Alberto didn't sleep terribly well that night – he had all this stuff going around in his head, not sure how he was going to accomplish any of it. There had to be something he could do to help Celia learn to transform. Something besides just talking about things he had no idea how to describe. But how? Luca was usually good at coming up with ideas, but Luca had never been human in the water or a sea monster out of it.
Then there was the fact that Alberto's father hadn't come home. He tried not to think about that. It was probably just Giancarlo being Giancarlo. He'd turn up when he wanted his money.
In the morning, these problems were still in the back of Alberto's head, but mercifully breakfast offered something to distract him. Carlotta passed around pastries and coffee with lots of milk and sugar, and asked the boys what they would like to do.
"I know you two have had a couple of rough days since you got here," she said. "Mike has work to do today, so if you'd like we could stay in. My mother might stop by to see Celia. Sometimes she takes her shopping on Procida so maybe we could join them. There's some lovely beaches there."
Staying in sounded like a great idea – Alberto had only known his family for a few days and he was already fed up with them. If he saw Lucrezia again there was definitely going to be trouble, and he knew Luca was getting annoyed with Andrea's constant questions. As for Giancarlo... if he turned up Alberto would be relieved he wasn't getting into trouble with his friends the criminals, but he wouldn't be happy.
Luca took a big bite of pastry and flipped through his book. "It says Procida still has buildings from the middle ages," he said.
"That's true, although they've got modern stuff built on top of them," said Carlotta. "I believe ancient objects have been found there, too, although I'm not sure there's a museum. Are you very interested in history?"
Alberto shrugged.
"Yes, Madame," said Luca. "I didn't know there was so much of it! There's the ancient Egyptians, then the Greeks, then the Romans, and that's just here in the Mediterranean. There's way more in other parts of the world, in China and India and America. Do sea monsters here keep history? Or just the humans?"
Carlotta sat down to drink her own coffee. "We have stories," she said, "but we've only made an effort to write things down since the war. It was your grandfather who started it, Alberto," she added. "He went around asking people to tell him stories about their families. Zia Sofia probably still has his notes somewhere. We've talked about publishing them, but we don't think..."
She was interrupted by the ringing of the telephone. The boys dug into their breakfsasts, while Carlotta went to pick up the kitchen phone. She greeted the caller, and then held a short conversation.
"Really?" she asked, excited.
Alberto, Luca, and Celia all looked up.
"That's wonderful! Yes, I'll be right over," Carlotta said to the phone. "Thanks for letting me know!"
Alberto's stomach sank. If Carlotta had plans now, they might have just lost their day at home.
She hung up the phone and smiled. "Diana's laid her egg!" she said. "Everybody's going to be getting together at her place. She and I are old friends, so I'm afraid I have to put in an appearance. Sorry, Alberto – I promise we won't stay long. My Mom will definitely be there, and if I have to stay a while she can take you back to her house. It's not far from here, and it's very quiet."
Luca and Alberto exchanged a look. Alberto wanted to groan, but he reminded himself that he wanted to make a good impression, even if his family hadn't been making a very good impression on him. Luca kept saying that families sometimes meant doing things you didn't want to do. It was seeming like that was more often than not.
Even so, he had to know one thing. "Will Lucrezia be there?"
Carlotta sighed. "Probably, but she'll be easy to avoid. She likes to be the centre of attention." She picked up the phone again. "Let me just call Mike's office and let him know where we'll be this morning."
That settled things until lunchtime at least. The boys got their swimsuits on, and Alberto dragged himself down to the beach again. Having a family was turning out to be way more work than he'd anticipated. At least this time, everybody would be there to see Aunt Diana and her egg, instead of focusing on him.
Carlotta led the way out to the house where Aunt Diana and Uncle Umberto lived. It turned out to be a rather disorderly-looking construction on the edge of the sponge meadow where they'd held the big family picnic. The original simple domed house was still visible, but various extensions, including a second storey, had been added on as the family grew. People were sitting and talking in the garden, and children were chasing each other in the water column above. One of the Aunt Bettinas – not the one who'd told Alberto off the previous morning – noticed them coming, and swam over to call through the door.
"Diana, darling! Lottie's here!"
Aunt Diana herself appeared in the door, looking very tired but happy, and held out her arms. "Carlotta! Come here!"
Carlotta went right up to give her a hug. "Congratulazioni a mille!"
