I'm Not Scared (2 page)

And Barbara, without a word, had gone ahead and unbuttoned her shirt.

I couldn't help looking at them. They were the first tits I had seen in my life, except for mama's. Maybe once, when she had come to stay with us, I had seen my cousin Evelina's, she was ten years older than me. Anyway, I had already formed an idea of the sort of tits I liked, and Barbara's I didn't like at all. They looked like scamorzas, folds of skin, not much different from the rolls of fat on her stomach.

Barbara had been brooding on that episode and now she meant to get even with Skull.

‘So you go around telling people I fed my dachshund to the pigs.' Melichetti scratched his chest. ‘Augustus, that dog was called. Like the Roman emperor. Thirteen he was, when he
died. Got a chicken bone stuck in his throat. Had a Christian funeral, proper grave and all.' He pointed his finger at Skull. ‘I bet you're the oldest, aren't you, little boy?'

Skull didn't reply.

‘You must never tell lies. And you mustn't blacken other people's names. You must tell the truth, especially to those who are younger than you. The truth, always. Before men, before the Lord God, and before yourself.' He sounded like a priest delivering a sermon.

‘Didn't he even pee in the house?' Barbara persisted.

Melichetti tried to shake his head, but the collar prevented him. ‘He was a well-behaved dog. Great mouser. God rest his soul.' He pointed towards the drinking trough. ‘If you're thirsty there's water over there. The best in the whole area. And that's no lie.'

We drank till we were bursting. It was cool and sweet. Then we started spraying each other, and sticking our heads under the spout.

Skull said Melichetti was a piece of shit. And he knew for a fact the old fool had fed the dachshund to the pigs.

He scowled at Barbara and said: ‘I'll get you for this.' He walked off muttering and sat down by himself on the other side of the road.

Salvatore, Remo and I set about catching tadpoles. My sister and Barbara perched on the edge of the trough and dipped their feet in the water.

After a few minutes Skull came back, all excited.

‘Look! Look! Look at the size of it!'

We turned round. ‘What?'

‘That.'

It was a hill.

It looked like a panettone. A huge panettone that some giant had placed on the plain. It rose in front of us a couple of
kilometres away. Golden and immense. The wheat covered it like a fur coat. There wasn't a tree, a crag, a blemish, to spoil its outline. The sky around it was liquid and dirty. The other hills, behind, were like dwarves compared to that huge dome.

Goodness knows how none of us had noticed it till that moment. We had seen it, but without really seeing it. Maybe because it blended in with the landscape. Maybe because we had all had our eyes glued to the road looking out for Melichetti's farm.

‘Let's climb it.' Skull pointed at it. ‘Let's climb that mountain.'

I said: ‘I wonder what's up on top.'

It must be an incredible place, maybe some strange animal lived there. None of us had ever been up so high.

Salvatore screened his eyes with his hand and scanned the top. ‘I bet you can see the sea from up there. Yes, we must climb it.'

We gazed at it in silence.

Now that
was
an adventure, damn Melichetti's pigs.

‘And we'll put our flag on the summit. So if anyone climbs up there, they'll know we got there first,' I said.

‘What flag? We haven't got a flag,' said Salvatore.

‘We'll use the hen.'

Skull grabbed the bag with the bird in it and whirled it round in the air. ‘Right! We'll wring its neck, then we'll put a stick up its arse and fix it in the ground. The skeleton will be left there. I'll carry it up.'

An impaled hen might be taken as a sign of witchcraft.

But Skull pulled out his ace. ‘Straight up the hill. No curves. No following each other. No stopping. Last one there pays a forfeit.'

We were speechless.

A race! Why?

It was obvious. To get his own back on Barbara. She would come last and would have to pay.

I thought of my sister. I said she was too small to race and it wasn't fair, she would lose.

Barbara gestured no with her finger. She had twigged the little surprise Skull was planning for her.

‘So what? A race is a race. She came with us. Otherwise she has to wait for us down here.'

That wasn't on. I couldn't leave Maria. The crocodile story kept going round and round in my head. Melichetti had been kind, but it didn't do to be too trusting. If he killed her, what was I going to tell mama?

