“I can do better than that!” she says, “I can tell you about a Giorgio you don’t have in your notebook!”
I am very interested. “An Italian?” I ask, because I have learnt from Vishna that Giorgio is an Italian name.
“Yes, indeed,” says the Professor.
Vishna says quietly, “I’ll make tea,” which really means, I’ll leave you two to it, without interrupting.
The Professor smiles at Vishna and then says to me, “He was a very special guy, Giorgio Chiarelli. He was Jewish, and he lived in Italy during the Second World War. Do you know about the Second World War?”
“A bit,” I say. “Nazis and concentration camps. And the Americans helped us but they left us with a huge debt, and we didn’t finish paying it off until the beginning of this century.”
“Huh!” says the Professor. “An interesting collection of some of the bare bones!”
“Right,” she continues. “So, Giorgio Chiarelli came from the south of Italy, but he was living in Venice in the area called the ghetto when war broke out. He was Jewish, and Italy was friendly with Germany, so things did not look good for him.”
“They would have called him in for questioning,” I say, “like they did you.”
“Mm,” says the Professor. “Well, let’s hope it’s not quite the same! But yes, you get the picture. All the Jews in the ghetto area were arrested, and many went to concentration camps and died there, but Giorgio Chiarelli was kept in a camp called Fossoli, and not deported. And he wrote the most amazing poems while he was there. They released him a day after Benito Mussolini was ousted.”
“Ousted?” I query, because it is a new word.
“Turfed out,” says Vishna, handing the Professor some of her special tea. Then she adds, “Mussolini was Hitler’s friend.”
She hands me mint tea, and sits down again to listen.
I ask, “Was Giorgio Chiarelli a good man, a bad man or a gifted man?”
“What interesting categories!” says the Professor. “Are all your Georges one of those three?”
“Uh-ha,” I say.
The Professor says, “Well, there’s a different topic for consideration! I would say that he was a gifted man – very gifted – but also a good man.”
“Why was he good?” I want to know.
“Because he was against bad things. He was against Hitler and Mussolini, and putting people in concentration camps. And when he was in the camp called Fossoli he made a school for children, and he gave away his food, so that it is surprising that he made it out alive. But he was gifted too.”
“Did he design things?” I ask, thinking of my other Giorgio.
Vishna chuckles. The Professor says, “No, he wrote things. Novels and poems.” The she starts to recite, in English, “Here the children cry, for love and joy in darkened times, and justice cries with them… ” Then she says, “That’s the children of the poor today.”
I think about being lost outside the supermarket, and Skye finding me crying, and care homes and labour camps, and I see that we, too, live in darkened times. So I say, “I think perhaps my parents named me after Giorgio Chiarelli.”
“I think it’s quite likely,” says the Professor. “Who else would they name you after?”
* * *
Spanner-in-the-Works comes up the Hill when the shadows are already quite long, and he has a bin bag over his shoulder, which looks heavy. He puts it down carefully by Walking Tall’s fire and starts to sing, quite loudly, “Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St Clements.”
We all drop what we are doing and go to see what he has got. Inside the bin bag is a big pile of oranges and bananas, also a couple of onions and a rather bendy-looking cucumber.
Everyone makes pleased sounds, like:
“Great!”
Or, “Wow!”
Or, “That’s a bit of a windfall!”
Or, “How come?”
Spanner-in-the-Works is looking very pleased with himself. “I was sitting in the multi-storey,” he says, “talking to some blokes.” We all know that the blokes in the multi-storey are not yet feckless, officially, but they use drugs and drink alcohol out of old water bottles. Spanner-in-the-Works used to hang out with those guys until he became totally feckless and came to live with us.
“Were you drinking?” asks Vishna, who also used to know those blokes in her student days.
“What the eyes don’t see…” says Spanner-in-the-Works, which I am pretty sure means Yes!
Then he says, “Anyhow, there we were, on deck three, when this Salvation Army girl comes over and says, ‘They’re giving away free fruit on the market.’ So me and a couple of the blokes go down there to look, and the stallholder gives us these!”
“Just like that?” Everyone is amazed.
“Well, he asked me questions, like ‘Are you homeless?’ and ‘Do you have homeless friends?’ And I said I knew some kids who were homeless, and he gave me this lot.”
By now the Professor has hobbled over. She picks up one of the oranges and squeezes it. “Nice and fresh,” she says.
“But why did he give you these?” Little Bear asks.
“Did you tell him where we live?” Big Bear wants to know, looking concerned.
“I told him nothing,” says Spanner-in-the-Works. “And I think he gave us this fruit because he is a good bloke. And because it is the end of the day and nobody else was wanting to buy anything.” Then he adds, “He gave stuff away to lots of people. Well, several.”
Then we divide up the food and people take their shares back to their fireplaces ready to make dinner.