"Thank you! Oh, I hope this one's a girl," Aunt Diana repeated. "And here's Alberto! Come in and see your new cousin-to-be!"
Alberto thought he had more than enough cousins, but he'd never actually seen a sea monster egg, and he was curious. Diana ushered the boys inside, and there in a stone cradle lined with sponges and seaweed was a single white egg, like a giant, slightly lopsided pearl. Uncle Umberto was sitting over it with a hand on top, monitoring the temperature, with Nonna Sofia next to him, smiling proudly.
"It's huge!" Luca exclaimed. "Signora Aragosta had an egg that big for her twins. They both hatched out of it and at first Gianna was much bigger than Giola, but they're about the same size now that they're older."
Diana winced. "It had better not be another set of twins. I don't think I could take it. I'll be happy with one little girl to balance out all these boys."
"Don't count your fry before they hatch," warned Nonna Sofia. "You never know."
"Humans have all kinds of ways they try to tell which a baby will be," said Luca, "but Giulia's mom says none of them work very well. Are you going to keep the shells, Madame?" he asked.
Aunt Diana shook her head. "I did with Girolamo, but then the twins and Danilo came along, and I couldn't be bothered anymore."
Another couple entered the house then, a caramel-coloured male and his silver-scaled wife. Alberto was pretty sure he'd met them at the picnic, but couldn't remember their names. Weren't they relatives on Nonna Sofia's side of the family? The female took her turn to give Diana a hug, then gave one to Uncle Umberto and Nonna Sofia as well, while her husband shook people's hands.
"It's a beautiful egg!" the woman gushed. "You must be exhausted, Diana."
"Oh, yes, but very satisfied." Diana patted her abdomen. "It feels so good to have it out."
"How's your family, Carlotta?" the male asked.
"Very well, thank you for asking, Arno," she replied politely. "Celia's getting excited about school in the fall, and she's enjoying having Alberto and his friend staying with us."
The man called Arno nodded. "How do you like the Gulf of Napoli, Alberto?"
"It's nice," said Alberto, who thought it would be much nicer with less family in it, but knew better than to say that aloud.
"It's very interesting, Sir," Luca agreed. "We went to the zoo yesterday and saw the elephants and giraffes."
"The... oh, land animals," said Arno dismissively. "Young people these days don't appreciate what we've got right here in the water. There's some magnificent nudibraches around here. Lovely creatures." He looked up as yet more people came in. "Consalvo and Lucia! Glad you could make it!"
It was getting crowded in the room, and Alberto realized with a scowl that it was happening again: the grownups were going to bob around and chat for ages, and there was nothing for him and Luca to do but be bored. They squirmed through the crowd to go back outside, and were about to settle down in the garden when they heard a familiar – and unwelcome – voice.
"Hi, everybody!" Lucrezia called out. "Is Nonna already here?"
"Of course, dear," replied the same lady who'd announced Carlotta. "She's been here all night. Diana! Girolino and his family have arrived."
Alberto and Luca quickly slipped around the back of the house instead. There, they found a pile of boulders left over from one of the construction projects, with colourful sponges growing on them. There was space to sit down in between the rocks and be out of sight from the windows, while still being able to hear what was going on inside.
"Congratulations, Aunt Diana!" Lucrezia's voice said. "That's the biggest egg I've ever seen!"
"Don't remind me, dear," Aunt Diana replied.
Luca lay back on a sponge and sighed. "They need to make books I can bring underwater," he said. "Did I tell you that the beaches on Procida are black because the sand came from volcanoes? There were originally four volcanoes on that tiny little island, but none of them has erupted in forever." He thought for a moment. "That must be why sea monsters live around here. The volcanoes make the hot water vents we use the cook."
That just made Alberto remember how he and his father had always cooked with fire on land, like humans. There were some good memories associated with that, but it also made him think about how they'd kept away from everybody, when the whole time he'd had all this family just a few hours away. Maybe if he'd known about them when he was a kid, he wouldn't be finding them so overwhelming now. Maybe he'd be used to all these annoying things Luca said families did.
Something moved in the nearby window, and they heard Aunt Diana promise to be right back. Then, to their surprise, she wriggled out the window and came to join them among the rocks. Luca and Alberto could only stare as she settled down. What was she doing?
