The Girl Who Rode the Wind by Stacy Gregg

Author:Stacy Gregg [Stacy Gregg]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2015-06-19T04:00:00+00:00

Scavezzecolla. That is what Marco and Carlo both called me after that day when I jumped the roadblock. What they did not realise was that afterwards I would lie awake at night, petrified that the Blackshirts had recognised me and they were going to turn up suddenly and rip me out of bed and take me away and torture me with castor oil for making them look so stupid.

There was a change in Mama’s tone now when she spoke about the Blackshirts. She had once admired them as good men. Now, after what happened to Signor Garo, I knew she thought differently. Our town had always been full of rivalries and distrust between the contradas. Now an uglier division had silently begun to consume us. The rich and the privileged, living in luxury despite the war, continued to support II Duce and his fascists. The rest of us, poor and starving for the most part, secretly began to suspect that something was very wrong. At school, as we gave our salutes and stood to attention and chanted about victory, I started to wonder whether we were being told the whole truth. There were rumours flying around that perhaps we were not so victorious after all. If we were winning the war then why were the Blackshirts beating up anyone who disagreed with them?

By the summer of 1943 the Palio had already been cancelled two years in a row, and it seemed that it would be cancelled a third time with no end to the war in sight. Carlo was very upset about this, he wanted so desperately to race Serafina, but the war had interrupted his plans and the bay mare was now almost nine, too old for the demands and dangers of the racetrack. And so Carlo turned his attention instead to Stella, and began to train her in the hope that by the time the Palio was run again she would be ready.

“She will be a better horse even than Serafina,” Carlo insisted. “She has the speed to win, plus she is surefooted enough to take the corners and fearless enough to face up to the body slams and beatings that we will take out there in the piazza.”

By now my father had been gone for two years and Carlo, who was almost eighteen, knew that if the war did not finish soon he would not be joining the fantinos on the racetrack, but instead would be forced to enlist in the fascist army.

My brother was not a coward. He was very brave. “But to join the fascists is the same thing as fighting on the side of the Nazis,” he told me, “and I will not fight for Hitler.”

It was July and we were hoping against the odds that an announcement would be made that the Palio would be held again in August. Instead, there was much more dramatic news.

“II Duce has been thrown out!” My brother raced through the front door of our house, panting and puce-faced.

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