The sun sank lower in the sky as time passed. Trains came and went, rattling along the tracks. The kids finished their snacks, and then took turns standing lookout, waiting for the criminals to arrive. Half-eight came and went with no sign of them, but shortly after that, a familiar yellow truck pulled up. It parked further up the road, and Bruno got out.
Very casually, he lit a cigarette and then wandered down to the beach, as if he intended to just stand there staring out to sea as he smoked it. He exhaled a cloud of fumes, and then looked furtively left and right. "Kids?"
Flavia peeked out of the drain they were hiding in. "Zio Bruno!" she whispered.
He turned and saw them, and sighed with relief. "Oh, good," he said, coming closer. "I figured you'd come here. How'd we make out?"
"Great!" said Alberto. "We've got the diamonds!" He pointed proudly to the safe, still wrapped in pink floral curtains.
"So you do!" Bruno shook his head and chuckled. "I can't wait to see your Dad's face when he realizes you're a better jewel thief than he ever was. He'll either burst with pride or he'll be hopping mad. Maybe both!"
"Are the bad guys coming?" asked Luca.
"I delivered the message," Bruno said. "Eight o'clock. They might be late. The clock in the Maddalena is a bit behind."
That gave Alberto another cause for worry. "But we were gonna get on the train after," he said. "If they're late, we'll miss it, and then we'll have to wait for the half-nine!" That would give them way too much time for something to go wrong, or for the thieves to hurt somebody.
"Relax, Alberto, the trains are always late," said Bruno, unconcerned. "You'll hear people say Mussolini made them run on time, but they're liars."
The quarter-to-eight train came and went, and the kids decided they'd better get to the platform. Flavia had to stay behind, hiding in the culvert, but Bruno helped the others carry their curtain-wrapped safe up the steps and onto the platform, where they pushed it into the gap beside a ticket machine so it would be away from the stairs. Celia sat down on top of it, while the others continued to stand.
There was nobody there at first, but people started to arrive shortly thereafter. An old man plopped himself down on a bench and opened a newspaper, paying them no attention whatsoever. A woman bustled up the steps dragging her young son, who was holding a glass globe full of water with a goldfish in it. The mother was busy complaining that they'd missed the 7:45 train to Santa Maria la Bruna and would now have to wait for the 8:15, but the boy stared at them over the top of his fishbowl.
"I dunno if you ought to be here, Squirt," Bruno said to Celia. "This is a pretty big deal for somebody as little as you."
"He's probably right," Luca said. "Maybe you should go hide in the drain with Flavia."
"It's cold in there," Celia said. "I wanna help Zia Sofia."
Alberto wondered if Bruno would try to carry her away, and hoped not. He couldn't imagine how scary it must have been for Celia to have Nonna Sofia dragged out of the house like that while she was hiding. Could any of them blame her for wanting to make sure her beloved auntie was all right?
The clocked ticked closer and closer to eight. The sun was hovering just above the water now, and both it and its reflection were blinding in their eyes. The bottoms of the clouds lit up brilliant pink and orange, while the sky turned deeper and deeper blue overhead. A few early stars began to wink into view.
Luca pointed straight up. "See that big square of stars, Celia?"
"Yeah?" she asked.
"That's La Orsa Maggiore. People here say it looks like a plough or a ladle, and the ones who live at the North Pole say it's a reindeer."
Alberto hadn't known that. "Different people have different names for the stars?" he asked.
"Yeah." Luca nodded. "We learned a bit about that at school but not as much as I wanted to know. There are humans all over the world, and it's only in the last few hundred years that they've all been able to meet each other, so they've all got different stories about things like that."
"What about sea monsters?" asked Celia. "Us, too?"
"Probably," said Luca. "Someday Alberto and I are gonna travel the whole world and find out." He looked over at his friend and smiled. Alberto smiled back.
As it got closer to eight, more and more people crowded onto the platform. Buses stopped to let them swarm off, and more cars pulled up to drop off passengers or look for parking spaces. Alberto watched these carefully, but didn't see any familiar faces. Then at last, two cars arrived together – one beige one, and one blue one. They both stopped across the street, but kept the engines running.
