The year of the Inzippillis, Page 2

hand as they make the adults, and we felt like laughing.

  «I would say that we could do fifty-fifty» definite «I would not have acknowledged that mushrooms. I know that they easily ruin him.»

  We were satisfied both. It was so that I brought Robi in the house and I made him know my parents.

  We spoke for a long time. I knew that he/she lived downstream some; also he was transferred before there from the city a few years.

  Inclusive that also he lived my same uneasiness. You/he/she had not accepted the separation from the friends but, above all you/he/she was not taken back by the death of his/her/their father yet. For this you/they moved to the country; his/her mother, in name of those strange convictions that only his/her parents know how to have, it seemed some that would have done well to both. Robi stammered while he/she was answering to the questions of my mother that, realized him to have touched an aching key, it quickly changed matter. At the end Robi went with the almost full knapsack, cleverly whistling while it was pedaling with energy.

  The weekend following I didn't have many assignments; as always I expected me for the invitation of my father to go to pick up some berry, to seek the dens of fox or to pursue in unlikely way some rabbit.

  I looked at the weekend with a certain fear; I have never loved particularly to go to school, even if I was well me and I got by. To stay home in the weekends was almost pleasant, but attends him that my father struck a pochino you/he/she disturbed me. The following weekend worried indeed then me; you/he/she would have been my birthday. Would my companions have come to my house, here, lost in the wood?

  It was morning, I still had to lift to have me breakfast.

  I felt to knock to the door of my room, it was the way of knocking of dad. In fact he hiddenly entered later immediately with a satisfied air. You/he/she would probably have proposed me to go to take an egg in some nest of eagle.

  «Sandro» it started «I know him/it that your birthday is next Saturdays, but here the mushrooms are reappeared out, practically in the same point.»

  I didn't see the connection between my birthday and the mushrooms, but I didn't say a word. Be', in effects I pronounced a low ah, without particular meaning.

  «I thought that you would have been able to bring some of it to Robi, seen what time you know where it is.»

  Dad was true you/he/she had pointed out me the house; you/he/she was not really near to ours, and I didn't want scarpinare. Dad you have to read me in face because it hastened to add:

  «I would prefer that I had first breakfast, but if you are soon his/her mother it won't realize. It looks of under, with that you should hurry you.»

  And it made a vague sign toward the closed window. I didn't understand; dad non said explanations and it went out of the room with to do busy. I lazily got up me, rather incuriosito, and I opened the window. It was a beautiful day, the sun filtered among the trees, it illuminated the point of the leaves still burnished shiny dewy, that weakly flashed to the push of the early-morning breeze. My eyes slipped in low, leaning himself/herself/itself on the portentous curves of a mountain bike similar to that of Robi. It was red and blue. I repeated the ah of before, but this time with a cry that bounced among the walls of room. I threw down me as a madman; I caressed the lines of the bike without speaking.

  Dad drew near me with indifferent air and a plastic knapsack handed me.

  «The mushrooms» he/she remembered me.

  I looked at him/it with the look that was waited. There was no need that I/you thanked him/it, my reactions were eloquent.

  Him he flattered not to smile. I tore the envelope from his hands and I went to gather the mushrooms.

  It was a lot of whole express. With the full envelope I jumped on the bike - the saddle was tall correct - and I made some beta whim; a pair of curves, one skidded, in short, cosucce to take confidence. Then I squirted out of the gate and I went home of Robi. I think that my parents were waited for a long break of calm. Instead after alone mezz'ora two brawlers of first strength appeared on the square of house, making pirouettes on a wheel and shunning the parked cars. His/her mother went out out of the kitchen.

  «Hunger, boys?»

  In effects the stomach grumbled. Also Robi, that I had practically taut down from the bed, had not had the time to have breakfast, and his/her mother had not insisted when we had told her that we wanted to go my home.

  With vague sign of good person we went down both from the bicycle and we entered house. Two tazzones of milk fumantes waited us, together with biscuits, corn's bows to the chocolate and jam. From some his/her mother had started to make the bread in the house, that good, rustic, full of seeds. Robi and I threw headfirst.

  «Some program for the day?» it was his/her mother.

