Back to school
September 13th 2001,
Apulia Italy.
Another summer was gone. Gabriel spent the rest of the summer by helping Enzo in the field work and helping his mom doing shopping.
Just the day before school he assisted his uncle turning back to Canada at the airport.
"See you next summer!" he said wearing his baseball cap and the sunglasses.
"Goodbye!" Gabriel said in chorus with his family.
Gabriel's family assisted Giovanni's airplane taking the flight through the blue sky.
"Another summer is gone!" Annabella announced.
"Let's go back home!" Enzo said.
Two months have passed but seemed an eternity when Gabriel turned back to school.
The first day of school began in the usual way.
Gabriel did everything not to be late but his mother took a long time to comb her hair. Even though Gabriel was already old enough to do it by himself, he could never style his hair the way his mother wanted.
That wouldn't be a problem if only his mother wasn't so slow at combing his hair.
"Come on mom, I'm going to be late!"
"Don't worry!" she answered.
Sometimes Gabriel wished to know what was wrong with his hair.
As every year there was the problem of assigning the seats. In Gabriel's school no one could seat where prefered. Their teacher Marcella had the job to assign the seats for every student. This time Gabriel was unlucky. His seat was in the first row of the class, very close to the teacher's desk.
This time Gabriel couldn't have any distraction without the teacher knowing it.
Moreover his desk was near Angela's and Ippolita's ones. He was the only one of the class to be sat near two girls. Someone would consider Gabriel lucky, but Gabriel never realized that.
This year math would be even more difficult than the last year. If there was something that Gabriel couldn't bear was Algebra. Even this year he had study math with a tutor.
His mom had to pay a lot to make sure Gabriel could learn enough to reach a good grade in math.
His brother Danny was good in math for some reason, sometimes he didn't really need a tutor. Gabriel just couldn't explain that, he always prefered study literature rather than numbers. He always loved literature lessons by his teacher Marcella. He would be happy to follow her lessons entirely if only Angela and Ippolita could stop poking his arm with their long and sharped fingernails.
Just every time he was distracted he could feel his arm being poked by those hateful fingernails, and everytime he turned his head he only could see Angela and Ippolita laughing or smiling at him.
"Why that?" he tought when he wast turning home with his brother once school was over.
"We're home!" Danny announced.
"How was school today?" Annabella asked.
"Everything was right!" Gabriel answered.
"Good, lunch is ready!" Enzo said.
Gabriel left his schoolbag in a corner of his room.
"Don't forget to wash your hands first!" Annabella said.
"Yes mom!" Danny answered.
While Gabriel was washing his hands he realized his arm was still aching.
He decided to take off his shirt and then he noticed two patches of bruise on his arm.