She seemed as surprised by their presence as they were by hers. "Oh. Hello, boys," she said sheepishly. "Sorry if I'm interrupting, but it gets stuffy with so many people in the house. I needed to get some current through my gills. I hope you don't mind."
"It's fine," said Alberto stiffly. He would be civil to her, but he didn't intend to forgive her for the fuss she'd made over his name, let alone for smuggling Giancarlo into the family picnic. "I guess you probably invited my father today, too," he said.
Aunt Diana frowned. "He's got as much right to be here as anybody else in the family," she told him. "I suppose it's because of him that you want to use your mother's name."
"Yeah," said Alberto. He wondered... if she understood that, would she let it go?
Apparently not. "Hiding from him won't help. He's still your father."
Alberto scowled.
"I meant what I said the other day," Aunt Diana added. "He loves you. He's worked very hard this last year, and he wants you to see that. He said he wants to deserve you."
"He had lots of chances for that," Alberto pointed out. "Maybe he shouldn't have left me all alone on an island for ages."
"So this is your chance to abandon him right back?" She sniffed. "You really are just like him."
The fins stood up down the back of Alberto's neck, and he bared his teeth. "You can..." he began.
"Madame!" Luca blurted out. "I have a question!"
Aunt Diana looked at him, surprised. "Yes?"
"Um." Luca's eyes darted back and forth as he tried to think of something that wouldn't make the situation worse. "Lucrezia told us Carlotta wouldn't have married Mike if it weren't for you! Is that true?"
She blinked, and Luca clutched his tail in both hands, terrified that he'd been too rude.
"Oh," sighed Aunt Diana, wilting a bit. "Sort of. I... I encouraged her when I shouldn't have, but you've got to understand," she added, "Lottie was so shy when she was younger. It was because of all those patches on her face. When she was little, the neighbours were always offering her mother ideas for how to make them go away and nothing ever worked. She would get so embarrassed about it that she didn't want to get out of the water anymore because the humans would stare, and by the time she was your age she barely left the house. I was her only friend for a long time and I thought she was going to end up as an old maid with a school of sharks following her everywhere."
Alberto had been fuming, but now that Aunt Diana had started talking he did want to hear the story. He nodded.
"Then she met this human diver," Aunt Diana went on, "and you should have seen the difference it made. All of a sudden she was smiling. She wanted to do things. She was going on land and said she didn't care if people looked at her! I was a little shocked because you know we don't like humans knowing about us, but she trusted him, and she was just so happy. I was glad she had another friend."
Luca nodded eagerly, and Alberto realized he probably sympathized with that.
"She told me he never even mentioned the patches until she brought it up, and then he said he'd known somebody else, one of his schoolteachers, I think, with the same thing. He had a name for it, viti-something. Then she could tell people who stared what it was and what caused it, and it didn't bother her anymore." Aunt Diana smiled. "I was so proud of her!" she said, and then the smile melted away. "Then she told me she was going to marry this human, and I... I panicked."
"Why?" Luca asked. "She loves him."
"It was a terrible scandal. You should have heard the gossip," Aunt Diana said. "Lottie didn't care. She said people would stare at her and talk about anyway, and she'd rather they do it for something she'd chosen rather than something she was born with. So I... well, I tried to set her up with a cousin on the Gabbiano side, but she wouldn't have it. When she realized what I was doing we had a terrible row and didn't talk to each other for months, and even then, she made me apologize."
"Good," said Alberto.
"Do they still talk about it?" Luca asked.
"Oh, yes," sighed Aunt Diana. "She says she doesn't care but I think it bothers her more than she lets on, especially when... I suppose you've heard people saying that Michele isn't Celia's real father."
"Yeah," Luca nodded. "It's not true, is it?"
"No, I don't think it is," Aunt Diana said, "but there's nothing you can do that will make people shut up about it."
There was, though, Alberto thought. There was something he could do about it. He just had to figure out how. If Celia could Change at will like he did, everybody would have to stop because the evidence would be right in front of them.
Aunt Diana had to go back inside then and continue talking to her guests, and Alberto felt an unexpected pang of sympathy for her. Being the centre of attention was exhausting even when people liked you, and she had to be very tired. Laying an egg that big must have been a lot of work. It was only fleeting, though, and then he was glad she was gone. He and Luca waited a few minutes, then went to see what was going on at the front of the house.
