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there. A ray of moonlight fell on the old flower-patterned sofa, on the kitchen cabinet with the white plates, and across the black-and-white tiled floor, and crept into my parents’ bedroom, climbing up onto the bed. I saw their feet, intertwined. I opened the fridge and took out the jug of cold water. I took a swig from it, then filled a glass for my sister who drank it in one draught. ‘Thank you.’
    â€˜Now go to sleep.’
    â€˜Why did you do the forfeit instead of Barbara?’
    â€˜I don’t know …’
    â€˜Didn’t you want her to pull down her knickers?’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜What if I’d had to do it?’
    â€˜Do what?’
    â€˜Pull down my knickers. Would you have done it for me too?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Good night, then. I’m going to take off my glasses.’ She shut them in their case and snuggled up to her pillow.
    â€˜Good night.’
    I lay for a long time staring at the ceiling before I got back to sleep.
    Papa wasn’t going away again.
    He had come home to stay. He had told mama he didn’t want to see the autostrada again for a while and he was going to look after us.
    Maybe, sooner or later, he would take us to the seaside for a swim.

Two
    W hen I woke up mama and papa were still asleep. I gulped down some milk and some bread and marmalade, went out and got my bike.
    â€˜Where are you going?’
    My sister was on the front steps, in her knickers, watching me.
    â€˜For a ride.’
    â€˜Where?’
    â€˜I don’t know.’
    â€˜I want to come with you.’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜I know where you’re going … You’re going on the mountain.’
    â€˜No I’m not. If mama and papa ask you anything, tell them I’ve gone for a ride and I won’t be long.’
    Another scorching day.
    At eight o’clock in the morning the sun was still low but was already beginning to roast the plain. I was going along the road we had come down the previous afternoon and wasn’t thinking about anything, I was pedalling along amid the dust and insects trying to get there quickly. I took the road through the fields, the one that skirted the hill and led to the valley. Every now and then magpies rose from the wheat with their black and white tails. They chased each other, quarrelled, insulted each otherwith their raucous croaks. A hawk circled with still wings, drifting on the warm currents. I even saw a red hare, with long ears, dart across in front of me. I was finding it hard going, pushing on the pedals. The tyres slipped on the stones and the clods of dry earth. The closer I got to the house, the bigger the yellow hill grew in front of me, and the heavier the weight that crushed my chest, taking my breath away.
    What if I arrived and found witches or an ogre there?
    I knew witches met at night in abandoned houses and had parties and if you joined in you went mad and that ogres ate children.
    I must be careful. If an ogre caught me, he would throw me in a hole too and eat me bit by bit. First an arm, then a leg and so on. And nobody would ever hear of me again. My parents would weep in despair. And everyone would say: ‘Michele was such a nice boy, we’re so sorry.’ My aunts and uncles would come, and my cousin Evelina, in her blue Giulietta. Skull wouldn’t cry, not him, nor would Barbara. My sister and Salvatore would, though.
    I didn’t want to die. Though I’d have liked to go to my funeral.
    I didn’t have to go up there. Was I out of my mind?
    I turned my bike round and started for home. After a hundred metres I braked.
    What would Tiger Jack do in my place?
    He wouldn’t turn back even if Manitou in person ordered him to.
    Tiger Jack.
    Now there was a serious person. Tiger Jack, Tex Willer’s Indian buddy.
    And Tiger Jack would go up that hill even if an international conference of all the witches, bandits and ogres on the planet was taking place