My special-needs teacher is called Fernando. He’s young and very boring.
He spends all his time with his nose in books written in Chinese, which you read back to front, and messaging on his phone. What he should be doing is checking that I write things correctly in my notebook, that I don’t get lost going around school, and that I do the braille exercises. Luckily, he doesn’t seem too bothered about these things, and most of the time he leaves me alone. He only switches on, like a robot, when another teacher goes by and he pretends to be helping me write.
He’ll be on the school ski trip, but he’ll be too busy looking after Oscar, who’s in a wheelchair, to be worrying about me. It sometimes feels like no one knows about my Stargardt mist, although I know they know. Maybe they forget because you can’t see it—my mist, that is. My eyes look normal from the outside. It’s a bit like being crazy. A crazy person looks normal on the outside, but then they start screaming and everyone remembers. The gym teacher once said, “Poor girl, she can’t see,” talking about me, and I wanted to scream so she’d think I was crazy and leave me alone.
Mom and Dad knock on the window of the bus where I’m sitting (front row, beside Fernando) and wave goodbye, as if I were going away on a long journey. I mouth bye and quickly look the other way. The other parents aren’t standing as close to the bus, and everyone onboard is already busy with their tablets, their earbuds, or playing with their phones and don’t bother waving. Filippo, wearing the jacket Dad gave him, is the only one who can’t sit still. He’s in the back and keeps playing jokes on his friends. I hear them screaming, “Stop putting my hood up! I want to sleep!”
Sleeping is impossible because as soon as we set off, the teacher pulls out the bus microphone and starts explaining the schedule for the next two days. Tonight, the girls will sleep in one chalet and the boys in another. Tomorrow, we’ll be visiting an organic farm and then going to the slopes in the afternoon. Those who know how to ski can go with Fernando and the gym teacher who said poor me, and the others can go sledding. I learned how to ski when I was seven. My cousin Andrea taught me, but Mom and Dad were too scared to let me go down a run because I wouldn’t be able to see the bumps and would fall. Which means I’ll go sledding, although I haven’t been since I got my new glasses.
We’ve been traveling for an hour and a half, and it’s now chaos on the bus. Filippo and his friends are singing dirty songs and ignoring the teachers trying to make them stop. It kind of makes me want to laugh. I’ve never heard songs like that before. We’re on the hairpin bends now, and I hear Roly behind me starting to feel sick. He’s always sick on school trips because of his motion sickness. Plus, in the time we’ve been on the bus, I’ve heard him rip open at least three granola bars and pop two cans of Fanta, so that can’t be helping.
Since Roly’s sitting right behind us, I tell Fernando, and he twists round to have a look. Right away he yells at the driver to stop.
I feel a paper ball hit my head and I jerk round. Filippo is making his way down the aisle, scoffing at poor Roly.
I glare at him. “Don’t you know it’s wrong to mock someone who’s not well?”
“But he was eating like a pig!”
“And? He’s not well now; you shouldn’t laugh. Would you like people to do the same to you?”
Filippo sits down in Fernando’s seat while he’s out in the street with Roly. Then he kneels against the backrest and tells everyone to be quiet. “That’s enough now. The next person I hear laughing will get thumped when we get off.” No one speaks, except for one of the teachers who tells him to go back to his seat.
Filippo leans over me and says quickly, under his breath, “When they let you choose your bed tonight, pick one by the window.”
“Why?”
“Just do it. Can you stay awake until midnight?”
“Of course I can.”
“Well, look out at midnight. I’ll say good night from our chalet.”
“How will you do that?”
“You’ll see me.”
“But I—”
“Don’t worry, you’ll see me. But don’t tell anyone.”
He scoots off to the back of the bus just as Fernando comes back to sit beside me.
We’ve been at the chalet for two hours. We had soup and hot sandwiches for dinner, and now we’ve got to put our stuff away before going to bed.
