Free I'm Not Scared by Niccolò Ammaniti

Traverse life was hell for me and the other children. He would hit us, puncture our football and steal things from us.
    He was a poor devil. Friendless, womanless. A guy who bullied children, a soul in torment. And that was understandable. No twenty-year-old could live in Acqua Traverse without ending up like Nunzio Scardaccione, the hair-tearer. Felice in Acqua Traverse was like a tiger in a cage. He paced around among that tiny group of houses, furious, restless, ready to pick on you. It was lucky he went off to Lucignano now and again. But even there he hadn’t made any friends. When I came out of school I used to see him sitting alone on a bench in the piazza.
    That year the fashion was flared trousers, tight-fitting brightly coloured T-shirts, sheepskin coats and long hair. Not Felice – he had his hair cut short and combed it back with brilliantine, he shaved perfectly and wore combat jackets and camouflaged trousers. And he tied a bandanna round his neck. He drove around in that 127, he liked guns and said he had been in the parachute regiment at Pisa and had jumped out of planes. But it wasn’t true. Everyone knew he had done his military service at Brindisi. He had the pointed face of a barracuda and little gappy teeth like a baby crocodile’s. Once he had told us they were like that because they were still his milk teeth. He had never changed them. As long as he didn’t open his mouth he was almost good-looking, but if he opened up, if he laughed, you took two steps backwards. And if he caught you looking at his teeth you were for it.
    Then, one blessed day, without saying a word to anyone, he had left.
    If you asked Skull where his brother had gone he would reply: ‘To the North. To work.’
    That was all we wanted to know.
    But now he had popped up again like a poisonous weed. In his diarrhoea-coloured 127. And he was coming down from the abandoned house.
    He had put the boy in the hole. That was who had put him there.
    Hidden among the trees, I checked that there was nobody in the valley.
    When I was sure I was alone, I came out of the wood and climbed into the house through the usual window. As well as the packets of pasta, the bottles of beer and the saucepan with the apples, on the floor there were a couple of opened cans of tuna. And on one side, rolled up, was an army sleeping bag.
    Felice. It was his. I could just see him, sheathed in his sleeping bag, happily guzzling the tuna.
    I filled a bottle with water, got the rope out of the box and took it outside. I tied it to the crane jib, moved the corrugated sheet and mattress and looked down.
    He was curled up like a hedgehog in the brown blanket.
    I didn’t want to go down there, but I had to find out if there were any remains of my sister’s slice of meat. Even though I had seen Felice coming from the hill I couldn’t get it out of my head that the boy might be my brother.
    I took out the cheese and asked him: ‘Can I come down? I’m the one who gave you the water. Do you remember? I’ve brought you something to eat. Caciotta. It’s good, caciotta. Better, ten times better, than meat. If you don’t attack me, I’ll give it to you.’
    He didn’t reply.
    â€˜Well, can I come down?’
    Maybe Felice had cut his throat.
    â€˜I’ll throw the caciotta down. Catch it.’ I threw it to him.
    It landed near him.
    A black hand, quick as a tarantula, shot out of the blanket and started to feel about on the ground till it found the cheese, grabbed it and whipped it back underneath. While he was eating his legs quivered, like those stray dogs when they come across a bit of leftover steak after days without food.
    â€˜I’ve got some water too… shall I bring it down?’
    He made a gesture with his arm.
    I let myself down.
    As soon as he felt I was near him, he cowered back against the wall.
    I looked around, there was no trace of the meat.
    â€˜I won’t hurt you. Are you