was high, as are all the girls her age, neither more nor less. He wore a green coat over his pajamas when he entered in absolute silence from the big red gate. It was six o'clock in the morning and see a little girl so little around at that time was a bit 'as though Santa Claus had come down the chimney on August 15. The sun had not risen, the air smelled that advances the middle of winter and the lights of the first car melted into the mist. No one had seen her, this, at least, one could safely say. He climbed the stairs, he made sure that my mother was still in his room, still asleep, then sat on his bed, took a little book from under his white pillow and a pen from his desk - one of those pens in four colors, red , green, black and blue. She had always enjoyed writing in red.
I have to hurry. Brivio My name is Eva, I have eight and a half years, almost nine and I have to hurry. I have to write everything down before I go. And find me and get me, I know that I take. But I write fast, faster, and I can not fix, so I'll write more. I'll do a little 'errors, but no matter.
I live in a big yellow and white house, not far from Milan, California. Not in California, California. It is named after the place where I live. It is not a city but not even a village. For me it's big enough. It would be nice to live in California, but my mom would never there, she is afraid of flying. But I'm afraid of bees and the woods. I attend the third grade and I have not thought of anything I'm writing, I promise, cross my heart I could die. Cross my heart could die is an oath, we always do me and my cousin, we do an x \u200b\u200bon the heart and then say: - cross my heart I could die! - And this means that what you say is really true, or else you die. What then die I never understood what it means exactly. My mom uses that word when talking about Dad, but apart from that no longer exists, I see him only in photos and home movies of when we were in Greece together, all I know. I think most people are dead, anyway. My grandmother said that before my father was afraid of flying, not the mother. Then, after he died, his mother came the fear of flying. Perhaps this is that means dying. But I do not know, I have only eight, half past eight, almost nine.
I'm losing time, I find, I have to write faster.
Valdoca and I go to after school oratory S. Francis. I'm always with Laura, who is my cousin but my best friend. She's younger than me and likes classical music, says that will become a great pianist, I think it will be good. He wears overalls and jeans, while I'm always skirts because I have nice legs. Laura and I have the same grandmother and her mom and her dad are my uncles. My mom is older than ten years of my aunt, but my aunt called and Marlena was a child in college.
Yesterday we were playing volleyball in the field behind the church and I saw Max coming down the hall, the one at church. It is usually closed, except when we do the Christmas show - but yesterday was 18 and we are in November. I went down too. I have not told Laura, I did not want to take me around: it says that I like Max, but it is not true. I wanted to see what he was doing, because it was strange and kept his right arm as if it hurt.
Before the show there is a long corridor with walls half brown and half white. To the side there are six doors: I was not all six, only in the store in the bathroom and in the green room (the second left, all over the walls green), where there is television and where Don Luigi locks stocks of candy. I could hear voices coming from that room.
- and tonight - said one of the voices - Tonight at 4. - I never heard anyone talk about 4am. It's stupid, but I was scared.
- Where shall we meet?
- In my house?
- No, everyone has to go out alone, there must be no witnesses.
- See you at the place?
- No, I'll see you behind the wall of Valdoca, the short one.
- At 4?
- At 4.
I thought you wanted to go for a walk at night, frightened, something like that. I did it myself once, I was with Laura at the cemetery at night. But not we are really revenue, I did not want my father to see me. I do not know why I thought such a thing, that's all I was little.
- We should make sure you can not miss. The chalk should be white, take it one each - was the voice of Silvia. Silvia was the most stupid and rich at my school. I did not understand what was he doing there, perhaps he had kissed her with Maximus, but I did not care.
- And do not say anything to anyone as long as you live. Do you have sworn.
- No one will say anything.
- None - said each of them. There were eight entries.
And now I have heard. I do not know how, maybe I breathed in, maybe I pushed the door, do not know. They opened and I fell into it. There were
four girls and four boys. Maybe I should tell you all the names, the names of those who lived, those who come to take me. But I do not know. I promise, cross my heart I could die, we do not know. Massimo and Silvia and I only knew two other girls, Mary and Delia, who is from Peru, and a great guy who makes the medium and is called Loaf - even if it is not his real name. Locked me in with them, they asked me what I had heard - Speak, what you heard! What do you know, fuck? - Shouted Pagnotta beat with a hand on his head and spit on the smoke of his cigarette. And Don Luigi does not allow anyone to smoke. - No, I was ... I have not heard ... nothing ... - I was scared as I've never been afraid in my life. Two other big boys like Pagnotta tried to calm him down, said he was not counting, I was just a child. They made me go out, they did not know what else to do. They told me not to talk to anyone, that if I were not to take home and also took my mother and my father and killed them. And Max said - Leave her alone, she did not have more than his dad. Enough. - Then looked at me without touching me - Go play, Eva -. It was the sweetest thing I ever said, because it seemed that he wanted to kiss me. Maybe my cousin is right.
