by Disney Books
“Mostri marini…Give me that!” he shouted, grabbing a harpoon.
Meanwhile, both Luca and Alberto hopped off the bicycle and ran back to help Giulia off the ground. “Giulia!” Alberto said, his voice full of concern.
“Are you all right?” Luca asked.
“Guys…I’m okay,” she said, a little dazed by seeing her two friends in sea monster form. The boys lifted Giulia, carrying her all the way into the piazza. But when they entered, they were met by Massimo and a wall of fishermen wielding nets and harpoons. The mob surrounded the children.
“Sea monster!” Massimo shouted. “Giulietta?”
“Papá…I—”
Alberto looked up at Massimo hopefully, but Massimo was frozen. Alberto’s smile faded as the rest of the fishermen closed in around them.
One of the fishermen laughed. “You’re not going anywhere.”
Ercole stormed through the crowd, armed with his harpoon.
“I saw them first! The reward is mine!” he shouted, stepping into the circle of fishermen.
This time, Luca stood up to him.
“We’re not afraid of you!” Luca said.
“No. But we’re afraid of you.” Ercole said. “Everyone is horrified and disgusted by you. Because you are monsters.”
“There he is! Luca!” Daniella shouted as she and Lorenzo entered the piazza.
“Let us through!” Lorenzo said. The mob was closing in tighter and tighter.
“Stop! They’re not monsters!” Giulia shouted.
“Yeah? Who are they, then?” Ercole snarled.
“I know who they are,” Massimo spoke, silencing the crowd.
The fishermen parted, allowing Massimo to step closer.
Gently, he took Alberto’s hand and said, “They are Luca and Alberto. And they are…the winners!” He raised Alberto’s hand in the air.
A ripple of confusion ran through the piazza.
“What?” Luca asked.
Alberto couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Really?”
“They can’t be the winners. They are not even…people!” Ercole said.
Massimo ignored him.
“Signora?” he continued, nodding at Luca and Alberto’s bicycle, which was lying across the finish line. Signora Marsigliese studied it closely, deliberated for a moment, and then shrugged.
“Technically…legally…yes,” Signora Marsigliese said.
Luca gazed around at the crowd, which was murmuring in confusion. Massimo looked sternly at the fishermen until they lowered their harpoons. Some shook their heads in disgust, and some began to leave, but Ercole wasn’t finished.
“Who cares if they won? They’re sea monsters!”
While Ercole was preoccupied, Giulia snatched his harpoon and handed it to Alberto and Luca. Together, they snapped it in half.
“Ciccio! Guido! Another harpoon! Velocemente!” Ercole demanded. When they didn’t obey right away, he was infuriated. “Argh, idioti! Be useful for once in your pathetic lives!”
“Guido,” Ciccio said.
“Ciccio,” Guido replied, as if each understood exactly, precisely, what the other was thinking.
And so they walked right over to Ercole, picked him up, and tossed him directly into the fountain.
“Gahhh!” Ercole said in a panic. “I can’t swim!”
He thrashed in the shallow water, in danger of damaging absolutely nothing other than his pride.
But Ciccio wasn’t done. He pulled out Ercole’s wool sweater and threw it in after him.
“Oops,” Ciccio said.
Guido looked at Ercole, stuck out his tongue, and blew perhaps the most elegant raspberry in the history of raspberries: “Thhhhppppbbbbbbttt.”
“It’s over,” Giulia said, watching from afar. “The reign of terror…it’s finally over!”
“Luca!”
Turning his head at the sound of his name, Luca smiled as his mother and father broke through the crowd and wrapped him in the tightest of hugs.
Of course, as it was raining, Daniela and Lorenzo were now fully revealed as sea monsters, too.
“Luca, you had us worried half to death,” Daniela started, “and you must never do that again. And you raced your little tail off, and kicked so much human butt, and I’m so proud of you, and I’m so mad at you!”
“I’m sorry!” Luca said.
Daniela hugged him even closer. Lorenzo joined in. The crowd watched in astonishment as the sea monsters hugged their sea monster kid. Some of them softened at the sight. One human parent, watching them, hugged their own child close.
“Signore e Signori, the winners of this year’s Portorosso Cup…the Underdogs!” Signora Marsigliese announced, walking up to the kids with a trophy. “Bravissimi!”
The kids cheered, finally realizing it was real. They were the winners of the Portorosso Cup!
The kids of Portorosso started celebrating, too.
“Go, Underdogs!”
“Ercole lost!”
“I know sea monsters!”
The two older women the boys had encountered when they’d first come to town—the ones Luca had accidentally called stupido—tossed their umbrellas aside. The rain hit their skin, revealing that they were sea monsters, too! It looked like Luca and Alberto hadn’t been the only sea monsters hiding in plain sight!
Luca and Alberto had their Vespa at last. The rickety wheels rolled along the cobblestones as kids from town ran behind them.
“Whoa! They got a Vespa?”
“No way!”
“Ha, ha, ha! Feast your eyes! On the greatest Vespa the world has ever seen!” Alberto shouted.
Giulia and Luca cheered.
Alberto zoomed into the garden when Massimo was serving dinner. The Vespa made a horrendous coughing sound as parts fell off it.
“Perfect,” Alberto said proudly.
