Giulia swung into the back, where she found a little lump of Luca still in bed. After last night, Luca was taking the loss pretty hard; he'd tirelessly pursued Alberto all over the Mediterranean until he'd finally lost him in the Strait of Messina. All of that whipping water made it hard to see, and not to mention it was freezing.

Until they found a permanent solution, Giulia was going to cheer him up.

"Devi svegliarti," she sang, making him groan from underneath the covers. "Come on. You gotta get up."

"Why?"

"Because you need to be up." That was what her mother always told her whenever she wanted to sleep in past 8.

"I can't get out of bed," Luca moaned.

"Why not?"

"Because. I'm afraid something horrible will happen if I ever go out into the world again."

This disaster drama was impacting her fishy friend in the worst way. "Let's get you to breakfast first, and then see how you feel," Giulia offered.

Unfortunately, at the kitchen table, Luca wasn't roused. That was where this whole mess had started.

He flipped his cornetto numerous times, not even having touched his caffè latte. Ms. Marcovaldo noticed, bustling about the kitchen but keeping a concerned eye on him. "Luca, eat your cornetto. I thought you liked those."

"I'm not hungry," Luca said. "Thanks, Ms. Marcovaldo."

She exchanged a troubled glance with her daughter. "Well… okay. Do you want to come early-morning caroling with us? Giulia's friends will be here any minute."

Friends… as in the kind that didn't carve you up like a Christmas turkey. Giulia looked at Luca, fearing he might be triggered.

Luca smiled stiffly, standing up. "No, that's okay. I don't really feel like doing Natale stuff today."

Santa Fontina, those words were blasphemous. In the Marcovaldo household, Christmas was life. It was the holiday he'd been most excited to celebrate!

They watched him walk away. "Oh, he's in worse shape than I thought," Ms. Marcovaldo said.

"Yeah… "

"Is there anything I can do?"

"When I think of something, I'll let you know," Giulia said, equally stumped.

. . .

Ding-dong! Ding-dong! Dingdongdingdongdingdong!

Half-dressed and awake as a zombie, Mr. Filellene trudged over to his front door to find bright-eyed pupils Luca and Giulia at his stoop. "Hi," Luca said.

"Hi?"

"I wanna kill Charybdis."

"Whoaaaa slow down there, passerotto." Mr. Filellene looked to Giulia for context.

"Yeah, his best friend is being controlled by Charybdis," she said. This was not the way she wanted to spend her Christmas vacation. At least she got him out of bed…

"Come on in."

For sweet little Luca to be advocating for the death of one of his own kind - another sea monster - the boy must have been at his wit's end. Mr. Filellene led them downstairs, sitting them at his library full of mythological reads. "You can't kill Charybdis," he informed.

"Why not?"

"It's in the story." He picked up the Odyssey, flipping to the marked chapter. "Odysseus never defeats Charybdis; she eats his raft and he clings onto a tree for dear life. He eventually gets away, but no hero has ever killed her in history. Not ever. Not Jason, not the Trojans… "

"Well, I want to," Luca said. "It's the only way to bring Alberto back."

The teacher raised an eyebrow at Giulia.

"If we don't kill her, they're going to kill him." Giulia presented him with a Kill Charybdis rewards poster.

"Whoa." Mr. Filellene collected it in awe, adjusting his glasses. "What a horrific, terrific scenario. Friends torn apart by monstri marini magic… this would make for a great myth! Anyway. There are many curses, possessions in these stories… but there's no sure-set way to break them."

Luca sighed, defeated.

"Besides. Charybdis only operates in the Strait of Messina. Your friend seems to be wreaking havoc all over Italy."

"Great." Giulia clapped her hands. "Then we'll just go to the Strait of Messina and kill her."

"Charybdis is the size of three submarines; we're not equipped to kill anything that large. Plus, I don't kill. I'm a mythology teacher."

"Submarines," Luca remembered. "Are those the boats that go underwater and stay underwater?"

"Yes," Mr. Filellene said. "And according to this poster, they're going to try to get your friend before he gets anyone else."

The three of them got the same idea at the same time.

Giulia ran over to the telephone hanging on the wall. "Mom, Mr. Filellene is taking us on a field trip."

Fools leading the innocent blindly

Fools turning away

. . .