‘If my sister stays behind, I stay behind.'

Maria piped up. ‘I'm not small! I want to race.'

‘You shut up!'

Skull settled it. She could come, but she wouldn't be in the race.

We dumped our bikes behind the drinking trough and set off.

That was why I was up on that hill.

I put Maria's trainer back on.

‘Can you walk?'

‘No. It hurts too much.'

‘Wait a minute.' I blew twice on her leg. Then I dug my hands in the hot earth. I picked up a small amount, spat on it and spread it on her ankle. ‘That'll make it better.' I knew it wouldn't work. Earth was good for bee stings and nettles, not twisted ankles, but Maria might fall for it. ‘Is that better?'

She wiped her nose with her arm. ‘A bit.'

‘Can you walk?'

‘Yes.'

I took her hand. ‘Let's get going then. Come on, we're last.'

We set off towards the top. Every five minutes Maria had to sit down to rest her leg. Luckily a bit of wind had got up, which improved things. It rustled in the wheat, making a noise that sounded like breathing. Once I thought I saw an animal pass by us. Black, swift, silent. A wolf? There weren't any wolves in our area. Maybe a fox or a dog.

The climb was steep and never-ending. All I had in front of my eyes was wheat, but when I started to see a slice of sky I understood that it wasn't far now, the top was there, and without even realizing it we were standing on the summit.

There was absolutely nothing special about it. It was covered with wheat like all the rest. Under our feet was the same red, baked earth. Above our heads the same blazing sun.

I looked at the horizon. A milky haze veiled things. You couldn't see the sea. But you could see the other, lower hills, and Melichetti's farm with its pigsties and the gravina, and you could see the white road cutting across the fields, that long road we had cycled down to get there. And, tiny in the distance, you could see the hamlet where we lived. Acqua Traverse. Four little houses and an old country villa lost in the wheat. Lucignano, the neighbouring village, was hidden by the mist.

My sister said: ‘I want to look too. Let me look.'

I lifted her on my shoulders, though I was so tired I could hardly stand. Who knows what she saw without her glasses.

‘Where are the others?'

Where they had passed, the regularity of the ears of wheat had gone, many stalks were bent in half and some were broken. We followed the tracks that led towards the other side of the hill.

Maria squeezed my hand and dug her nails into my skin.

‘Ugh! How horrible!'

I turned.

They had done it. They had impaled the hen. It was there on
top of a stick. Legs dangling, wings outspread. As if, before yielding up its soul to the Creator, it had abandoned itself to its executioners. Its head hung on one side like a ghastly blood-soaked pendant. Heavy red drops dripped from the parted beak. And the end of the stick emerged from the breast. A swarm of metallized flies buzzed around it and clustered on the eyes, on the blood.

A shiver ran up my back.

We went on and after crossing the backbone of the hill we began to descend.

Where on earth had the others got to? Why had they gone down that way?

We walked another twenty metres and found out.

The hill wasn't round. Behind, it lost its faultless perfection. It lengthened out into a kind of hump that wound its way gently down till it joined the plain. In the middle there was a narrow, enclosed valley, invisible except from up there or from an aeroplane.

It would be easy to make a clay model of that hill. Just form a ball. Cut it in half. Place one half on the table. Make the other into a sausage, a sort of fat worm, and stick it on behind, leaving a little hollow in the middle.

The strange thing was that inside that concealed hollow some trees had grown. Sheltered from the wind and sun there was a little oak wood. And an abandoned house, with a ramshackle roof, brown tiles and dark beams, stood out among the green foliage.

We went down the path and entered the valley.

It was the last thing I would have expected. Trees. Shade. Cool.

You couldn't hear the crickets any more, only the twittering of birds. There were purple cyclamen. And carpets of green ivy.
And a pleasant smell. It made you feel like finding yourself a cosy little spot by a tree trunk and having a nap.

Salvatore appeared suddenly, like a ghost. ‘What do you think of this place then? Isn't it great?'

‘Fantastic!' I replied, looking around. Maybe there was a stream to drink from.