I did not play and I did not say anything to anyone, not even Laura. I wanted to go into the woods at night. It's the stupidest thing I've ever thought, but it was like when I got to the ear hole. I have insisted so much with the seller of earrings that I believed I had the permission of the mother, even if it was not true, and I did the hole. Here, so I insisted to myself that fear has become something else. I believe that the great use the word excitement. I was excited. My grandmother says that the excitement makes you do a lot of stupid things in life, and he's right.
I knew how. My mother takes pills to sleep, or I have too much stomach pain and has to spend the night eating lots of sugar with a spoon. So I get up at night sometimes and I start looking at the TV or playing computer games. Once that Laura had come to me we played hide and seek and Mom has not woken up even once. So I waited until he fell asleep. I waited. I wanted to go myself, I wanted to be like them, I wanted to be great.
Now, as I write very fast on my diary, and the blood coming out of my feet and my hair is soaked and her lips were cut, now that I've seen it all, does not seem to be big a big deal. Suddenly there are real things and things that are not, but those who are are all wrong.
I took the battery, I put my coat over my pajamas and old sneakers, blue and black ones. I came out from behind, where there is the garden. The first thing I saw was the light of the moon was huge, so big that I could see well without battery and I like shadow on the beach in summer. My dog \u200b\u200bQuana did not say anything. I took the bike and I left the red gate, the big one, because the small one facing the street when the close is too noisy. The mother would not hear anyway, but I do not want to hear.
I cycled to school. There was no one, only four bikes and two scooters. The one loaf is without a body, you see the whole engine. I wanted to go back, but my mother always says that things can never be in the middle.
I jumped the wall and I fell in a bush the other side is much higher. The trail because I knew once I went to the pond with my classmates, we escaped for an hour a substitute and took a bad note for this. I started to run, because to me the woods are scary, yet I can not stay there long way off. Perhaps it has something to do with this excitement, I do not know. He did not feel anything, no animals, only the moonlight and my breath. I came to the factory and the factory over the lake. And suddenly I fell. I opened my eyes and my mouth was full of earth, I spit, something pushed me down hard. It was a knee. I could not see anything, I just feel bad in back. I tried to say something, but a hand pushed me further down in the land. I've eaten yet. I think my lips are broken there. Then I heard the voice calling me Max. - Wait, no! - He shouted and I think there was a stronger light behind my head at that time. Then he got hurt. At first I only heard one shot, then a pain that did not stop and the ground beneath the mouth has started to become wet mud. I drank a little 'blood and knew, also smelled of blood. I was excited, I pushed and cried and the land was ever wet. Then they got up and I touched her head was hurting and was moist and the ground were a bit 'of my hair red. I saw Max standing looking at me sadly. - Sorry, Eva. Why did you come? You had to stay home - I repeat - you had to stay home.
- had to be only eight. You got to do that? - Pagnotta was behind me, it was he who had led me to the ground, struck me and had a boxcutter in hand, one of the red ones with a lot of things inside.
- now it is here.
- Nine will not do, Max, was a sign that you were eight, eight! - Massimo and then raised the sleeve on his arm and there were eight cuts with the crust. That's because if you kept him. He approached Pagnotta, took her knife and became another sign. Without saying anything except: - Now there are nine.
know are coming. They know where I live and will be here. I can not write faster than this, your fingers are behind me, I'm slow, too slow.
They took me with them. I cried because I did not want, even if a little 'I wanted to still be great. They were all there, beyond the forest, near a ravine that I did not see where he was going to finish first and the ravine was a piece of hard earth that ended in a vacuum. The piece of land there were white marks, they were drawing them with chalk.
- did not have to be only eight? - Asked Silvia, she and I was never invited to his birthday parties.
- Never mind - said Massimo and took a piece of chalk and passed it to me. I knew I had to help them finish. They were drawing hopscotch boxes, but that name was Delia mundo. They had already made the Earth and the first six boxes. I did that of 7 and I noticed that the 8 and 9 were right on the limit and it scared me because the last, the box in the sky, just had to stay where there was a vacuum.
Maria approached and told me to take my shoes off, then smile - play? - He said.
- G-games? - I asked as I took off my shoes and I stayed like when you go barefoot in the pool.
- Yes, we're just here to play Eve.
- I was making a joke? You ... are evil.
- No joke, we're playing.
- A bell. Can you play a bell, right? - These numbers were too close to the edge, too. I did not answer.
- You have to play, shit, now that you come here you play! - Shouted Pagnotta, struck again with his hand on his head. So I wanted to leave, but then Mary and Delia have approached me and held her, while Pagnotta has reached out and saw the knife and used the knife and cut me under my feet. This has hurt now, but I still kept my feet and I could not escape and fall. I have narrow feet and wondering why I cried.
- Why yes - I replied.
The blood has not stopped going out and I have soiled the bed and the mother will see him tomorrow. I'm shivering and I have to write faster.
Massimo approached.
- Eva, stop - he said kindly - Eva, you know what is gravity?
- I do not understand - and really did not understand, that is, of course you know what the severity, but what does?
- You know that the earth rotates in space and gravity keeps us stuck to the ground?
