Across the Bridge of Sighs by Jane Turner Rylands

Author:Jane Turner Rylands
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-01-21T16:00:00+00:00

YOUTH

I n all his seventeen years Gilmo Polo had never come up against anything more excruciating than the sight of his red cell phone sinking through the green water while his mother was still talking. Watching from the bridge, he could almost hear her laying down the law all the way to the bottom of the canal where at last his beloved telefonino, already invisible, sent up a goodbye puff as it interred itself, forever, in the slime.

“Madonna!” Gilmo raised his eyes from the water and heaved his book bag to his shoulder. He stepped down the bridge and headed for Campo San Stefano. This was going to be as bad as the time he flunked Latin; it could even be worse than the time he stayed out all night. He winced at the memory of tiptoeing in his stockings to his bedroom, shoes in hand, trying not to make a sound and glancing down the corridor, only to see his mother and father sitting in the salone in their dressing gowns waiting for him at six o’clock in the morning. But some good came out of it; they gave him a cell phone. Out of this crime, however, he couldn’t imagine any boon arising. For one thing, he had loved his red telephone and it probably couldn’t be replaced.

Gilmo was homing almost by instinct towards Bar Paolin for refuge until he could work out a plausible explanation for losing his beautiful birthday present. He looked at his watch and noted in passing that he still had his Christmas present; his mother would already be making his lunch. So he would be late as well as the bearer of bad news. “Why didn’t you ring to tell me you were going to be late?” That would be the first thing she said when he walked in the door. It was a matter of some pride to Gilmo that he had one of the busiest cell phones in his crowd, even discounting that half his calls came from his mother. She was famous among his friends for her uncanny knack for ringing his phone, bang on cue, like a guilty conscience.

Ah ha ha HA ha … Ah ha ha HA ha . … Woody Woodpecker’s tune sang out from Gilmo’s cell phone the instant he turned it on walking out the school door onto the fondamenta.

“La Mammma! La Mammmma! La Mammma!” Alvise, Marco, and Matteo took up the chorus in trio. “It’s la Mamma calling il Bambino!” Even Giulia and Loretta joined in. Only Elena went her way without looking at him. Why did she always ignore him like that? He ran onto the bridge before he answered, leaving them to go on their way, laughing and talking, without him.

“Ciao Mamma.”

“How did you do on your exam? Did you get it back?” She was good about helping him to study. His problem was that he couldn’t stop daydreaming when he studied alone, and she made him focus. Her problem was that she was too focused.

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