tea was dark brown, like an old carved wooden chest. The clink of the little spoon sounded like a tiny bell. When they sipped, the warmth trickled through Agi's body, and she felt that now the "TASTE" box was also full of something she could draw: a steaming glass, with a silk bag of saffron next to it.

Outside, as they stepped out of the bazaar, the light danced on the stones. On the Galata Bridge, fishermen stood in a row, their fine lines stretching toward the water. Under the bridge, a tour boat's horn rumbled deeply, and the seagulls answered it. A street musician stopped at a corner, and the sound of his clarinet was both cheerful and a little sad; a melody that would make one start off somewhere.

"Will this be our song?" asked Uncle Dani, and began to whistle the melody. Leyla clapped a rhythm, and Agi tried to imitate the curves of the melody with her lips. The clarinetist smiled at them, and as he turned, tipped his instrument toward them, as if handing something over.

Meanwhile, a small group of cats gathered at their feet; the striped one was there too, who had led them earlier. Leyla took a paper bag from her pocket; inside were tiny pieces of fish. She put it on the ground, and the cats sat softly around them – not impatiently, but solemnly, as if they were also part of the melodic afternoon.

"Merhaba," said Agi to the cats, then to Leyla too. Leyla laughed and said back: "Szia!"

Walking toward the ferry, the city showed itself again and again: the slender pencils of minarets, the smooth curves of domes, the wrought-iron vines of balconies where colorful clothes fluttered. On the quay, men sipped tea from cups, women packed lavender-scented soap into baskets, and a little boy ran a kite to the wind in a square.

"Will you teach me more words?" asked Agi as they went up the ferry ramp.

"Merhaba: hello. Teşekkürler: thank you," listed Leyla. "And how do you say it?" Agi said it nicely, slowly: "Köszönöm." The "k" thumped in her throat, they both tried it, and it turned into laughter.

On the ferry deck, the wind stroked their hair, the water sewed tiny white laces in the ship's wake. The seagulls competed for simit crumbs, their voices mixing into the city's buzz. Agi took out her notebook.

"PATTERN" – she wrote next to the tulip. "TASTE" – next to it she drew the steaming tea and the saffron threads. "SONG" – and a snake-like line of notes, at the end of which a little musical note nodded.

"Done?" asked Uncle Dani, and nudged Agi playfully with his shoulder.

"Not quite," answered Agi, and looked at Leyla. "Something is still needed that I can't draw."

"What is it?" asked Leyla.

"The fact that when you come here, the city welcomes you as if it had always known you. You can't put this in a box." Then she smiled. "But maybe you can after all: this is friendship."

They got off the ferry, and the striped cat appeared one last time at the stairs, rubbed against Agi's ankle, then disappeared into a sun-bathed alley. The red tram signaled its departure with a ding. A warm wind ran between the houses, moved the edges of the clothes, slid the dust grains further, and took the scent of the freshly drawn notes from Agi's notebook with it.

"Will we figure out three secrets tomorrow too?" asked Agi.

"Tomorrow too, and after that too," answered Uncle Dani. "A city never runs out of stories."

Agi slid the notebook into her backpack, and she was sure that next to "PATTERN", "TASTE", and "SONG", sooner or later many more things would fill its pages: names that roll roundly on the tongue; late-caught laughter; and streets that one can always find the way back to, even if following the tail of a striped cat.