* * *
The next day it is drizzling. I wear my waterproof jacket and my flip-flops, but my feet are cold, and soon, I know, we will all have to wear some sort of shoes, even around the camp. Still, I am in a good mood. We had fresh orange juice for breakfast, thanks to the market man, and bread with cheese. I do not know where the cheese came from.
Then I go up the Hill to see the Old Man. He is waiting for me, and that also makes me feel good.
He does not say anything, just waves his hand towards the logs, to tell me to sit down, and holds his hand out for my research book. I hand it over, feeling proud. I have asked everyone in the camp about Georges and, although the kids were not much help at all, all the grown-ups have told me something. I have made notes about the famous Georges and the bad ones, but when people have just told me about a friend, or an uncle, then I have put them on a separate list, because although those Georges were important to the people who knew them, I do not think my mum and dad would have named me after them.
The Old Man passes me my tea and starts looking at my notebook very carefully. He reads every page, even the pages he has read before, and sometimes he turns back and rereads something more than once.
After quite a long time he says, “This is excellent, Giorgio. Well done!”
I am feeling pleased. Then he says, “Some of your English needs a bit of work. Ask the Professor to teach you about apostrophes.”
Apostrophes is an amazing word, full of colours and shapes. It is an exciting word, and I think I will enjoy learning about these things.
“And you still muddle up there and their,” he says. “But you usually get it right, so I expect that’s just a matter of proofreading.”
He passes me back the notebook. “So, what are you going to do with all this now?” he asks.
“We’re doing presentations,” I tell him. “Next week. To everyone – the kids and the adults too. Will you come?”
“Yes, indeed!” says the Old Man. “In fact, you are all coming up here, to me, for that. We’re going to make a party of it.” Then I remember that the Old Man never comes down to the camp, so if we want him to hear what we have to say, of course we will have to come to him.
The Old Man smiles to himself. Then
he says, “Yes, indeed. A party!”
I do not say anything, because I have a feeling the Old Man is not ready for me to go away. We listen to the birds, and to a bumble bee buzzing in some fireweed that grows where the sun comes through the trees.
After a while the Old Man says, “What started you on all this, Giorgio? Remind me.”
I am sure he does not need reminding. I think it is me who needs to remember how it started.
I say, “I wanted to know why I am called Giorgio. Skye said my mum and dad might have called me after someone important, or someone in my family.”
“Mm,” says the Old Man. “And have you been able to find the answer to that? Do you feel you know why you are called Giorgio?”
I look at the Old Man’s billy can, because he is looking hard at me and I don’t want to meet his eyes. But Skye says honesty is the best policy so I make myself look back at the Old Man, and I say, “No!” When I say it, I feel sad. The fact is, I started out looking for clues so that I could find my parents, and I have found out lots of interesting things, but I am no closer to finding my mum and dad.
“That’s what I thought,” says the Old Man.
He sits forward on his log, so that he is sort of leaning towards me. It makes me feel as if he is about to say something very important. He says, “Giorgio, do you know what a working hypothesis is?”
I say, “Well, I know what working is. What’s a hyp… hyp…” I have forgotten the rest of the word, although I know it is purple.
The Old Man says, “Well, a hypothesis is like an educated guess. So, a working hypothesis is an educated guess that we will work with for now, although in the future we might find that our educated guess was wrong.”
I nod.
The Old Man says, “I think you need to form a working hypothesis about why you are called Giorgio.”
Oh,” I say, “I see.”
I think the Old Man is going to help me, but he is not. He says, “Talk to Vishna about it. Or the Professor.” Then he says, “I’ll see you at the presentation,” so I know that the Old Man has finished helping me with my research.
* * *
After our classes, which are all to do with the atlas, I tell Vishna and the Professor about the working hypothesis.
Vishna says, “That’s quite a hard thing for a small boy to do.”
But the Professor says, “Nonsense! The boy’s got a good head on his shoulders! We’ll lick this in no time, won’t we, Giorgio?”
I say, “Yes,” although I am not as confident as she is.
Then it seems that the Professor plans to start at once. She says, “Let’s start with what we know for sure. Which country does your name come from?”
“Probably Italy,” I say.
“And does that mean your parents were Italian?”
I nearly say, Yes, but in time I realise that of course it means no such thing. Conner’s name is Irish but he comes from a poor city in England. Liverpool, I think. It is why he has a funny accent. So I say, “No, not necessarily.”
“Good!” says the Professor, as if I have just said something really clever. “But it probably means your family had some connection with Italy.”
“Yes,” I agree.
“Well, that was the easy part!” says the Professor. “Now, what do we know about where you were found?”
“Skye found me in the supermarket car park,” I remind her.
“And what sort of people leave their children in supermarket car parks, instead of taking them into the shop?”
Vishna says, “Professor, he won’t know that. People don’t do it anymore.”
“Oh dear! No! Nor they do,” says the Professor. “How time passes!” Then she says, “Well, a few years back people didn’t glean in the night-time as much as we do now. They used to go to supermarkets at the end of the day to see if they could buy food that was going off, or even steal things. But they never took their children in, in case there were police or social workers there, and they were questioned about their ability to care for their kids. So they left them outside.”