It’s good that I have to stay awake until midnight as it gives me time to study everyone else’s bags and see if there’s anything useful for when I move into the cherry tree. Maybe I’ll be able to get something tonight. I took the bed by the window—it’s drafty, but it doesn’t matter. I can see outside from here, and I can keep an eye on all the other girls’ beds and sleeping bags.
Chiara is blowing up her air mattress. She’s going to sleep on it with Martina. The teachers said it was okay. The girls in my class are crowded around her, and I know they’d all like to sleep on it too, or at least try it. If we’d still been good friends, Chiara would’ve picked me. But it’s not essential, like Estella says. If I’ve understood it properly, a thing is essential only if you need it to live, and I can live without Chiara’s mattress. Of course, it would be nice to have it in the cherry tree.
I won’t be able to take it tonight, though. They’ll be sleeping on it, obviously. I’ll have to wait until tomorrow when we pack everything up to leave and go down for breakfast. Maybe I’ll pretend to be sick and go back to the dormitory. If Fernando lets me go on my own, I’d be free to take the mattress. I’ve left a compartment in my duffel bag empty, the one with the zipper that’s tucked under all my clothes, so I’d have somewhere to put it. Once I blow it up and lay it across the branches, it will be really comfortable.
We’ve got to put on our pajamas. The teachers stay with us until we’re all in bed, then they turn out the lights and warn us that they’ll be back in an hour because they have some paperwork to finish for our visit tomorrow. The girls in my class and the ones from sixth grade wait for the sound of the teachers’ steps to disappear. Even though I can still hear the teachers going down the stairs, the girls jump out of bed and start chatting. One of the oldest gets up and goes to turn on a light.
I pull myself up too. Chiara and Martina are lying on their stomachs, listening to songs on Martina’s iPod, sharing the earphones. I know this because they’re moving their heads in rhythm and singing quietly, out of tune. The hand of Francesca, my friend from Sicily, reaches out to me from a bunk bed, holding an open packet of gummy bears. I take a couple and stick them in my mouth. “Fanks.”
I wouldn’t mind listening to some music too. I’m still rummaging around in my duffel under the bed when the girl who switched on the light walks over to me and sits down on my duvet. “Hi, you’re Mafalda, aren’t you?”
I scrunch up at the pillow end of the bed and hug my knees. “Yes, why?”
“No reason.”
She’s tall, has messy brown hair with reddish glints, and is wearing pajamas that are not really pajamas, just a top with writing on it and a pair of blue leggings. Two of her friends follow her over and sit down, one beside her and one on the floor. They smile at me. “So, is this the famous Mafalda?”
“Yes.” The first one smiles.
I don’t understand. “Why famous?”
The girls glance at one another, still smiling. “We shouldn’t really tell you. . . .”
“But we can’t resist!”
“Who’s going to tell her?”
“I will!”
“No, I will!”
“If you ask me, Emilia should tell her,” the one on the floor finally says.
I ask who Emilia is.
The first girl points at herself. “I’m Emilia, Filippo’s ex. Pleased to meet you.”
I suddenly feel flustered and my face goes red. My glasses steam up too, so it takes me a while to read the writing on her top—it’s her name, Emilia. It looks similar to the writing on Filippo’s blue jacket.
The girls laugh. Luckily, the ones from my class are doing their own thing. “I’m Mafalda” is all I manage to say. But they knew that already.
Too late. “We know that!” cackles the other girl sitting on the bed. I think she lives near my house. Her name’s Julie, I remember.
“Yes, we know, we know,” Emilia says. “Filippo’s school diary has your name all over it. Mafalda here, Mafalda there . . . There’s even a heart beside your birthday.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is. Your birthday’s on the first of February, isn’t it?”
Oh dear. A heart?
“Don’t worry, I’m not jealous.” Emilia pats me on the back. “We broke up, or I should say, I broke up with him. In October. His dad started his disappearing act again, and Filippo didn’t take it too well. He went really crazy, so I ditched him.”
