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Authors: Adrián N. Bravi
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Dawn began to appear behind the mountains, and Venus shone out like a taillight in the sky. I ate a few more crackers, then went for a pee among the trees. It must have been five or six in the morning. It was cold. I had an urge to go down to Cingoli and call my friend Sandro, to tell him I was in the mountains and had slept in a cave just like the one he and I had once visited in the Sibillini mountains, and that I'd also dreamt about a strange thing who watched me as I was sleeping, but then I had second thoughts. I trusted Sandro entirely, but it was better not to tell anyone where I wasâno one must know, not even Cosino, who had most certainly spent that night wandering the house and, having failed to find me, had gone to sleep.
8
A girl with blue-rimmed glasses and a boy with down over his lip
I was sitting outside the cave, on a branch I had dragged from the woods. I had never heard the early morning chorus of birds singing in the shrubs, nor that irritating whirr of insects buzzing around. "I'll have to get used to it," I said to myself. The last bats (those strange flying things, the only ones to have fur instead of feathers) were returning replete toward their hideouts, flitting here and there as though they were mad. I sat there gazing down on Cingoli, which looked like a model village with a few lights still on, set on its mountain crest. The churches, the towers, the pitched roofs, and then the squares and courtyards, and the tight-knit tangle of streets. I surveyed the town like a bird in flight, with my eyes half-closed.
I didn't know what to do at that hour of the morning. I took out my comb and smoothed my hair forward several times, from the nape of my neck toward my forehead, over the whole rotundity of my cranium, following its curve, and then down to the eyebrows. I enjoyed smoothing my hair like that, I found it relaxing. That was why, after the great Bari ruffle, I had stood there paralyzed, stunned. No one had ever dared to do a thing like that, not even my brother, who was an expert when it came to ruffling. What else could I have done that day, in front of the class, other than remaining completely still? I was expecting him, the Argentinian, or someone else in his entourage, to put my hair back straight, as it had been before. But no one had the courage to stand up and approach me or to pull that braggart down a peg or two; instead they burst out laughing like idiots, their mouths half gaping, smug, heaving like chimneys. In effect, they had left me on stage alone ("Laugh, laugh, laugh as much as you want now," I muttered to myself), with my hair disheveled in front of everyone and my forelock sticking back. That little act was enough for this exotic, half-Paraguayan Argentine to strengthen his leadership over those imbecilesâto put it quite simply, he didn't waste any time on idle chatter and knew how to get the best out of life, as leaders do, without mucking about. I could let the whole incident drop, let it pass, and think no more of it. After all, I kept telling myself, it was an impulsive, irrational act. But I couldn't just let it go, and I kept thinking about that idiot. And as I was puzzling over that bastard and all the bastards who, like him, would have no hesitation in ruffling up a decent person like me, someone who tried never to look anyone in the eye (so as to avoid having anything to do with the first hysteric who clouts you on the head with absolute nonchalance), I spat at the tip of a branch that was leaning against the cave. I got up and went for a piss against the same tree trunk I had pissed against the day before (how incredibly easy it is to become used to certain things). I went back to the cave and made a note of what I had to buy if I ever decided to go down to the town: a wood saw, a hammer, large and medium nails for making a bench, an axe, a bucket, a notebook, a new pencil, plenty of chocolate, shampoo, soap, a can of white paint and
Dawn began to appear behind the mountains, and Venus shone out like a taillight in the sky. I ate a few more crackers, then went for a pee among the trees. It must have been five or six in the morning. It was cold. I had an urge to go down to Cingoli and call my friend Sandro, to tell him I was in the mountains and had slept in a cave just like the one he and I had once visited in the Sibillini mountains, and that I'd also dreamt about a strange thing who watched me as I was sleeping, but then I had second thoughts. I trusted Sandro entirely, but it was better not to tell anyone where I wasâno one must know, not even Cosino, who had most certainly spent that night wandering the house and, having failed to find me, had gone to sleep.
8
A girl with blue-rimmed glasses and a boy with down over his lip
I was sitting outside the cave, on a branch I had dragged from the woods. I had never heard the early morning chorus of birds singing in the shrubs, nor that irritating whirr of insects buzzing around. "I'll have to get used to it," I said to myself. The last bats (those strange flying things, the only ones to have fur instead of feathers) were returning replete toward their hideouts, flitting here and there as though they were mad. I sat there gazing down on Cingoli, which looked like a model village with a few lights still on, set on its mountain crest. The churches, the towers, the pitched roofs, and then the squares and courtyards, and the tight-knit tangle of streets. I surveyed the town like a bird in flight, with my eyes half-closed.
I didn't know what to do at that hour of the morning. I took out my comb and smoothed my hair forward several times, from the nape of my neck toward my forehead, over the whole rotundity of my cranium, following its curve, and then down to the eyebrows. I enjoyed smoothing my hair like that, I found it relaxing. That was why, after the great Bari ruffle, I had stood there paralyzed, stunned. No one had ever dared to do a thing like that, not even my brother, who was an expert when it came to ruffling. What else could I have done that day, in front of the class, other than remaining completely still? I was expecting him, the Argentinian, or someone else in his entourage, to put my hair back straight, as it had been before. But no one had the courage to stand up and approach me or to pull that braggart down a peg or two; instead they burst out laughing like idiots, their mouths half gaping, smug, heaving like chimneys. In effect, they had left me on stage alone ("Laugh, laugh, laugh as much as you want now," I muttered to myself), with my hair disheveled in front of everyone and my forelock sticking back. That little act was enough for this exotic, half-Paraguayan Argentine to strengthen his leadership over those imbecilesâto put it quite simply, he didn't waste any time on idle chatter and knew how to get the best out of life, as leaders do, without mucking about. I could let the whole incident drop, let it pass, and think no more of it. After all, I kept telling myself, it was an impulsive, irrational act. But I couldn't just let it go, and I kept thinking about that idiot. And as I was puzzling over that bastard and all the bastards who, like him, would have no hesitation in ruffling up a decent person like me, someone who tried never to look anyone in the eye (so as to avoid having anything to do with the first hysteric who clouts you on the head with absolute nonchalance), I spat at the tip of a branch that was leaning against the cave. I got up and went for a piss against the same tree trunk I had pissed against the day before (how incredibly easy it is to become used to certain things). I went back to the cave and made a note of what I had to buy if I ever decided to go down to the town: a wood saw, a hammer, large and medium nails for making a bench, an axe, a bucket, a notebook, a new pencil, plenty of chocolate, shampoo, soap, a can of white paint and
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