The beige car's front driver door opened, and Alberto's heart jumped into his throat as a man got out. There he was – the bearded Frenchman Alberto had seen both in the jewellery shop and in Spagna last year. Giancarlo had called him Michel Godin.
Leaving everybody else behind in the cars, the man climbed the steps to the train platform. Luca and Alberto moved to stand protectively in front of Celia, who remained sitting on the safe. Bruno put out his latest cigarette and stood up as tall as he could, stepping forward to greet Godin – or maybe to be in between him and the children.
Godin saw them, and blinked in surprise. His brow furrowed, and he began walking towards them with long, purposeful steps, shouldering other people out of the way. Alberto stood up as straight as he could. He knew he wasn't intimidating, but he was going to try.
"It's just you?" he asked, pointing at Alberto.
"Sure is!" Alberto replied, in his toughest voice.
Godin glared at Bruno. "You said you were here on behalf of the Scorfano family," he said.
"I am," Bruno replied. "These kids are Scorfanos as much as any of the adults. You want to do something about it?" He looked Godin over, sizing him up. The Frenchman was taller, but Bruno was a lot heavier, and spent his days hammering rivets into the sides of ships. In a fight between the two, Alberto would not have bet on Godin.
"Where are the diamonds?" asked Godin in a low voice. He looked at the object Celia was sitting on. It was still tied up in curtains, but it was pretty obvious that it was some kind of box, and there was only one reason it could have been there.
"You can have them when you give us Nonna Sofia and Signorina Sorrentino," said Alberto.
"Yeah?" asked Godin, his bushy eyebrows rising. "What about your father?"
"You can keep him. I don't want him," said Alberto.
"Alberto!" hissed Luca.
But Godin laughed. He looked through the gap between the ticket machines and gave some kind of signal. The doors of both cars opened, and the men Alberto recognized as Paolo and Cesare got out, each hanging on to one of the captive women. Polly's hair was rumpled, but she was all right. Nonna Sofia looked very pale and upset, but neither was hurt. For a moment it looked as if Giancarlo wasn't even there, but then he climbed out of the blue car after Paolo and Polly, and joined this group of five as they climbed the steps to the platform.
Nobody wanted to shout for fear of attracting attention, but Alberto could see Nonna Sofia's eyes go wide as she spotted him. A moment later, Giancarlo did the same, and was unable to stay quiet.
"Alberto?" he asked in disbelief.
"Quiet," Godin told him, and looked down at Alberto. "Diamonds. Now."
Celia got up off the safe, and Alberto and Luca pushed it across the platform towards them. The people waiting were starting to notice that something odd was going on and taking an interest, which made Alberto gulp. What if somebody asked them what they were doing, or even called the police?
But then, like a rescuing angel, the train arrived. It rumbled to a stop, and the doors opened. Suddenly all the people around them were moving as they got onto or off the train. A voice announced that this train would be departing in two minutes for Pietrarsa San Giorgio a Cremano, and everybody was in much too big a hurry to pay much attention to this odd scene on the platform.
Godin knelt down and pulled the curtains off so he could examine the safe. Alberto began to edge away, planning to run for the train himself as soon as everybody was free, but the man looked up sharply at him.
"Don't you move," he said.
"You've got your diamonds," Alberto told him. "Now give us the hostages!"
"Il n'y a pas le feu," said Godin. "We need to know this isn't a trick. Cesare, you're up."
Godin took hold of Signorina Sorrentino, and Cesare knelt down to fiddle with the dial on the safe. People on the train were sitting down, and the doors had begun to close again – although one opened again as a man ran up and pressed the button. How long was this going to take? If the train left...
Alberto looked at his father, in case he had any idea – but Giancarlo was not looking back. He was clutching his hat in both hands, his mouth set in a grimace as he watched Cesare try to open the safe. A bead of sweat rolled down his cheek, leaving a blue sheen that lingered a moment, until the moisture evaporated.
Passengers were now done getting on and off the train. There was nobody left on the platform except them, and the woman and child with the goldfish and all the doors were closed – except the nearest one, which kept opening and shutting on its own.