“Oh.” I don’t know what to say.
“So, do you like him?”
The three girls huddle around me. I’d like the ground to open up and swallow me, I’m so embarrassed. “Who, Filippo? No, we’re just friends!”
The other two start jumping around and clapping their hands. “I think she likes him!”
Emilia takes my hand. “Mafalda, haven’t you seen how he behaves? He’s a hooligan; he’s always shouting. He might even fail the year.”
I look down at my socks. “I’ve heard rumors that he’s a bit crazy. . . .”
“A bit crazy? He’s been wild since his parents divorced! If you two get together, you’d better be careful!”
So, it’s true, his parents are divorced. My third eye was right this time too.
“But I don’t want to get together. I don’t even know what getting together would mean.”
“That you kiss,” Julie says.
“And you’ll get married and have children when you grow up,” the other girl says.
Francesca, who’s been listening from her bunk bed, pops her head out and says, “We can’t have babies at our age.”
“Yes we can!” Emilia says a little too loudly.
Curious now, a few of the other girls look up from their phones and tablets to hear what’s being said. Emilia continues, “If a boy gets very, very close to you, a sore tummy comes, even at our age, then you throw up, and the baby grows in your sore tummy and comes out nine months later.”
“From where?” Chiara asks.
“From your belly button. The doctors make a hole in it and pull the baby out. What else do you think it’s for?”
Everyone squeals, disgusted.
A teacher comes in. She heard us shouting downstairs and has come to tell us to go straight to sleep. Enough talking for one night.
We get back into our beds. To make sure we stay there, the teacher decides to go to bed as well and heads into the bathroom with her things to get changed. The lights go off. Before I remove my glasses, I push the curtain aside to look outside. The sky is beautiful here, all black and blue and speckled with white dots. I haven’t seen the stars for such a long time. Maybe I can see them here because we’re higher up. If I can, that means I’ll also be able to see them from the cherry tree. I hope so.
Otherwise, this could be the last time I see the stars.
I check my watch. It was Grandma’s, but my parents gave it to me when she went to live in the tree. I bring it up close and press the light button to see what time it is—it’s a quarter to midnight. The other teachers also came back and are asleep in our dormitory. One is lying on a blow-up bed near the door, snoring through her nose. It’s funny. The girls in my class and the older girls are as still as can be in their beds. Everything is steeped in dark blue, and even though I’m in a room with loads of other people, I feel like the only girl in the world.
I push the curtain aside. It was snowing when we arrived. It’s not now. The fields around the chalets and the surrounding hills are light blue (that’s what snow looks like at night), and the moon is like a great big streetlight, illuminating everything, although there’s not much to illuminate here. Only the other small lodge where the boys are sleeping. And a light in the window. A light that comes and goes. Like a signal. Like the good-night signals I used to send to Grandma before I went to bed.
I spring to attention and whack my glasses up my nose. The light goes on and off for a bit, and then I don’t see it anymore. I have to reply. When someone says good night, you have to say it back; it would be bad manners not to. But I need something to reply with, a flashlight, something that lights up. Oh, but I do have something—Grandma’s watch! I take it off my wrist, put it up to the window, and press the button repeatedly. I hope he can see it from the boys’ dormitory. The light from before comes back on again, flashing like mad. He saw it!
We keep signaling each other until the snoring teacher scares me when she groans in her sleep and rolls over on the mattress. I do one last signal, a long, long one, which means we have to sleep now, then wait for a reply. It comes right away, just as long. I lie back down on the bed with lots of stars in my eyes. All things considered, I feel happy. I’m not sure I know why, but I no longer feel alone in the world.
* * *
Filippo waved at me from his table this morning at breakfast, then went straight back to splashing milk at his friends.
“I told you he likes you,” Emilia said as she passed behind me.
“We only said hello, and he hardly looked at me.”
“That’s what boys do. It’s a sign. You need to get used to the signs.”
