Free Power to Burn by Anna Fienberg Page A

stuffing their mouths and mooning at each other. I don’t smile at the customers anymore. What’s the use, no one notices me anyway.
    I looked at the steaming chocolate on the tray, thick and creamy as soup. Those two over there have probably been skiing all day, flying down the mountains of Limone like twin birds in some picture postcard. And now the hot chocolate will settle warm and comforting in their stomachs. They’ll smack their lips and their cheeks will grow rosy and he’ll help her off with her coat. His hand will brush against her skin for a moment and she’ll smile. Then later they’ll go home where there’ll be a fire crackling, and maybe they’ll roast chestnuts. And while they’re eating and stretching their hands toward the fire she’ll talk to him softly. She’ll flick back her hair, knowing how it shines red and gold in the firelight. He’ll reach out to touch it, pulling her close to him, and she’ll snuggle in and hope that he can smell the perfume she’d dabbed right there,
there
where he’s kissing her now, under her ear. . .
    â€˜Lucrezia, are you going to wait till the drinks are iced over before you take them?’
    The boss yelled so loudly that everyone in the cafe heard.
Dio mio
, I wish the earth would open up and swallow him.
    I picked up the tray and trudged across the room. As I set the cups down the chocolate slopped over the lip of one of the cups. A small dark puddle edged out over the saucer.
    â€˜Careful!’ the young man sniped. ‘Look at that,
che imbranata
, take it back and get another saucer please!’
    I looked at the man. Arrogant eyes, cruel thin mouth. I suppose he gets everything just the way he likes it. Well, he’s going to get more than he bargained for, this time.
    I took the offending cup and saucer away and topped it up with chocolate. I wiped the saucer clean until it sparkled. Then I took it back and placed it carefully under the young man’s nose.
    â€˜
Grazie
,’ he said. He didn’t even bother to look at me.
    I went back to the counter. I fixed my eyes on the cup. I stared so hard that now I could see inside the cup, down into the thick dark liquid. At the bottom were the grains of chocolate and I saw them joining together, growing solid into a brittle lump. I added a small head and legs as fine as the hairs that grew out of my boss’s nose. Then I shaped a bubble of air under its body and made it float to the surface. Now all I had to do was wait.
    â€˜Ugh,
che schifo
!’ the young man screamed suddenly. ‘There’s a cockroach in my cup!’
    The girl started screaming too and people at the other tables turned round and craned their heads. They looked at the couple and back at their own plates and a growing muttering and burbling filled the room.
    I wandered over to the young man’s table where the boss was trying to soothe him, his face shiny and red with effort.
    â€˜See?’ the young man looked at me now, he certainly did! ‘See,’ he said, ‘there’s the filthy cockroach!’
    â€˜Ssh!’ I hissed at him. ‘Don’t yell so loud or everyone will want one! Still, I suppose there are plenty more in the kitchen!’
    I slapped my hand on the table and burst out laughing. I laughed and laughed and laughed as the boss shouted and the young man threw the cup against the wall and people hurtled out of the cafe as if a plague of man-eating beetles were after them. I laughed as the boss sacked me and the cook tried to slip me an apple strudel, and I laughed at their shocked silly faces as I tore off my uniform and stood there right in front of them in my camisole and stockings.
    I laughed as they slammed the door of that
maledetto
cafe behind me, but then the rushing wind in my head stopped stone dead and everything was silent inside and outside and the cold white snow looked back at me like a dead blank face.
    I waited for