Domenica climbed out the window. She sat down next to Silvio on the stairs.
“Go back inside. You’ll get in more trouble,” Silvio warned her.
“Once you’re in trouble, it’s too late to get in more trouble.”
“Is that true?”
“It’s common sense.” Domenica finished the first bombolone. She carefully picked the sugar sprinkles off the cloth and licked her finger. “That is the most delicious treat I ever ate. Ever. Thank you.”
“Prego.” As hungry as Silvio was, it made him happier to see his friend enjoy the pastry.
Fortified by a full stomach, Domenica presented a new scheme to her friend. “We don’t need that stupid map. Aniballi can keep it in his dusty library. We can find the treasure without it. We will work our way through the pine forest. I have a hunch the pirates left it close to the canals.”
“Are you certain?”
“That would make the most sense. They would have to make a fast getaway. We’ll go tomorrow! When the sun comes up. After I’ve fetched the water.”
“I won’t be able to help you find the treasure.”
“Well, perhaps not right away. We have to let Aniballi’s curse wear off. He has it in for us.”
“No, I mean I won’t be here. We have to leave Viareggio tomorrow.”
“Where will you go?”
“We are going to my aunt’s in Parma.”
“Not her!” Domenica remembered Zia Leonora, who had airs. She had the unlined brow and high hair of an aristocrat. Zia visited the seashore in August. Signora Vietro had to wait on her like a maid. They called her Zia Regina behind her back. “She’s awful!”
“I know. But I have no choice. I’ll have to do my chores and behave myself. That’s what Mama says.”
“How are you supposed to do anything when boys throw rocks at you?”
“Maybe they don’t have rocks in Parma.” Silvio tried to smile, but it hurt his face.
“Who will protect you? I don’t like the idea of Parma at all. But I don’t like this town either. I don’t have anything nice to say about Viareggio. You almost lost your eye.”
“I shouldn’t have turned. If I had listened to you, I wouldn’t have been hit.”
“There are always more rocks and there are always more boys to throw them.” Domenica patted his hand. She and Silvio sat on the step for a long time as the white moon flickered in and out behind the clouds. “Silvio, listen to me. When you get to Parma, don’t tell them about your name.”
“They find out anyway.”
“Not if you have a better story,” Domenica offered.
“What do you mean?”
“You have to talk about your father before they assume you don’t have one. Something like this: Signore Birtolini was a great man, a sea captain who battled pirates. He saved a treasure belonging to the Holy Roman Church, on a ship that was burned at sea.”
“But that’s not true.”
“It doesn’t matter! It’s your story. You make it up! Say this: Your father jumped off the ship with the precious relics, into a small fishing boat. He held on to the relics through hurricanes and blight and starvation and delivered them back into the hands of the pope himself, who went to anoint him in front of all the cardinals when Signore Birtolini . . .”
“Was hit with a rock.”
“No! Your father suddenly died, having been bit by a poisonous fish off the coast of Napoli while saving the relics. That’s the important part. Signore died while returning the loot! The pope dropped to his knees and kissed your dying father as he gave him the last rites. Extreme unction. Your papa was now whole in this world and the next. The cardinals stood in a red circle and wept. The pope wept. Together, they prayed as the angels came to take your father’s soul back to God.”
“You don’t need to go to the library. You don’t need to read books. You are a book.”
“Have a story ready, or people will make up one for you. You have to do it before they can. Promise?”
“Promise.”
“At least you listen to me. Nobody around here cares what I think.”
“I think you’re the most intelligent person I know. I’ll never make another friend like you.”
“Sure you will,” Domenica assured him.
“I don’t think so. You’re strange, Domenica. But there’s strength in what makes you different. Coraggio.”
Domenica opened the cloth. She gave Silvio the remaining bombolone. He accepted it and split it in two to share with her.
“Take small bites so it doesn’t pull the stitches,” she said.
Silvio ate most of the second bombolone in tiny bites. She ate the rest. They left not a single granule of sugar on the cloth.
Domenica folded the cloth into a neat square and gave it back to Silvio. “I was really hungry,” she said as she climbed back into the house. She poked her head out of the open window. “Thank you.”
“Domenica?”
She leaned against the windowsill. Her face—the only face he looked for in school, or at church, or anywhere for that matter, ever—was so close to his that for the first time in his life, the boy felt lucky. “Before I took the map, I found something that I thought might help you.”
“A weapon?”
He smiled, but the stitches hurt. “No. There’s a book called The Log of Captain Nicola Forzamenta in the map room. Pirates often hid treasure in churches.”
“Interesting.”
“It is.” Silvio went down two steps on the stairs.
He stopped at the bottom of the steps before turning around and bounding back up the stairs two at a time to face her. “Domenica?”
Domenica leaned on the window sash. “What is it?” she whispered.
He did not answer her; instead, Silvio took Domenica’s face in his hands and kissed her.
Silvio’s lips were softer than the bomboloni, which surprised her.