The visit to the organic farm was so boring that not even Filippo could come up with a joke to distract us, or a reason to interrupt. The only nice thing was that they let us taste fresh butter and we ate so many rolls and jam, we were fit to burst. Just as well, they’re taking us to the slopes next! A big group goes away with Fernando the teacher, including Emilia in her red ski suit, and Chiara, who shows everyone her ski goggles, even me, before she gets on the lift.
I go up to the top of the sledding hill, sit on the ground, and write in the snow. I can’t whiz down with the others because I’m scared I’d bang into a tree. We’ve been given sleds that look like little cars and no one wants to share theirs with me, although I’m not sure I’d want to anyway. To go on a sled and not see anything would be weird.
A teacher comes over and asks me to go down with her. I reply that I’d rather stay where I am. She goes back to chat with the other teachers while my classmates go up and down the hill, screaming their heads off. I’m wondering when would be the right time to pretend I don’t feel well and go back to the lodge to get the things I need. A snowball hits my back, and I look round to see who threw it. Some person, screaming louder than everyone else, is running toward me, dragging a bright red sled behind him. I shouldn’t be surprised when I realize it’s Filippo. His thin glasses are spattered with snowflakes, and his smile is so big, it’s almost too big for his face.
He throws himself down beside me and, right away, wants to know why I’m not joining in.
“I don’t feel like it.”
“That’s not true. It’s because you can’t see, and you’re scared.”
What he says is true, but I stick a handful of snow down his back anyway. He screams and laughs and rolls around. I can’t help but laugh too. He stops suddenly and tweaks the pink-and-gray pom-pom on my hat. Three of our classmates arrive at the top of the hill and arrange themselves along a pretend starting line to have a race. The teacher shouts “Go!” from the side of the hill and off they slide, crunching over the icy snow.
“Do you want to come down with me? You can sit behind me.”
I’m not sure. Better not risk it. “No. I’ve seen you; you go too fast.”
Filippo stands up and positions the sledge at the top of the hill. He turns to me with his hands on his hips. I think that’s what he was doing the first time I saw him. “I had to promise to do something difficult.”
The piano. Modern songs.
“Yes, you’re right. And?”
“It’s your turn now. You have to do something difficult.”
I wanted to pretend I wasn’t feeling well, but now I really do have an upset stomach. I try to put him off. “Who said?”
“Me!” Filippo grabs my hat by the pom-pom and whips it off my head, then climbs onto the front of the sled. Resigned, I go over to him. Another two people from our class have arrived with their sleds. “Want to race?” Filippo asks them. They accept right away and get into position on our left. “Get on! Jeez, what are you waiting for?”
I get in behind Filippo and only just manage to get my hat back before it flies away as we take off down the hill at breakneck speed. I grip on to his back and scream in his ear that he’s going too fast.
He turns his head slightly in my direction. “You want me to go slow in a race?”
“I know, but I can’t see anything!”
“Neither can I!” He turns all the way round to show me his goggles covered in snow. Panic-stricken, I yelp.
“We’re going to crash!”
“Maybe!” He guffaws, laughing like someone whose parents are not divorced and who is simply having a ball in the snow. “Shut your eyes! It’s awesome! I’ll brake if we go offtrack!”
The hill’s not that long. On either side of us there are only sprinklings of snow and the green and brown of the woods along the edge of the ski run. We’re winning the race. I can’t hear the other sleds, so I do what Filippo says—I shut my eyes. I feel the cold wind of the descent on my face, my hair flying in the wind and my heart pounding. Or is it Filippo’s? I can feel it in his back. What does it matter? Hurtling down like this, the screams of the others so far away in the distance, only the noise of the sled under me, is truly wonderful. And weird. Like walking with a scarf over your eyes, only more dizzying. I’m absolutely petrified. Yet I want this descent to last an hour, a day, forever.