May I have your attention, please, said the announcement. We are having a slight mechanical issue. The train will be underway momentarily.
"Come on, come on," Alberto muttered.
Giancarlo shifted his weight from one foot to the other, as if he expected the safe to explode at any moment. Alberto wondered what would happen if he just ran to get on the train, but he couldn't do that. Not when Paolo was still hanging on to Nonna Sofia.
Then everything went wrong, all at once.
Two or three cars stopped in the street, and men in police uniforms got out. They came running up the stairs to surround the group. Giancarlo looked around for an escape, then caught Alberto's eye, and just put his hands on top of his head with a sigh.
Cesare froze with his hand still on the safe dial. He looked up at Godin, and it was as if the two communicated without words. Godin let go of Signorina Sorrentino, and he and Cesare grabbed the safe and dived through the train doors. Paolo pushed Nonna Sofia at Giancarlo and ran after them, but he was too late. The doors shut, and this time they stayed shut. Paolo pressed the button over and over, but the train rattled away down the tracks.
"Everybody put your hands where I can see them," one of the policemen ordered.
Nonna Sofia and Bruno obeyed at once. Polly was looking around in a panic, protesting that she hadn't done anything wrong, but the police still came and took her arms. Alberto met his father's gaze again, and then put his hands on his head, too. Now they were both going to end up in prison, weren't they? And after Giancarlo had escaped before, they were going to take special precautions for sea monster.
Paolo was still standing there staring at the train as it rolled away up the coastline, unable to believe his colleagues had simply left him. It was only when the police actually put their hands on him that he reacted.
"It wasn't me!" he said. "We were in the Bar Maddalena when Fratelli Rossi was robbed. There are witnesses! It was them!" He pointed to the kids. "They're fish people! They're all fish people!"
"Don't be..." one of the police interrupted, but another one interrupted.
"Fish people!" this second man crowed, pushing his way to the front – and Alberto felt a bit ill as he recognized the man who'd been napping in the Rossi brothers' offices. "I knew it! I knew I saw fish people! That's who was sneaking in and out of the building!" He turned to a fellow officer. "I told you! I told you! I wasn't dreaming!"
"Shut up," the man in charge said. "What are you talking about? These are clearly not fish people!"
Alberto looked from Paolo to the police again. If the cops believed the crime had been committed by fish people, maybe they could still get away if he could only...
"They change when they get wet!" Paolo said. "I'll show you!" He yanked his arms away from the police and snatched the fishbowl from the child waiting nearby.
Alberto knew what was coming. He grabbed Luca's hand, and Giancarlo's since he was the closest adult, and concentrated as Paolo threw the water in their faces.
It wasn't going to be enough, he knew. Nonna Sofia, Bruno, and Celia were also there, and they would all transform. It was over. They were going to prison after all. Alberto kept his eyes shut, waiting for the police to come and grab them all.
But it didn't happen. After a few moments of silence Alberto risked opening his eyes, and the first thing he saw was Paolo with his mouth hanging open. Water was dripping off Alberto's hair. He looked to his left and saw Luca, also wet but still fully human. On his right was Giancarlo, with his shirt and hair soaked, but he hadn't transformed, either – he was staring at his right hand like he'd never seen it before. The goldfish was flopping helplessly on the concrete at their feet, while the little boy who owned it screamed in his mother's arms.
Alberto looked back over his shoulder. Celia was standing there with her face scrunched up in concentration, holding hands with both Bruno and Nonna Sofia. Nonna Sofia was just standing there in shock, while Bruno blinked at the others like he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing. All three also looked human.
"Fish people, indeed!" said the policeman in charge. "Siete tutti fuori!"
"But... but..." Paolo sputtered.
The police moved in to put handcuffs on Paolo and take him away, while one officer collected the goldfish and refilled its bowl from a spigot on the wall to give back to the tearful child. By then, Luca had wiped the water off his face with his free hand, and Alberto felt confident to let go of him. When he did, a few scales appeared, but Luca quickly dried those spots on his shirt and was fine. Giancarlo wiped his wet hand on the seat of his pants and then, very carefully, let go of Alberto. Bruno stepped away from Celia, who continued to cling to Nonna Sofia, barely daring to breathe.
