The Distance between Me and the Cherry Tree

by Paola Peretti

  “Are they there all the time?”

  “They weren’t at the beginning. Now they’re quite big, and I see them all the time. They blot things out and get darker when I’m tired.”

  “I get it. And can’t you get rid of them?”

  “No.”

  “What about the mist?”

  “It comes with the spots, and it makes everything look hazy, not just where the spots are.”

  “That’s not good. Are you scared?”

  When I don’t reply, Filippo pulls himself up from the floor and asks me if I’ve ever studied music before.

  “No, why?

  “You sing well.”

  “Don’t be silly.”

  “No, really. You never miss a note. Come here.”

  He fishes something out of the wardrobe. A guitar. He takes off the cover and sits on the bed with it, plucking the strings.

  “Do you play guitar?”

  He doesn’t reply. But plays a note. “This is ‘Do.’ Copy me.”

  “This is ‘Do.’ ”

  “No!” Filippo laughs. “Copy the note. With your voice. Sing ‘Do.’ Like this.” He plucks the strings and sings. “Dooo . . .”

  I do it too, even though I’m embarrassed.

  “See? You’re good. Now this is ‘Re.’ Reeee . . .”

  I copy him.

  “It comes so naturally to you. You’re lucky.”

  I find it impossible not to smile. It’s not often I feel lucky about something I don’t need eyes for. Or glasses.

  Dad pops his head round the door to call us for dinner; the pizza’s here. Filippo races into the hall and I follow, trying to overtake him. We push and shove, both wanting to get into the kitchen first.

  When we sit down, Mom pushes my pigtails behind my shoulders. “Where are your glasses, Mafalda?”

  I’m about to admit I dropped them and didn’t bother looking for them. In fact, I completely forgot about them, but Filippo replies for me. “We were singing. She didn’t need them.”

  Dad puts a slice of pizza on my plate. “We’ll look for them later, okay? Don’t leave them behind.”

  No one seems angry. To make a good impression on Filippo’s mom, I lay my napkin on my knee and start cutting my pizza with a knife and fork.

  “Do you want a black olive?” Filippo asks. “I don’t like them, but one’s ended up on my plate by mistake.”

  I don’t have to worry about finding it without my glasses. Filippo pops it straight into my mouth. He probably doesn’t have the best manners, but he certainly solves a lot of problems. I think back to the bit in The Baron in the Trees where Cosimo is in the tree with the Spanish girl and everything seems wonderful and easy, not like with the other girl, Viola, who used to drive him mad. Maybe that’s the difference between friendship and love. Being friends is easy; being in love gets your head all in a muddle, a bit like the Stargardt mist in my eyes.

  After the pizza, our moms put on their jackets and go down to Emanuela’s bakery to buy some pastries. Dad stays to look after us but actually just sits on the sofa, which is in the kitchen, and watches something funny on television.

  Filippo wants to go onto the balcony to show me the dried-up geraniums his mom talks to, but Dad stops us. “Jackets,” he says.

  I pick up my down jacket and Filippo pulls on his usual blue one with his name on the back. Dad stops him again. “Have you not got a warmer one, son? It’s freezing outside.”

  Filippo says nothing. It’s my turn to reply for him. “Dad, do you know it was Filippo’s birthday not so long ago?”

  “Really? Happy belated birthday, Filippo.”

  “Right. And I didn’t give him a present because he didn’t have a party.”

  Filippo kicks my leg in a what-are-you-doing kind of way.

  “Do you remember that spare jacket you keep in the trunk of the car for when you have to make deliveries up in the mountains? The one you don’t like anymore.”

  Come on, Dad, work it out. You must know where I’m going with this.

  “The green and purple one?”

  “Yes, that one. Maybe it would fit Filippo.”

  Dad thinks for a few seconds, then exclaims, “Of course it would make an excellent birthday present! You know, it’s not that I don’t like it, Filippo; it’s just that I hardly ever use it and I’ve been wanting to give it to someone for a while.” Dad picks up the car keys and goes to the door of the apartment. “I was thinking of giving it to my nephew, but you beat him to it. I’ll go and get it.” The door closes behind him.

  I wonder if Filippo will be annoyed with me. He squeezes my wrist tight and pulls me into a room that I think is the bathroom. It’s very white and smells of lemon. I hear him rummage around before he places a glass bottle in my hand.

  “What is it?”

  “Smell it.”

  I bring the bottle up to my nose. It has the scent of those little blue flowers Grandma used to call “Mary’s eyes.” The garden outside our building is always full of them. My eyes start to nip. I have to blink a few times. I’m sure it must be the perfume.

  “Nice. Did your mom make it?”

  “Yes. You can have it. In exchange for the jacket.”

  I stand and inhale the lovely smell. My eyes are used to it now. “Won’t your mom be angry?”

  “Who cares. She makes loads every month. She’ll never notice.”

  “Okay. Thanks. Listen . . .” I have to ask him. “You want to be my friend, don’t you?”

  “What if I do?” he says, shutting the perfume drawer.

  “Why do you want us to be friends?”

  Filippo leaps forward and sprays me with the perfume I’m holding. Then he runs into his bedroom, shouting, “Because we can form a band when we’re big! I’ll play the instruments and you can sing!” I follow him, laughing, and think it sounds like a great idea.

  * * *

  I’m in bed with Ottimo Turcaret at my feet. He won’t let me pet him tonight because he can smell my new perfume, which wouldn’t wash off, not even in the shower. I borrowed Dad’s phone to look up how to become a singer. There are apparently at least fifteen stages to go through, but I couldn’t work out where you do them.

  It also says on the phone that you need something special, something no one else has. I don’t know if I like Filippo’s idea of a band so much now. The only special things I have are a brown-and-gray cat (I don’t think there are many others like him) and mist in my eyes. I’m the opposite kind of special. I blink and throw my personal organizer on the floor. I kneel down to flick through it, almost ripping the pages, then hastily scribble something, pressing far too hard on the pen.

  Eat black olives because I can’t see what color they really are.

  Sing in a band.

  I climb into bed and pull the covers up over my head. Darkness is not a room with no doors or windows. Darkness is a monster that eats your black olives and your dreams.

  Cosimo, it’s snowing, and I’ve just realized I could freeze to death in winter in the school cherry tree.

  But then I remembered that you survived, and when it was time to die, you grabbed on to a passing hot-air balloon and let yourself fall into the sea, so you would never ever touch land. I can’t really hunt furry animals to make myself blankets, like you did, so I’ll have to work out what to do if I feel like I’m freezing to death. Will you help me think of something?

  PS: Say thanks to Grandma for the blanket. I’ll take it to the tree.

  14

  Making Good-Night Light Signals Out the Window, Counting the Stars in the Sky at Night

  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 thes
e 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.