“So my mum and dad were poor,” I say, following her argument.
“Exactly!” says the Professor. “Now, if they were poor, I don’t suppose they would have been fans of the George Bushes, so you can rule them out.”
Vishna says, “Professor, are you sure that’s right? I thought quite a lot of poor people liked them?”
The Professor says, “Not in this country! And we’re just forming a working hypothesis here. We’ll stick with this.”
“Okay,” says Vishna.
“Now,” says the Professor, “there is something else we know about your parents. We know they were clever.”
“How do you know that?” I wonder.
“Well,” says the Professor, “at least some of our brain power is inherited. We get it from our ancestors. You are a bright little chap, so I think we can assume that your parents were bright too.”
Vishna says, “That’s clever.” I agree with her, but I don’t say anything.
“So, Giorgio,” says the Professor, “if your parents were bright but poor, what does that tell us?”
“That they were feckless?” I suggest.
“Oh, I don’t think so!” says the Professor. “I think it means they were people who questioned things. People who thought for themselves. Perhaps the authorities said they were feckless, but then, they’ll say that about anyone! I’m sure they say that about me, if they think I’m still alive!”
Vishna understands where all this is going before I do. “So, you think that Giorgio’s parents will have admired a George who thought for himself?” she suggests.
“Got it in one!” says the Professor, sounding excited. “So now, Giorgio, look through your research and tell me about someone that intelligent, free-thinking people might admire.”
I start to look through my list. I am feeling quite excited. We are doing a real bit of detective work. I say, “George Harrison!”
Vishna says, “That’s just what I was thinking!”
The Professor says to Vishna, “I told you this exercise would not be too difficult for the boy!”
Then to me she says, “So, our working hypothesis is this: one or more of your ancestors came to England, in the days when it was easy for Europeans to come here, from Italy. Your parents were bright and educated people and they admired George Harrison. Perhaps one of his songs was especially important to them, or maybe they just respected his spiritual journey. So they called you Giorgio for your Italian ancestry and for George Harrison.”
Vishna hugs me. “Wow!” she says, “Now you’ve got something to live up to!” And I feel proud, and wish that Skye would come home soon so that I can tell her.
Chapter 3
The Sign
I have not told you about the People who the Old Man says must be saints. It is like the gleaning. There are things the grown-ups do which they prefer us to stay out of, for our own well-being. They do not like us to go into the city at night to filch stuff which people have thrown out, and they generally try to keep us away from the People, even though they must be saints and have only ever done good by us. I went gleaning once with Skye when I was little, the time I lost my solar-powered toy, but that was because I was very small, and had a cold, and cried every time she tried to leave me behind. And it was because we were all hungry on the Hill, and we were short of people who dared go into the city, what with probation orders and Prices on their Heads. I do not remember much about the gleaning, only that we all felt frightened, and had to hide from the police in the little alleyway by the fish and chip restaurant.
I am quite excited today because Sputnik and Spanner-in-the-Works are letting me help pick up the food from the People. They really wanted Big Bear to help them. Big Bear is growing tall and strong, and has hair growing in his armpits, and
will soon be a man, old enough to go to a labour camp, or to prison. But Big Bear has hurt his shoulder, and Walking Tall says it is better if he rests it up for a day or two.
So I say, “Can I help?”
I think they will all say no, but in fact Spanner-in-the-Works says to Walking Tall, “What about it, mate?” and I know that if it were up to him, he would say yes.
Then Walking Tall, who is in charge of me when Skye is away, because I sleep in his shelter, says to me, “You will be careful, won’t you, Giorgio? And quiet?”
“Yes!” I say, and I feel very grown up.
I do not know how it came about that the People Who Must Be Saints started to help us. I think maybe it was before I came to the Hill, or maybe I was already here and I was too little to notice. In the old days, they used to bring billy cans of soup and properly cut sandwiches, as well as the water, and Skye says the water used to come in plastic bottles but now it comes in glass, with a label telling the drinker that he or she can get ten cents back if they return the bottle. The deal is, though, that we give the bottles back to the People. It is only fair. They buy the water in the first place, so the ten cents are really theirs.
Nowadays they do not bring us soup or fresh-cut sandwiches anymore. I hear the Music Maker saying to Walking Tall, “I think things must be pretty tough for them, too.” They bring us water and packets of crisps, and cereal bars sometimes, and sometimes fish, called sardines, in tins.
“They’re doing the best they can,” says Walking Tall
And the Music Maker adds, “Well, it’s a heck of a lot more than most people do!”
The People always come at night, so that the police and the anti-terrorists, who Spanner-in-the-Works says are the scourge of the nation, do not catch them. If they are caught they will be labelled anti-social, and although they will not go straight to a labour camp, or to prison, the way we would, Skye says it would be the first step on the slippery slope.
The Song of the Lost Boy Page 8