The Demon Catchers of Milan Read Online Free Page A

Gina asked, “So you have Chinese food in Italy?”
    Emilio laughed.
    “We have everything in Milan. My grandfather only started learning how to use chopsticks a few years ago, though. He’s still very proud that he can, can’t you tell?” he added, giving us the world’s most beautiful one-sided grin.
    We giggled and all three of us looked at Giuliano, whofrowned with his eyebrows, smiled with his eyes, and clacked his chopsticks at us affectionately.
    Some Italian guy started singing to techno music in Emilio’s pocket and he jumped up, pulling out his cell phone.
    “Excuse me,” he said, and headed outside, leaving his grandfather and the rest of us to stare at one another and wonder how we were supposed to talk without him to translate. Giuliano pointed after his grandson with his chopsticks, waggling his eyebrows and opening his mouth a couple of times.
    “Curlfrond,” he announced gravely at last. “Alba.”
    We waited politely.
    “Oh!” said Gina. “Girlfriend! His girlfriend, Alba.”
    “ Sì , curlfrond,” agreed Giuliano, grinning at Gina. He launched into a complicated game of charades, mysterious English and Italian, and while we tried to follow it, I noticed a tiny, sad feeling in my chest. It couldn’t be because Emilio had a girlfriend, right? I mean, of course he had a girlfriend; he was so gorgeous.
    Emilio and Giuliano went back to the hotel they were staying at (Gina and I had been moved to the guest room because we were both too scared to go back into our own room). We went home, and Mom and Dad started the argument I could tell they were going to have. “Calandra,” Dad began. He never uses Mom’s name unless he knows she’s going to disagree with him.
    I knew I wasn’t allowed to stay for the argument, and I didn’t really want to. I walked back out onto the porch and looked at our yard.
    We didn’t take very good care of it. My dad has spent the last four years saying he’s going to get rid of the rusty swing set we grew out of long ago. There was a dead lawn mower crowned with morning glories, and a plastic car, its red hood bleached pink by the sun, half buried in the weeds nearby. There were two plastic chairs for sitting in while you were minding the barbecue. There was a chain-link fence, one of the low kind, covered in more morning glories and dividing our yard from our neighbors, most of whom did not do much better than we did. In our neighborhood, yards are for putting the kids and the dogs out in, and they look like it and smell like it, too. We don’t have a tree in our yard, but the D’Antonis next door do, a big, neglected crab apple that’s good for climbing and shares its shade with us.
    It was a Saturday in September, hot and muggy, still summer even though school had started. One day soon, we would wake up to find the temperature had dropped overnight, leaving the air clear and cold, and we would know it was autumn. I wondered whether I would be allowed to go to Italy, or whether the law said I had to stay in school here. What would I do there? How long would I have to stay?
    Terrifyingly none of the adults seemed to know the answers. Part of me thought, Thank heavens, no more essays on the beauty of poetry for Mrs. Beaumont .
    This is how I realized I had already made up my mind, not by considering the good and bad things about going or staying, but by noticing that I was already trying to work out what it would be like.
    I remember everything about that moment, the sweat dripping down my neck and under the collar of my T-shirt, the way my cutoff jean shorts felt a little tight after another summer of growing, the radio blasting from the D’Antonis’ driveway (their son, Tommaso, was working on his car again), the smell of cut grass and barbecue and a hint of dog poop.
    I heard my sister come out on the creaky porch behind me. She had worn the same pair of flip-flops all summer, and I could hear them flapping on the wood. I turned around.
    “Hey,” I