The screams of the others cheering at the finish line are growing louder, and the hill stops being a hill. Applause rings loud in our ears as we blast into a mound of fresh snow. Snowflakes swirl gently around us, and we laugh and laugh; we laugh so hard we can hardly breathe, then we get up and dance around in a circle, shrieking, “We won!”
When our opponents finish, I feel a strange fluttering in my tummy, and I think I’m going to be sick. “What’s wrong? Don’t you feel well?” Filippo asks. I don’t answer. I go over to a bush and do what Roly did yesterday.
Fernando takes me to the lodge we slept in.
The lady from the hotel makes me a cup of tea. It will calm my stomach, she says, and then we go upstairs. Fernando lets me go in by myself to go to the bathroom. “I’ll wait for you in the lobby,” he tells me, pulling one of his Chinese language books out of his jacket. This is it. I go into the dormitory. All the beds have been made, and the backpacks of their occupants stand beside them. I see a fuzzy red-and-blue ball in the corner—it’s Chiara’s mattress. Hands trembling slightly, I pick it up and stuff it into my duffel bag, hiding it as best I can. There’s nothing else I need from here. For a second, I think a tablet might be useful for my life in the tree, but then I remember I’ll be in the dark. What’s more, it’s too expensive to steal. I couldn’t do that.
I go downstairs, duffel over my shoulder. We’re leaving soon, so it makes sense. Fernando is sitting in a red armchair, absorbed in his book. I have to find a way of getting into the boys’ lodge now. The lady who made me tea earlier speaks to me as I walk past the desk. “How are you feeling?”
“So-so,” I reply, which is not a lie.
“I’ve got a present for you, since you’ve not been feeling well.”
She leans over the counter and places an odd-looking gray flower in my hand.
“What is it?”
“Edelweiss.”
I touch the flower gently—it looks like it might turn to dust any minute.
“It’s all hairy!”
“Yes. Have you never seen one before?”
“No, but it’s beautiful. Thank you.”
Fernando comes over to see the Edelweiss as well. “Interesting,” he pronounces.
“Fernando, would you help me with something?”
He takes me to the door of the lodge. “Hmmm, what is it?”
I pull him by the jacket and point to the boys’ chalet. “I’d really like to surprise a boy in the other class.”
“A boy?”
“Yes. A boy I like.”
“Ah.”
“Could you take me into their dorm so I can put the edelweiss on his pillow?”
Fernando gives a little snort. “All right, but be quick about it.”
The boys’ dorm smells disgusting.
Fernando stands on guard outside in the corridor, so I have to be quick. I wander around until I find Roly’s pink lunch box and slip it straight into my bag. There’s no sign of Christian’s waterproof jacket anywhere. Maybe he took it out with him this morning.
Fernando sticks his head round the door. “Finished?”
He scared me. Just as well, I’d already hidden the lunchbox. I go over to a bed that’s right under the window, with a view straight across to the girls’ lodge. There’s a torch on it. I place the edelweiss on the pillow and leave.
“Sorry, Fernando. I couldn’t find the right bed.”
“It’s okay. You don’t want to get the wrong person with stuff like this. Let’s go and wait on the bus.”
* * *
Mom’s emptying my duffel from the trip. I can see a faint flicker of light coming from the bathroom.
I’m in bed, but I’m not worried because I’ve already taken the pink lunch box and the mattress out of my bag and hidden them under my clothes in the wardrobe. I can keep the light on for another ten minutes, Mom and Dad said. But I don’t have much to do. I lift my personal organizer and black pen from the shelf and cross out Counting the stars in the sky at night.
I know, Cosimo. I took my classmates’ things without telling them. I shouldn’t have done that. But you helped the brigands too, remember? You knew they weren’t bad; they just had to behave a bit badly to get enough food to eat. Please don’t tell Grandma.
I promise that when I’m grown-up in the cherry tree and have learned to build things the way you did, I’ll give everything back. It’ll take time, but one day I will.