‘What took you so long? I thought you'd gone back down.'

‘No, my sister's foot was hurting, so … I'm thirsty, I need a drink.'

Salvatore took a bottle out of his rucksack. ‘There's not much left.'

Maria and I went halves. It was barely enough to wet our lips.

‘Who won the race?' I was worried about the forfeit. I was worn out. I hoped Skull, for once, might let me off or postpone it to another day.

‘Skull.'

‘Where did you come?'

‘Second. Remo was third.'

‘What about Barbara?'

‘Last.'

‘Who's got to do the forfeit?'

‘Skull says Barbara's got to do it. But Barbara says you've got to do it because you came last.'

‘So?'

‘I don't know, I went off for a walk. I'm fed up with all these forfeits.'

We started walking towards the farmhouse.

It was a really tumbledown place. It stood in the middle of a clearing covered by the branches of the oaks. Deep cracks ran up from the foundations to the roof. All that was left of the window-panes was a few shards. A fig tree, all tangled, had overgrown the stairway that led up to the balcony. The roots
had dismantled the stone steps and brought down the parapet. At the top there was still an old light-blue door, rotten to the core and peeled by the sun. In the middle of the building a big arch opened on to a room with a vaulted ceiling. A cowshed. Rusty props and wooden poles supported the upper floor, which in many places had fallen through. The ground was littered with dried-up dung, ash, and heaps of broken tiles and brick. The walls had lost most of their plaster and showed the dry stonework behind.

Skull was sitting on a water tank. He was throwing stones at a rusty drum and watching us. ‘You made it.' And he added pointedly: ‘This place is mine.'

‘What do you mean it's yours?'

‘I saw it first. Finders keepers.'

I was pushed forward and nearly fell flat on my face. I turned round.

Barbara, with red face, dirty T-shirt and ruffled hair, came at me, spoiling for a punch-up. ‘You've got to do it. You came last. You lost!'

I put up my fists. ‘I went back. Otherwise I'd have been third. You know that.'

‘So what? You lost!'

‘Who's got to do the forfeit?' I asked Skull. ‘Me or her?'

He took his time before answering, then pointed at Barbara.

‘See? See?' I loved Skull.

Barbara started kicking at the dust. ‘It's not fair! It's not fair! Always me! Why's it always me?'

I didn't know why. But even then I knew that someone always gets all the bad luck. During those days it was Barbara Mura, the fat girl, she was the lamb that took away the sins.

I was sorry, but I was glad I wasn't in her shoes.

Barbara stomped round among us like a rhinoceros.

‘Let's vote on it, then! He can't decide everything.'

Even after twenty-two years I still don't understand how she put up with us. It must have been the fear of being left on her own.

‘All right. Let's vote on it,' Skull conceded. ‘I say it's you.'

‘So do I,' I said.

‘So do I,' parroted Maria.

We looked at Salvatore. No one could abstain when there was a vote. That was the rule.

‘So do I,' said Salvatore, almost in a whisper.

‘See? Five-one. You've lost. You do it,' Skull concluded.

Barbara tightened her lips and her fists. I saw her swallow a lump the size of a tennis ball. She dropped her head, but she didn't cry.

I respected her.

‘What … do I have to do?' she stammered.

Skull rubbed his throat. His sadistic mind got to work.

He wavered for a moment. ‘You've got to … show it to us … You've got to show it to all of us.'

Barbara swayed. ‘What have I got to show to you?'

‘Last time you showed us your tits.' And turning to us: ‘This time you're going to show us your slit. Your hairy slit. You pull down your knickers and you show it to us.' He burst into raucous laughter, expecting that we would do the same, but we didn't. We froze, as if a wind from the north pole had suddenly blown into the valley.

The forfeit was too harsh. None of us wanted to see Barbara's slit. It was a punishment for us as well. My stomach tightened. I wished I was far away. There was something dirty, something … I don't know. Something nasty, that's all. And I didn't like my sister being there.

‘Forget it,' said Barbara shaking her head. ‘I don't care if you hit me.'

Skull got up and strolled towards her with his hands in his pockets. Between his teeth he had an ear of wheat.