Carlotta was still there, chatting with relatives, while Celia played with a couple of other children, chasing the little crabs that were scuttling up and down the front wall of the house. Aunt Bettina and Uncle Girolamo were there, talking animatedly to Arno and his wife, as well as several strangers. It looked like the grownups would be occupied for some time yet.
Uncle Umberto had now come to the door and was talking to the people in the garden, and it was he who waved to yet another new arrival. "Leo! Come on in, Di's been wondering if you were gonna show up!"
Uncle Leonardo swam up to give his brother-in-law a hug. "Congratulations, 'Berto."
"Thank you! Where are Giorgio and Flavia?"
"They're coming," Uncle Leonardo promised, as he was escorted inside. "Flavia wants to see the egg, certainly. Looks like the whole Gulf has turned up!" he added, looking around warily. Alberto immediately knew why. He didn't want Flavia to run into Lucrezia.
Luca tapped Alberto's shoulder. "There they are."
Alberto followed Luca's finger to see Uncle Giorgio and Flavia sitting on what might have been the sunken fuselage of a small airplane, distant and dim in the water. The two boys looked at each other and nodded, then headed out to meet the little family.
Giorgio and Flavia saw them coming, and Flavia waved, pleased to see somebody who was nice to her.
"How are you boys?" asked Uncle Giorgio.
"Bored," said Alberto. "I think Lucrezia's still in there. We could hear her talking earlier."
Flavia nodded, disappointed.
"That's fine," Uncle Giorgio told her. "We'll just wait out here for a while. Papa Leo will let Nonna know you're here, and there'll be lots of time to visit Aunt Diana's egg. They take months to hatch."
"Don't worry, we didn't like her even before yesterday," Alberto said. He wondered if now was a good time, and then decided he might as well. "Hey, Flavia, why aren't you allowed out of the water?"
Flavia looked startled, as did Uncle Giorgio. "Are you serious?" the man asked.
"Yes, Sir," Luca said. "We asked Nonna Sofia, but she told us to ask Flavia herself."
Uncle Giorgio looked at his daughter. She frowned, as if deep in thought, and squirmed a bit. Then she said, "I'm allowed, I just don't want to."
"Oh," said Luca. He looked at Alberto.
Alberto was surprised it was that simple. Why was Lucrezia so mean about it, then? Was it just because the thought Flavia was a coward?
"I used to be scared of the surface, too," Luca said, "but that was because I didn't know anything about it. Alberto took me up there, and it turned out it's not scary at all."
"I don't want to," Flavia repeated, moving closer to Uncle Giorgio.
Alberto rolled his eyes, but didn't press the point. He had enough family members angry with him. Right now he just wanted something to do besides listening to grownups talk about people he'd never met and didn't care about. "Hey, you said you didn't know Carlotta," he suggested. "Do you want to meet her? Or..." that wouldn't work. Flavia wouldn't want to go to the house to meet Carlotta because Lucrezia was still there. "Or do you want to see where she feeds the angel sharks?"
Flavia looked intrigued. She turned to her father, seeking permission.
"It's up to you," Uncle Giorgio told her. "You don't have to if you don't want to."
"I think I'd like to," said Flavia.
"All right, you three just wait here," Uncle Giorgio said. "I'll tell Leo where we're going to be."
"Yes, Uncle Giorgio," Alberto said. He was disappointed that an adult would be coming with them – Alberto had spent too much of his life unsupervised to be comfortable with somebody watching as he tried to enjoy himself.
Uncle Giorgio returned with an okay from Uncle Leonardo, and Carlotta had apparently told him where to get some chum that they could feed to the sharks when they arrived. Luca and Alberto led the way back to the old ship on the sea floor. Flavia had clearly never been there before, and was intrigued by the sunken hulk with the stalactites of rust dangling from the railings and prow.
At first they saw no sharks. Perhaps the animals were frightened by the appearance of all these strangers. Once Uncle Giorgio opened the chum, however, the smell of it got into the water and one by one, the graceful fish began to appear. They soon seemed to remember Luca and Alberto, and welcomed Flavia. She giggled as they rubbed up against her, tickling her with their little whiskers.
"Oh, look," she said suddenly, pointing up. "There's birds!"
There were indeed – fat brown-breasted ones with dark feet hanging down. Flavia fed her piece of chum to a shark, and swam up for a look. The boys followed, as the appearance of the three young sea monsters breaking the surface frightened the big black and brown geese into flight. Flavia looked up in delight as they flew away, honking in a panic.
