“No. Is he—”
The door closed abruptly.
From behind the bushes, up popped Antonio. He put a finger to his mouth. “Shh.”
“I guess you don’t want to be found,” I said.
“Right.” Antonio acted as if he were resuming a conversation. “So, yesterday I saw the elephant.”
“The elephant? What elephant?”
“The one down the street.”
“I’ve never seen an elephant on this street.”
“You haven’t? Well, maybe he’s new. Anyway, I saw a frog sitting on his head.”
I thought maybe I wasn’t hearing correctly. “A frog? On the elephant’s head?”
“Yes, and the elephant raised his trunk and felt around the top of his head”—here Antonio felt around the top of his own head in imitation—“until the elephant reached the frog, and then he gathered it up in his trunk and set it down on the ground. Gently. As if it were a child.”
He smiled that smile. I expected little flashes of light to sparkle off his teeth.
“An elephant. A frog. I wish I’d seen that.” I leaned toward him and whispered, “Do you need help of any kind?”
“No,” he whispered back. “Do you?”
“No.”
When I told my parents about Antonio seeing the elephant, my mother said, “Really? An elephant?” She glanced out the window. “Haven’t seen any elephants around here today, or, well, ever.”
Dad said, “But you never know. When did that boy see the elephant?”
“Yesterday, I think.”
“Let’s go for a walk,” Dad said, already pulling on his jacket. “See if we can spot any elephants.”
So we walked down the street, past a dozen small bungalows like ours and past the noisy Clackertys (two kids up in a tree, shouting at another on the ground below them; one kicking a trash can up the driveway; two throwing rubber balls against the house; one banging on the door and shouting, “Let me in! Let me in!”; and the little dog trailing its red leash and yipping and yapping and nipping at ankles). We walked the length of the street and around the block, all the way back to our house.
“No elephant,” Dad pronounced. “I bet someone stole it.”
“Dad!”
“Probably one of the Clackertys.”
Nonna Filomena, the Angel, and the Fight
Each year on my birthday, Nonna Filomena, my grandmother who lived in Italy, sent me updates on Angel Lucia and also something colorful to wear—a scarf or blouse or skirt—made of delicate materials and unusual colors mixed together: deep crimson and emerald green or cobalt blue and bright gold.
No one else in town wore this sort of clothing and for my first few years of school, the other kids took no notice of my clothes, just as I did not take much notice of theirs. It wasn’t until I was eight or nine that they began to comment. Some mocked me. Others imitated me, arriving with colorful scarves or bright blouses or sweaters, but the clothing I had was not easily copied, not from stores near us.
One time, a mother made her way to our house and pleaded her case with my parents.
“It isn’t fair,” the mother said. “My daughter whines all day long: ‘Why can’t I have clothes like Gina’s? Why can’t I have colorful scarves?’ It’s driving me insane. Please, can’t you dress her like everyone else?”
My parents listened attentively, nodding now and then. “But we don’t dress her,” my mother said.
“You know what I mean,” the woman said. “Get her normal clothes.”
“And what are normal clothes?”
“You know, you know! Look around, see what the other kids wear.”
“But her nonna sends her these clothes from Italy. It gives her pleasure. You want us to deny her old nonna that pleasure?”
“Whatever!” the mother said. “Just do something! It’s driving me crazy, and I’m not the only one who feels this way, you know.”
“Oh?”
“If you’d listen, you’d hear,” the woman said, and with that, she left.
I’d heard it all from the kitchen. My father raised his hands to the ceiling. “People are so silly in the head!” He patted my shoulder. “To me, you look perfect.”
My parents said nothing more about the complaining mother, and I didn’t worry about what she had said. It wasn’t as if I didn’t care that other kids were whining or envious; it was more that I could not understand it. I could not understand why anyone would want to look like anyone else.
So, I guess the fight was inevitable.
After school on a hot, dusty day, I got off the bus with others.
“You! Gina!” a girl said. “Gypsy!” She said gypsy with scorn in her voice, her words doused with lemon juice.
Two of the Groube brothers, perpetually angry boys, leaped on the challenge.
“Yeah, Gina gypsy!” they taunted.
Another said, “Get me my sunglasses. Oh, she is blinding me.”
The girl who had first called my name snatched the silk scarf trailing from my waist. She pulled hard, ripping it and knocking me off balance.
“What?” I said, not challenging, but calm, because I thought it was a fleeting game.
The girl leaned in close, so close that I could smell her cinnamon gum. “You think you are so special.”
The Groubes took up the chant. “Special gypsy! Ooh! So special!”
The girl slapped me on the cheek and stood in front of me, hands on her hips, daring me to take up the challenge.
“The angel in Italy—” I began.
“Ha ha! Did you hear her?” a boy said. “An angel? In Italy?”
“—would—”
“Would what?” the girl said.
I smoothed the fragment of the scarf at my hip. “The angel in Italy would freeze your words and let them fall like little ice chunks onto the ground.”
For a few moments there was quiet, as the girl and boys absorbed that, and then the girl snarled, “Who do you think you are? Talking about a stupid angel!”
One of the Groubes looked as if he was thinking about what I’d said, trying to picture words like ice chunks falling to the ground. At his feet was gravel, and maybe because he had no words of his own and imagined the gravel as words, or maybe simply because the gravel was there, he scooped up a handful and tossed it at me.
The stones hit my forehead and arms. As I turned to walk away, the others scooped up gravel and threw it at me, with more force this time.
There was only one thing to do: summon the angel in Italy.
The next day, my father accompanied me to the principal’s office, where several mothers and their children, the gravel throwers, were gathered.
“There she is!” Mrs. Groube said. She reached down to lift her son’s pant leg, revealing red welts along the shins. “See what she does, that girl!”
The others pushed their children forward, displaying welts on their legs, too.
“Ah,” Dad said. “Gina?”
I pushed my bangs aside so they could see the gravel cuts. I slid the sleeves of my blouse up above the elbows, disclosing more cuts.