  «Mm. turn. mmmh. bike. mmmh. wood» it chewed Robi, that had already decided for both.

  I didn't agree entirely; the country was not so interesting, I would have liked to go down in the city. After breakfast Robi and I would be clarified there.

  «Well» it said dad «today I have to go to the job, even if it is Saturday. So I cannot watch you. If you go to the wood reentered before dark. You know. the Inzipillis.»

  My mother turned him to look at him/it with a certain amazement. Her as I, had not understood well perhaps also. My father got up and taken the jacket. It was about to leave.

  «How you say?» I said me.

  «The Inzipillis» it confirmed him «this is period.»

  My mother had not changed expression. My father hastened.

  «Not to look me so» it told her «it is not anything of what. But is it correct that knows him/it, you don't find?»

  «To know what?» I asked me.

  «Ufff» it seemed that dad didn't feel like giving explanations «there are the Inzipillis in this wood. I am from some aware of it; certain signs on the ground and on the trees. It is a good thing, he/she wants to say that we live in an uncontaminated zone.»

  «I have never felt to speak of it» it said Robi, also him temporarily dissuaded by the food.

  «It is natural» it said dad «they are rare indeed. And I bet that nobody goes at night here to the wood.»

  «And thing they would be?» was it his/her mother, serious «birds?»

  «Be'» dad started «an official documentation doesn't exist, I am very little known. I am more feared how known.»

  «I am. ugh. aggressive?» I did me starting over eating.

  «Only after the sunset» it said dad, starting himself/herself/itself to the door «in the daytime they are for the more one under the barks of the trees and they observe the movements of the wood. They crawl among the trunk and the bark that it dresses again him/it. They are not worms, however. They are great as a human being, I believe, and they have an incredibly flexible body. If you sometimes watch out you can see their eyes that observe you among the folds of bark. He/she is not known what eats. I have felt that in Bulgaria there have been aggressions to people, with wounded and a beautiful po' of fear.»

  Incredibly, after having I dictate us this dad he/she greeted us with the hand and it hastily went out; I felt him/it start the car and to go to the job. I looked at his/her mother; it had a strange expression on the face. I tried to understand if she knew something, but he/she didn't want to enter in particular. It tried to be reassuring, confirming that there were not in the daytime dangers, but how much to other it was evasive in worrisome way.

  «I don't drink at all her» I murmured at the end.

  Mother made spallucce.

  «You also go to have a good time you» it said his/her mother «but if you go to the wood, you follow the suggestion of dad.»

  Robi and I looked at there.

  «We have other programs» I said me.

  I forgot me to wash myself the teeth. We went out rapid toward the bikes, we forked her and after having made a propitiatory turn we inserted there in the wood. We could not believe in the Inzipillis, yet dad was a person that at least the adult
s they judged very serious. We raced fast above for a mulattiera that wound among the pines. The odor of the wood was unbelievable.

  «Because we would have come to live here, if it were dangerous?» I gasped, pedals her/it. I was stuttering above all to myself.

  «It is as who goes to live in shore to the ocean. I am go suffered there, even if there are the sharks» it observed Robi without fiatone.

  It was also a logic this. We passed an exciting forenoon; the only idea that we were observed by some mysterious be excited us, even if we didn't perhaps believe there really. Then the Inzipillis passed in second floor. The long run in the paths beaten by the animals, the hunters' capannis, the roadsteads islands without trees but sharp pains of fresh grass, the sudden shady parts, the sudden cicaleccio of a stream; it was everything new and stimulating. We stopped there to drink that clear water to full hands, sweaty. The brook was thickened with the rains of the preceding days; at times water flowed rapids and fluid, at times it became knotted in translucent braids slapping the stones. We remained to look for a long time at her. Robi he removed shoes and stockings and it walked in the water snickering, to his/her ease, as if the stream were an old friend. I was tried, also but the waxen ankles of Robi induced me to abdicate.

  At the end we returned each to proper house, some spompati. It was almost the time of lunch.

  «Uhm» it was my father when he/she saw me. But it didn't add other. Lupeggiai on the dishes filled by his/her/their mother.