"I've never seen that kind before!" she said, delighted.
"I know what they are!" Luca told her. "Those are Canadian geese! They don't live here on their own, the humans had to bring them from the other side of the world. We learned about them in school."
Flavia nodded and dipped back under the water a moment before popping up again, still smiling. Once again, her demeanour had changed totally from her earlier nervousness. She was now happy and relaxed, just as Luca had been once Alberto had reassured him that land wasn't as dangerous as he'd thought.
"Hey," Luca said, "there's an island over there."
Alberto turned his head to see. The place Luca had spotted was just a little rocky nub, barely bigger than his Island off Portorosso, though less steep, ringed by cliffs and crowned with greenery. Alberto hadn't noticed it before, but the last time they'd been here they'd stayed on the bottom, interacting with the sharks. When Alberto ducked underwater again, he could see that the island was barely visible from there – the water here was not as clear as in the Ligurian Sea.
What was really interesting, though, was the angular shapes sticking out of the trees on the Island's west end.
"I think there's something built there," said Luca. "Let's go check it out."
"We can't do that," Flavia protested. "The humans will see us!"
"There's no humans on that island," Alberto said. "Look, whatever's there is falling apart. We've got an island like that back home where Luca and I hang out sometimes. It's got the remains of an old lighthouse on it. There haven't been humans there in... how long was it, Luca?"
"Old Tommaso said like two hundred years," Luca said.
"That's even before Nonna Sofia was born," Alberto said.
"Okay," Flavia said cautiously, "but I don't want to get out of the water."
"No problem," Alberto assured her. Getting her close to land would be a start.
"Let me tell Papa Giorgio," Flavia said.
She did, and Uncle Giorgio once again followed them. He stayed back far enough that the kids could talk and laugh among themselves without feeling like he was eavesdropping, but he was definitely hovering there protectively. It was annoying, but when Alberto thought about the way Lucrezia had talked to Flavia, he could understand why Flavia's dads wanted to keep her close.
They arrived at the base of the cliff below the ruins, which was littered with rubble from the fallen structure. The boys and Flavia began poking through this, finding bits of sculpture and even a heavy, round lump of metal which Alberto was sure had to be a cannonball. Uncle Giorgio followed them for this part, too, warning them not to touch anything rusty and not to go into small spaces that might collapse on them.
"Papa Giorgio, we're fine!" Flavia protested, as she looked underneath a fallen block. "Oh, there's snails in here!"
"Don't touch them," Uncle Giorgio said. "Some of them sting. I don't want to have to explain what happened to your Papa Leo." He sighed, and then did a spectacular double-take. Alberto almost laughed, having only seen such things in cartoons, but Uncle Giorgio himself looked deathly serious. "Kids," he said urgently, "stay still."
They all froze, but looked around in confusion. What had he seen that he was upset about.
"Oh!" Flavia pointed. "It's a scorpionfish!"
Once she'd pointed it out, Luca and Alberto spotted it, camouflaged among fronds of brown seaweed. Its long rayed fins swayed in time with them, hiding it almost perfectly as it waited for prey to pass.
"Pterois miles," said Uncle Giorgio. "Stay put. I'm going to catch it. You kids keep back, they're very venomous."
"You don't have to kill it, Papa Giorgio!" Flavia protested. "They're so pretty."
"They may be pretty, but they're hurting the creatures that are supposed to be living around here," Uncle Giorgio told her. "Stay with your friends." He dug into the bag he was carrying for a net, and unfolded it.
When he approached the fish, however, it saw him coming and darted away. Uncle Giorgio cursed and chased after it. "Stay right there!" he shouted back to the three young people. "And if you see any more scorpionfish don't touch them, just keep an eye on them and call me!"
A moment later he passed into the shadow the island cast on the water, and vanished in that gloom.
"Nobody said we had to kill the geese!" Flavia said, upset. "Come on, if there's more we have to find them and chase them away." She started hunting through the weeds.
"Your dad said they were venomous," Luca reminded her.
"So we won't touch them," Flavia replied. "If he finds them he's going to kill them."
They made their way around the other side of the island, checking rocks and clumps of seaweed. Luca yelped when he found one of the fish hiding in a barnacle-encrusted sunken barrel, but Flavia just shook the barrel until the creature flitted away. Alberto investigated higher up the cliff, and there he came across something interesting – a set of ledges cut into the dark volcanic rock, leading down to the water. This must have been where boats had used to anchor when there'd been humans on the island, he decided.