"Tesoro, I think you can relax now," said Nonna Sofia. "I think we're dry."
Celia opened her eyes and nearly fell over. Nonna Sofia hugged her tight.
"What about the other guys from the reporter's tip?" asked the policeman in charge. The embroidery on his pocket said he was Officer Caruso.
"I think they got on the train," another replied. "We'll call ahead and see if we can pick them up at another station."
Caruso nodded and turned to the group of Scorfanos. "And you folks are?"
Nobody was entirely sure how to answer him, but somebody had to say something, so Alberto stepped forward. "We're the Trombetta family!" he announced. "My father works at the jewellery company so the bad guys took Nonna Sofia and Signorina Sorrentino hostage to make him help them rob the place! They told us to meet them here to get everybody back, and then you showed up!"
Everybody else quickly started nodding and agreeing. That was their story and they would stick to it.
"Would you all mind coming to our station and answering some questions, then?" Caruso said. "We'll need statements... and we've got some witnesses who need to make identifications."
"We would be delighted, Officer," said Nonna Sofia. "As long as we can walk there. I've ridden in enough cars for today."
"It's only a short ride, Signora," another policeman assured her.
"She threw up all over Cesare," Giancarlo warned them.
Nonna Sofia turned pink. "I did," she admitted.
"I see," said Caruso. "Then... we'll have Paghetti escort you."
Everybody else had to ride in the police cars, which was something that Alberto might normally have thought was pretty cool. Now he climbed in to the back of one with his father and Polly, and slumped down in his seat so people wouldn't be able to see him through the window. As the engine started, Polly leaned over and whispered in Giancarlo's ear.
"How did you do that?" she asked. "You told me any water..."
"I don't know!" Giancarlo hissed back. "I've never done it before!"
"He didn't do it," Alberto muttered. "I did." He kept his head pointed forwards, but looked up at his father's face. "You never told Teresa," he said. When they'd briefly been guests in Teresa Moya's house in Badalona, Giancarlo had been very careful not to let her see either of them get wet.
"Yeah, well, I'm trying to do less lying these days," said Giancarlo glumly. He was fully aware that they were about to have to do a lot of it.
He got started as soon as they walked into the police station. The woman who'd come in to the Maddalena looking for people to interview was waiting there, and she stood up when the police brought them inside. Giancarlo looked at her, but did not say anything. He waited until the police had them all sitting down and had offered them coffee. Nonna Sofia arrived shortly after, and then Giancarlo sat up straight like he had to make an announcement.
"It was me," he said. "I stole the diamonds from Fratelli Rossi."
Alberto's jaw dropped. He opened his mouth to protest that this wasn't true, then changed his mind... if he told the truth, he'd get Luca and Celia in trouble. But of all the lies Giancarlo could have told, why that one?
"You want to tell us about it?" asked Caruso.
"There's not a lot to tell," said Giancarlo. "I used to work as a diver for a man named Louis D'Auvergne. That's where I met Michel Godin, and he introduced me to Paolo Montemurro and Cesare Carbone. We've been in some trouble together in the past. When they heard about the Danish diamonds, they came and asked for my help stealing them. I refused, so they kidnapped my mother and girlfriend so I would have to cooperate."
One of the other officers began scribbling this all down on a notepad. The one named Caruso nodded. "Go on."
"I told them I'd do it, but I would need my cousin and the kids," he gestured to Bruno, Luca, Alberto, and Celia, "as witnesses. Then you guys showed up in the middle of the trade, before they could open the safe. Like I said." He sighed heavily. "Not much to tell."
There was a knock on the door, then. Caruso called for whoever it was to come in, and another policeman entered, escorting the Rossi Brothers. Alberto, already slumped, sank down further in his seat.
"Is this your former employee?" the new policeman asked.
"Yes," said the one with the moustache – Marcello Rossi. "That's Gianni Trombetta."