Massimo smiled and served pasta to his guests, Daniela and Lorenzo…and Luca’s grandma, who was also there, incredibly.
“Prego. Mangiate, mangiate!” Massimo said. Then, when he saw Grandma, he added, “Signora.”
“Grazie,” Grandma said, taking the pasta.
“Mom? What are you doing here?” Daniela asked.
“I come to town most weekends,” Grandma replied.
Daniela laughed and watched her son as he talked to Giulia and Alberto. He seemed so happy, so carefree.
“What he did today was amazing,” Daniela said. “But we can’t let him stay in this world. Can we?”
“Some people, they’ll never accept him,” Grandma said, eating her pasta. “But some will. And he seems to know how to find the good ones.”
“So where will you go first?” Giulia asked.
“We’re gonna stick around here for a bit,” Alberto said. “We gotta fix this thing up before we take it across the entire Earth.”
“Okay. Just don’t forget to…pack. Santa Gorgonzola!” Giulia said, suddenly realizing something very important. “I need to pack! For school!”
“Oh, yeah!” Luca said wistfully. “For school. You’re gonna learn so much.”
“I can leave you some books.…”
“You can?” Luca cried. “Come on, Alberto!”
Luca followed Giulia, and Alberto watched him go inside. He smiled, happy for his friend. Then his eyes went to the Vespa, and a thought came over him.
It was early in the morning, and the Portorosso train station was anything but crowded. Massimo had gotten Giulia to the station early, not wanting to risk her being late and missing the train.
“And you have your lunch for the train?” Massimo said, looking at his daughter and her bags.
“Si,” Giulia confirmed.
“Sweater if it gets cold?”
“For the millionth time, si,” Giulia said. “I love you, too, Papá.”
Then she gave her father a big hug and turned to see Alberto and Luca.
“Santa Mozzarella,” Giulia said. “We did it!”
Alberto grinned as Giulia wrapped
her arms around him and Luca, hugging them both.
“Ciao, Giulia,” Luca said, and he watched as she boarded the train. Tears came to his eyes.
As Giulia disappeared inside, she called out, “Ciao, ragazzi! A presto.”
Luca wiped his tears, then faced Alberto. “Well, let’s go fix up our Vespa.”
Alberto looked at his friend. He had a piece of paper in hand. “Yeah,” he said. “About that. Uhh, crazy thing. I…might have sold it.”
Alberto handed the paper to Luca.
It was a train ticket.
To Genova.
“What are you talking about?” Luca said. He looked at the ticket in his hand, not quite sure what was happening. And when he looked up, he saw that his parents and his grandma had arrived on the train platform! Carrying a bag, they walked over to Luca.
“Mom? Dad? Grandma?” Luca said. “What’s going on?”
Daniela spoke first “If. You promise to write to us every single day, and be as safe as possible, and I mean safer than safe…you can go to school.”
“I can?” Luca said, in shock.
“It’s all arranged, actually,” Lorenzo said. “You’d stay with Giulia and her mom.”
“Your friend talked them into it. Wasn’t easy,” Grandma added.
Luca looked at Alberto, who shrugged. He couldn’t believe Alberto had done that for him!
“Luca? Do you promise?” Daniela repeated.
“Yes! Yes, I promise!” Luca shouted.
He hugged everyone, and was so overcome, all he could manage to say was a heartfelt “Thank you.”
“Just remember we are always here for you,” Daniela said, reaching to fix Luca’s hair, then catching herself. “Okay?”
“Hey. Look me in the eye,” Luca said. “You know I love you. Right?”
“I know,” Daniela said.
Then Luca kissed his mom and said, “Come on, Alberto! The train’s gonna leave!”
“Oh, ah, hang on,” Alberto replied.
Luca had already run down the platform and toward the train door when he noticed that Alberto had no bag with him. Nothing.
“Where’s your stuff?” Luca asked.
“Yeah, well. You see…,” Alberto tried to explain.
“You are coming, right?”
“I would,” Alberto said. “But Massimo asked if I wanted to stick around, move in, maybe…and I just thought, ah…I think he needs me. You know?”
Luca stood next to the train door, unsure what he should do next. “I can’t do it without you” was all he could say.
Then Alberto handed Luca another piece of paper. Something that had been taped back together. It was a drawing he had made of the two of them.
“But you’re never without me,” Alberto said. “The next time you jump off a cliff, or tell Bruno to quit bothering you, that’s me.”
“How am I gonna know you’re okay?”
Alberto wrapped Luca in his arms. “You got me off the island, Luca,” Alberto said. “I’m okay.”
The train was about to leave, so Luca slowly ascended the steps of the train just as rain began to fall on the covered platform.
The two boys shook hands. The train pulled away from the station, with Alberto running alongside. When he reached the edge of the platform, Alberto jumped off into the rain, transforming into his sea monster self.
“Wooooo! Go, Luca, go!” Alberto shouted as Luca watched his friend grow smaller and smaller.
Luca kept looking until he couldn’t see Alberto anymore. The train entered a dark tunnel, and for just a few minutes, Luca sat there, alone with his thoughts.
When the train emerged from the tunnel, Luca saw the hills that overlooked the sea. He leaned out into the rain and transformed into his sea monster form.
Luca took one last look at Portorosso, then ducked inside, ready to meet Giulia and the bright future that was just a train ride away.