"Hey!" he called. "Luca! Flavia!"
The other two swam up to see. The final couple of ledges went down to a low tide line that was now three metres under the water, where it dropped away to the depths, presumably to accommodate boats with deeper beams. Alberto started climbing the series of ledges and stuck his head above the water to look around. The ledges had room for people to load and unload boats, and then rose into a flight of stairs that turned a corner and disappeared on its way up. Those must go all the way up to the castle. He ducked back under to talk to his friends.
"Come on," he told the other two.
"I won't," said Flavia firmly.
"There's nobody up there," Alberto told her. "I don't think there's been humans on this island in centuries."
"I said I won't," Flavia repeated.
Why was she so obstinate about it? Alberto shook his head. "Go ahead, Luca," he said. He let the other boy go first, and then moved to follow him – then grabbed Flavia's wrist and ignored her cries of protest as he dragged her up to the steps. Once she was actually out she'd see, just as Luca had, that it wasn't so bad.
"No, no, no! I said no!" Flavia wailed, kicking and thrashing as Alberto set her own on the steps.
"Alberto!" Luca ran back to them. "She said no!"
"So did you!" Alberto reminded him, and shook the water off. "See?" he told Flavia. "It's not scary up here. You've got the trees and the bugs and the blue sky – it's amazing."
"It's really not that bad," Luca agreed.
But Flavia curled up and hugged her knees, hiding her face as Luca, too, transformed. The boys stood on either side of her, waiting for her to dry out. Luca might not have liked dragging her out against her will, but he, too, must have figured she'd get over it after a bit of drama, just as he had.
It took a couple of minutes, but eventually it started to dawn on them that something was wrong. Flavia's fins drooped as the water dripped off them into a puddle around her, and her tail curled around herself. Sunlight glinted off her yellow scales, but she wasn't Changing.
"Are you happy?" she asked them miserably.
"Uh." Alberto looked at Luca. Luca could only shrug. Neither of them had ever heard of people who just didn't Change. Of course, it had been a long time since the sea monsters around Portorosso had spent any time out of the water, and a lot of them still didn't go. There could have been half a dozen people there who didn't Change and had never realized it. But here, where everybody went up on land regularly, as if it were nothing, it would be very strange indeed.
Flavia stood up. She balanced just fine, showing that she had been out of the water before and knew how to walk. Salt had built up at the corners of her eyes in the sea monster version of crying.
"Was it a trick the whole time?" she demanded.
"No!" Luca held up his hands. "We didn't know!"
"We asked, remember?" said Alberto.
"And I told you I didn't want to!" Flavia said, furious, "so why did you do that? You just wanted to see! I hate you!" she told them, and turned to run back down the steps into the water. "I hate you! I never want to see you again!" She dived into the water and her tail slapped the surface as she disappeared.
Alberto said a very bad word and kicked a stone, furious with himself. They'd made one friend here, one person Alberto had something in common with, and now she'd just said she hated them. He really was the kid who screwed everything up, wasn't he?
"Why didn't she tell us?" he demanded. "I wouldn't have done that if she'd told! Why did she lie?"
"I don't think she did," said Luca. "She really didn't want to."
"Well, she should have told us why," said Alberto. It wasn't his fault. He hadn't known. "If I hadn't done the same thing to you, you'd never have gotten out of the water at all!"
"Probably, yeah," said Luca. He sat down beside Alberto. "Are we gonna stay up here all day?"
"No. Just until Uncle Giorgio comes and yells at us," Alberto replied.
He was sure Uncle Giorgio would appear at any moment – but he didn't. The two boys sat on the steps for what felt like hours, but the surface of the water remained unbroken. Seagulls landed on the crumbling walls and then flew away. When somebody finally did come looking for them, it was not Uncle Giorgio.
"Here you are!" Carlotta exclaimed, climbing up to meet them. "I don't think I've ever been up here. It looked like a dangerous place. Find anything fun?"
"Not really," said Alberto.
"Then let's do something more fun," Carlotta said. "Want to go to Procida with Mom and me?"
"Sure," said Alberto, and he and Luca got to their feet. They were going to be in big trouble sooner or later. Might as well enjoy themselves now.