Giancarlo hung his head. "I'm so sorry, gentlemen," he said. "I just couldn't let them hurt Ma or Polly."
"We're glad your mother and Signorina Sorrentino are all right," said Milo. "That's more important than any diamonds... but from a business point of view, this is still a disaster. I'm not looking forward to dealing with the Danish government."
"Not to mention what this will do to our company's reputation," Marcello agreed. He turned to Caruso. "Have you managed to recover the diamonds yet?"
Caruso didn't know, having been with the Scorfano family this entire time – but a policewoman stepped through the door with a clipboard in her hands. "I just had news about that, actually. The safe was found lying beside the train tracks, but there were no diamonds or cash in it. Just account books."
And that was when Giancarlo suddenly smiled. "Of course not," he said, sitting up straighter. "The diamonds haven't been in that safe all week!"
Everybody turned to stare at him, including the Rossi Brothers. "I beg your pardon, Trombetta?" asked Marcello.
"Godin's persistent," Giancarlo explained. "I knew if I wouldn't help him, he'd get somebody else or come up with a new plan. So I took the diamonds myself, and hid them." He winked at Alberto.
"What?" Alberto asked, at the same time as Marcello Rossi said the same thing.
"Gianni," said Milo, "are you saying you can get them back for us?"
"Of course I can!" Giancarlo sat back with his hands behind his head. "In fact, Alberto and his friend can do it – they know where they are." He nodded to the boys.
Alberto's head was spinning. How was he supposed to know where the diamonds were? If he'd known Giancarlo had already stolen them, he would never have gone to all that trouble and put everybody else in danger to steal the safe! If he...
Then he realized – he did know where the diamonds were. They were in the place where Giancarlo had been hiding out, protecting them! "We can do that!" he agreed eagerly. "Luca, come on!"
"Hold it," said the policewoman, getting in their way at the door. "How do we know this isn't some kind of trick? They might just run and not come back. Somebody ought to go with them."
"You can't," said Alberto. "It's a place nobody can go but us."
"They'll come back," said Nonna Sofia. "Gianni and I will both stay right here until they do, and if they don't, you can throw us all in prison."
The police reluctantly let the boys leave. Alberto and Luca ran down the street to the ocean as fast as they could go. The sky was fully dark now, but there were still plenty of people around. Several were startled as Alberto and Luca pushed past them, and people called out, scolding the naughty boys who weren't looking where they were going. Luca and Alberto ignored them. They hopped over the retaining wall and went right into the dark waters of the gulf.
Seconds later, they heard a familiar voice calling them. "Guys! Guys!"
They stopped swimming and looked back, just in time to see Flavia rush up to throw her arms around both of them.
"What took you so long?" she asked. "I was freaking out!"
"We'll tell you later," Alberto promised. "Right now we gotta get back to the submarine. That's where Giancarlo hid the diamonds!"
Flavia frowned. "They weren't in the safe?"
"We'll explain on the way," Alberto assured her.
The three of them swam out to the ravine, where they found the submarine looking very spooky in the moonlight, especially with the fingers of rust hanging off it like red icicles. Flavia found some glowing jellyfish, and then slipped down the hatch into the room where Giancarlo had been when the boys found him. There she pointed to something under the bed, half-hidden behind the jacket Giancarlo had left draped over the ladder.
"He had this with him when I brought him here," she said, as Alberto pulled out the object. It turned out to be an old wooden jewellery box, the type that had a ballerina that would start to dance when it was opened. "I thought it might be a present for me, so I didn't ask him about it, but he just pushed it under there."
Alberto opened it. The ballerina inside was missing, and there were no drawers, just a cloth bag. When Alberto picked it up, he could feel that there were several more small bags inside it – and inside those were small, hard objects.
Back on the beach, they gathered underneath a light that had been left on outside one of the Lido Arturo buildings. There, Alberto pulled one of the smaller bags out, and tipped its contents onto his palm. The transparent stone was tiny, but it sparkled like sunshine on the water, and there were many, many more of them in the other bags.
"Man," Alberto said. "I wonder how many Vespas this is worth."
"Alberto!" Luca exclaimed.
