The Venetian Job

by Sally Gould

  Of course, no one had a chainsaw.

  Charlie and me decided we should walk down the mountain. Dad and Mom didn't like the idea. We tried to convince them it was like having an each-way bet. Either we'd end up orphans or they'd end up childless. Mom didn't think it was funny and told us to be quiet. Actually, Charlie and me didn't think it was that funny either. We were just desperate.

  But then Mom said to us in a real soft voice, "If anything happens to Dad and me, then you can live with any relative you like."

  A cold shiver swept through me.

  Then a small truck came round the bend. The driver got out and started talking to the other Italians. Everyone got excited. I wished I could understand them. Why hadn't Mom's parents taught her Italian? A translation would've been better than nothing. Dad paced up and down. Then the driver got two crowbars and some bits of wood out of his truck. Where was the chainsaw?

  First, we had to move our cars away from the fallen tree. The driver lined up the crowbars under the tree and yelled instructions. Three men, including Dad, got on each crowbar and managed to lift the tree onto the bits of wood. Everything took forever, lifting the tree, moving the wood, resting the tree back on the wood and doing it all again so eventually the tree would swing around closer to the side of the road. Everyone got involved, even me and Charlie. We worked in two teams, so one team got a rest while the other one did the hard work.

  After what seemed like hours, the tree had moved enough for all the cars to drive around it. We all slapped each other on the back, said Grazie, Arrivederci, Ciao lots of times and got back in our cars just as Etna rumbled again.

  We flopped back in our seats. My body ached all over.

  Dad laughed. "What a great story."

  He was so predictable. The closer we came to dying the happier Dad was, because he'd have a great story to tell his golfing mates.

  It was dark by the time we got back to the hotel. For once we agreed about dinner. We didn't need it; we were too tired to eat. Mom didn't even say, Having a shower isn't optional. We all just wanted to sleep.

  Two Carabinieri and their machine guns were still on guard outside the hotel. They stood either side of the entrance staring straight ahead like they were guarding Buckingham Palace. A doorman opened the door for Charlie and me.

  The moment I walked through the door I felt a hand on my shoulder. A voice with an Italian accent said, "Please come with me."

  I looked up to see a Carabiniere.

  "What for?" At first I thought there must be a mistake.

  "Yeah, what for?" Charlie wasn't so polite.

  "We'd like to ask you some questions pertaining to the death of Franco Petruzzelli."

  An electric shock zapped through me. Franco had been murdered!

  The Carabiniere waved us down a corridor and into an office.

  "Our parents should be with us," said Charlie, who always knew his rights.

  He laughed. "They are on their way."

  We sat down in front of a desk. A Carabiniere was sitting at the desk and talking on the phone. Of course, we couldn't understand a word he was saying. He had thick black hair; it looked like a bad wig.

  Mom and Dad looked liked they'd suddenly woken up. They sat real straight on the chairs against the wall.

  The guy behind the desk hung up the phone, leaned over and shook our hands. Then he introduced himself to Mom and Dad and thanked us for talking with him. As if we had a choice. He said to Charlie and me, "Yesterday, you met with Mr. Petruzzelli at the pool?"

  "Yes," we both replied.

  "And what did you talk about?"

  I wanted to ask how he'd been murdered and if he really was our great uncle, but I didn't. "He asked us where we came from and if we liked football. He let us swim."

  "Anything else?"

  I was about to speak when I felt Charlie kick me. "No."

  "So, no money changed hands?"

  "What?"

  "Did he give you money?"

  Suddenly I realized that being given money by Mr. Mafia probably didn't look too good. I acted real offended. "No!"

  He stared at me real hard. The color of his eyes was so dark; I couldn't tell where his pupils ended. "That's not what it looked like on the security camera."

  I froze. I'd just been caught lying to a foreign military policeman who was in charge of men who carried machine guns.

  I know what you're thinking, Geez, Max, how could you lie to a Carabiniere? I imagined spending the rest of my life in a Sicilian jail. I turned to Charlie for help. He was old and smart; he should be doing the talking.

  Charlie said, "Mr. Petruzzelli asked us to send him Australian stamps when we got home. He insisted we take twenty euros."

