A fifteen year old girl sat at a table surrounded by squirming
little kids,
all laughing and babbling uproariously. She was slumped in her
white plastic
patio chair and had an oddly murderous look on her face, as if
she were
calculating how many rounds of bullets it would take to
annihilate every
small person in the room, which, in fact, she was.
Hopelessness was about to take sway over her features when she
made
a mad dash for the telephone on the wall. She dialed quickly,
without
thinking about the number.
a girl's voice answered on the other end.
Ciao babe, sono io. Listen, call Rob and Marco, and let's
get some
stuff together. We can go to the beach for three or four days. I
really just
can't take it here anymore.
Va bene, sounds good, Luisa answered, I got
paid day before
yesterday, so I'll stop at the bar and pick up a few things.
I don't know how
much you guys can liberate.
I'll see what I can do. See you in twenty minutes, va bene?
Certo, Ciao.
And they hung up.
~~~~~
Raecla let out a sigh and ran her fingers through her long
golden
brown hair. She could hear her parents bickering in the kitchen,
probably
over something completely insignificant, while the guests
chattered and
socialized in the rest of the house. Her mother was big on
parties, but
somehow nobody else managed to enjoy them at all. She made her
way
through the people to her room, decorated with a huge mural,
numerous
collages, and an enormous bookshelf. Picking her backpack up off
the floor,
she stuffed in her discman, CDs, a couple changes of clothes, and
a copy of
First Test. Next, Raecla headed toward to now vacant kitchen
where she
added a loaf of bread, some proscuitto, and a bottle of Coke to
her load.
Going out onto the balcony, she shouldered her knapsack and
vaulted
over the railing, down onto the roof of the neighbors'
garage, and then
climbed a trellis down to the ground. Raecla walked along the
cobblestone
street, making her way to the corner by the tabacchi, where they
always met.
She stood at the corner, waiting for her fiends. Raecla had
long golden
brown hair, hazel eyes, extremely tan skin, and was very tall.
Rob walked up
a minute later, lugging an extremely full backpack and pushing
his dark
brown hair out of his eyes.
You won't believe how much stuff I brought!
he said with a big grin.
My grandmother just got back from the market and I
practically cleaned the
cupboards out.
Sounds great, Raecla answered smiling. They did
this so often, it
was practically routine. Their parents never seemed to care, they
just
assumed that their kids were at a friends house, and because of
the lack of
interest from their real families, the four of them had almost
become a family
of their own. How about Luisa? she asked.
At the bar, when I went by, she was practically buying
the entire
place. he chuckled.
And Marco?
Rob's face darkened, I could only talk to him for a
second, but he
didn't sound good. He's coming, but his dad's home.
They were both silent
for a moment, they both knew what that meant.
Finally Luisa and Marco walked up. She had gotten a ton of
food from
the bar and was fairly bursting with news from her karate class,
she had just
recently moved up a belt. Raecla never could remember the colors,
but it
was just one or two down from a black belt.
Marco, on the other hand, was an entirely different story. His
black
eyes were cold and half the skin of his normally cinnamon-toned
face was a
mottled red-purple.
As they headed towards the secluded beach they had found
earlier in
the summer, Luisa demonstrated new kicks and punches she had
learned,
Raecla told them about the book she was reading, and the guys
animatedly
discussed the latest calcio game, Roma vs. Liverpool, complete
with sound
effects and referee critiquing.
They topped a small knoll, and looked out upon the dark water
of the
Mediterranean.
Laying out towels that Marco had brought, they dove into the
store of
provisions (calzoni, tramezzini, and crochette, oh my!) and laid
down to go
to sleep, as it was almost eleven. Before she turned in for the
night, Raecla
read a bit of First Test with her flashlight. Turning it off and
gazing up at the
stars, she thought to herself -Wouldn't it be great to be in
Tortall?- and fell
asleep.