"Relax, relax," Alberto told him. "I wouldn't keep them, even if Nonna Sofia wasn't waiting for us. They don't belong to us." He tipped the stone back into the bag, and put it back in the box.
Twenty minutes later, he and Luca presented the box to the Rossi brothers, who opened it like they thought it was a bomb and counted the stones inside four times. Giancarlo watched this nervously, but in the end the brothers were satisfied that nothing was missing, and Marcello came and took Giancarlo's hand.
"Thank you, Mr. Trombetta," he said. "We will not be pressing charges."
"You won't?" asked Giancarlo, startled, but then he shook the man's hand with an eager smile. "Thank you!"
"I don't think we can employ you anymore, though," Milo added. "You understand."
Giancarlo's face fell at once. "I... yes, I guess I do. That's..." he let go of Marcello's hand and turned and looked at Nonna Sofia, terrified.
"Don't look at me like that," she said. "I'm sure it'll take you a while to find a new job, but I won't throw you out if I can see you're trying."
"They always need men at the shipyards," said Bruno.
"That sounds like actual work," Giancarlo said with a grimace.
"It'll be good for you," Bruno told him.
When the police finally let them leave, they all went together. Giancarlo had an arm around Polly's shoulders, but the first thing he said once they were out of earshot of the police was not to her, but to Alberto.
"Thanks," he said.
Alberto scowled. "You didn't think I'd come back?" he asked, insulted. Of course he'd come back. He wasn't a thief. "You came back for me at Portlligat," he pointed out. Alberto had wondered several times just how close Giancarlo had come to leaving him there with the thieves, and whether they actually would have hurt him in that case. He wasn't going to ask, though, mostly because he didn't really want an answer.
"Oh, I knew you'd come back," said Giancarlo. "I mean thanks because... well, I was sitting there thinking this was all going to end in disaster, because I knew they wouldn't let Polly or Ma go until they were sure they had the diamonds, and I couldn't just tell them I already hid them. So if you hadn't taken the safe, they would have gone in with me after dark and somebody would have ended up getting hurt when they realized. I owe you one. Two, actually, because then you did the thing when Paolo soaked us."
"It might have all worked out in the end," Nonna Sofia noted, "but I hope you're not planning on making a habit of stealing diamonds, Alberto. I don't want any more of my family in trouble with the law."
"No way," Alberto said firmly. "I'm not a thief."
"I'm glad to hear it," his grandmother said, "but once you promise something like that, you've got to live up to it, every day for the rest of your life." She looked evenly at Giancarlo as she spoke.
"I will," said Alberto. "Just watch me!"
At the edge of the water, Giancarlo stopped and blew a kiss to Signorina Sorrentino. "See you this weekend, Polly?" he asked.
She folded her arms across her chest. "You and I still need to have a talk about some things," she reminded him.
"Yeah, well, at least that means I'll see you," Giancarlo decided. He flashed her a smile, then took his shoes off and walked into the sea. Nonna Sofia shook her head and followed him, carrying Celia, who had fallen asleep while waiting for Luca and Alberto to return with the diamonds.
"I have to head home, too," said Bruno. "My truck's parked near the train station. Do you need a ride, Signorina Sorrentino?"
"Yes, I do," Polly replied. "At least to the jewellery shop... and I don't know if they'll let me take my car if the police are still all over there."
"I can take you home if I need to," Bruno assured her. "I'm used to cleaning up Giancarlo's messes."
Nonna Sofia was just happy to get in the water. She and the children waved goodnight to Bruno and Polly, and set off into the dark. The blue algae was out now, glowing in the moonlight, and Flavia would go up and swim through it, making it swirl and part like curtains. Alberto and Luca had never considered doing this before – they joined in, laughing and doing underwater somersaults. Celia probably would have enjoyed it also, but she was still fast asleep in Nonna Sofia's arms.
"We really have to get Bruno down here again sometime," Sofia remarked to Giancarlo. "I'm sure we could accommodate him somehow. He's still part of this family and it's high time we reminded him of it."
"I'm working up to it," was all Giancarlo said.