-
Yes - And you know what would happen if the world stopped?
- The world can not stop ...
- If you stop will be all thrown in space, everybody dies. There would be the world.
- But I would, right? - It was a stupid thing to say, I know.
- No, you die like your father. And your mom would die, but even if you die you will not be together with you, you will be alone.
- We are here because the world is to stop - said Maria and said so softly that I believed - and we must play in order to continue to run.
- No, not true.
- is true - said that Delia has blue eyes of four different blue and when you feel watching the sea - seems impossible but it's true. Without the game, the world stops, that's why they call mundo.
- is a common occurrence since ancient times, every year, in a different day, in a different place. All over the world. - Scherzo, for strength. How did he know that? But
had nine cuts on his arm and perhaps not joking.
- Okay. - I said. I do not know why. I thought his mother and Laura, and Quan and death if they were my fault I would not be good. I did not mean that they were in the cemetery at night, waiting. Max shook my foot, he did plan as you do with the dolls. There was a smell of ashes at the time, and do not know why, but Pagnotta me smile. And I stayed there. Massimo has dirtied the hand of my blood and I do not know what it means exactly, but I stayed.
- A bell?
- A bell.
I picked up a pebble, not a too big and not too smooth or I slipped and I got in the queue. Did not touch strips for any reason or stop, and I would have liked to ask what happens when you get to heaven. But I have not had the courage.
They started playing and saw that everyone was barefoot and bleeding all. Perhaps because they had run away, or perhaps because the blood had come down in the boxes, I do not know. Massimo has launched its first stone in the box and jumped. Then he did Pagnotta, and so on. And they sang, they sang the songs of children. The arc and that of the vessel and the dance of the quacks.
Faster and faster, as the Earth rotates. - So says Massimo. See the big boys play was odd, especially Pagnotta. It is one that goes to the car with the motor, is stricken with her friends and none of them has a real name. It was playing a bell with me.
- Faster - they said - more quickly - I was afraid, the sky was approaching with its emptiness.
- Faster, Run! Run or the earth stops!
- Run! Silvia
screamed and pushed me and started to yell Massimo himself - Faster, faster!
And I went faster, my head was spinning and jumping as if they were running. I felt the earth move beneath me, I'm not joking. I realized I could not stop because every time I try I felt that I was going to fly away, that the world was stopping. That's it. Cross my heart I could die, that's what happened. And the numbers were contaminated all red and I arrived at 7, I picked my pebble and back. 8 arrived and saw the ravine, but I could not stop and nobody stopped. We sang songs and played. I arrived at 9 and I laughed and sang and laughed louder and louder. Faster and faster. The moon was big, there was so much light and I could see exactly where everything ended. Then a stone came to heaven, everyone sang and laughed because it ended well, because the Earth was safe and the world did not stop. Quick, quick Silvia launched the pebble and the pebble is dropped over the ravine, in the sky, and she was going fast and I laughed and sang and jumped and I saw that I knew that it was true that if they were all dead wrong, it was true, cross my heart I could die I could die, cross my heart was true.
And then I saw more and Earth was saved.
I cried, I cried, I told him I was going to tell everyone that it was wrong that it was better if the world is now dying because Silvia had died and my dad had died and was no good and Massimo came close but I'm escaped. I have run, being in the woods, I was scared, but I ran and I got the bike on the bike and I raced back home, I came here and I wrote everything and now I have finished and they are here. I hear the gate, I feel it coming, my mother did not hear anything because he sleeps.
My name is Eva and I have no more than eight almost nine and a half years, I have a lot more. I grew up in a night, all together, as fast as the publicity of the crystal ball that I like. Now I know a lot more things, things that do not teach you in school. I know that fairy tales always hide the horrors. I know that no one pays attention to children because the adults have forgotten everything they know when they are children. I know because when I stayed with my uncles, my aunt was screaming - Faster! Yes! So! - And I know that when the blood comes from your feet after a while 'you are the ants. I know I sound a body makes when it falls never to rise again. Cross on heart could die, I know. And I know that it was true that this game is a rite, the rite of the ancient world. That holds everything together and that if I stopped Silvia hours we'd all be dead, including you. My heart beat faster and the moon is gone and I keep telling myself that tomorrow, my mum will be the fear of bees and the fear of the forest.
They climbed the stairs in silence. There were seven, all higher than their age. They entered the room, and took her away, as time takes away the pain, like a love erases another, like every summer we sing a new song. Not to get her back again. But Eva Brivio, eight almost nine and a half years, had written everything. It was fast enough.
FERRARI, Alessandro (Milan, 1978).
Alessandro Ferrari is born in Milan on September 1, 1978. It lives at high speed between Bergamo / Orio al Serio and Rome / Ciampino on Ryanair flight of 17:10. He writes and comics writer for the Walt Disney Italy. He has created, in collaboration with a painter, a photographer and an actress, 'Athens, March 14, 1997', a comic opera in 2004 shows in Milan and province in haunted houses and desecrated churches. And that is enough. His blog is here .
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