  "Stamps?" The Carabiniere didn't look like he believed Charlie.

  "Yeah," replied Charlie. "The things you stick on letters so they'll be delivered."

  The Carabiniere looked up at the other officer, who was standing at the door, and said something in Italian. The officer left and soon came back with one of Franco's bodyguards. They discussed something in Italian and then the bodyguard left.

  The Carabiniere said to us, "Unbelievable. We thought we knew everything about Franco Petruzzelli. We didn't know he was an enthusiastic collector of stamps." He sighed and sat back in his chair.

  I turned to Mom and blurted out, "Are we related to Franco?"

  "What?" The Carabiniere leaned forward.

  "Of course not." Mom didn't sound happy. "Whatever gave you that idea?"

  I said to her, "Why did you send us up to meet him at the pool?"

  "I suggested you go and have a swim." She sounded offended. "How would I have known he was there?"

  I slumped and looked down at my trainers. "Oh." Even if we weren't related to him, it was still sad that he'd been murdered. Every year before Christmas, I would've sent him lots of stamps.

  Charlie said to Mom, "We thought you might be related to him and you set up an accidental meeting. We thought it might be cool to be related to a mafia boss."

  Mom and Dad couldn't help laughing and then the Carabinieri guys laughed too. Charlie and me looked at each other and started laughing too.

  Dad would tell this Charlie and Max being dumb story for the rest of his life. Then we went quiet as though all at the same time we remembered Franco was dead.

  The Carabiniere shook our hands. "That will be all," he said. "You know airport closed, because Mount Etna a little upset at the moment. Anyway, please don't leave Taormina. We might need to speak to you again."

  7. THE BLACK-SHIRT GUYS

  The next day, there were fewer Carabinieri in the hotel and no one would've ever guessed a mafia boss had been murdered on the top floor two nights before. The sky was a perfect blue except for where Mount Etna still spewed out black smoke. But now everyone was carrying on like normal, as though it were usual to have a volcano in the background rumbling and carrying on.

  Apparently the eruption hadn't damaged too much. Not yet, anyway. Not like last year. I reckoned the mountain could have been mad because someone had killed Franco.

  We had to go to another amphitheater. Every town in Sicily must have had one. Why we had to check them all out, I didn't know. They were all a bit the same, except with this one you could see a smoking, snow-capped volcano through a Roman arch. Even I took three photos of that.

  There was a bunch of school kids wandering round with daypacks. One boy yelled at us, "Americano?" The boy with him yelled, "No! English." He pointed to my Manchester United shirt.

  "Australian, actually." I replied in my posh voice.

  They laughed. "Si, l'australiano." Then they began hopping about like kangaroos.

  What was it with the kangaroos? Just then, I noticed two guys wearing jeans and black shirts behind the school kids. They didn't look like tourists; they looked out of place. Had I seen them before?

  Then Charlie challenged me to a race around the amphitheater and I forgot about them. He was dying to beat me, because
I'd beaten him at every one so far. He might've been a better runner, but I was way better at jumping from one pillar to another. It was lucky for me the amphitheater had lots of gaps between the pillars. I said we had to start right at the top, away from the tourists. Charlie grumbled because he didn't like heights. That was too bad for him. I wasn't complaining about his longer legs.

  We ran up to the top, near a bunch of Germans who were getting a lecture on architectural features. Like anyone cared. They seemed more interested in the view, because there was a real good view of the sea and Mount Etna from up there. Even before Charlie and me started to race, I knew I had it won. There were so many gaps and so many jumps. "Ready, set, go!" I shouted.

  Charlie led for the first bit. That was because we didn't have to jump. Then came a whole row of jumping from one pillar to another. By the third pillar I'd overtaken him. Charlie's problem was that he thought too much. I just jumped like I was on the ground, so I was way ahead by the time we reached the end of the pillars.

  Then I had to stop because a couple of guys wearing jeans and black shirts were standing right in my way. They had a picture of two crossed swords on their shirts - like a logo. Who did they think they were? Samurai warriors? Didn't they know they were in Italy? Going round them would've been easy except one of them grabbed me under the arm and snarled at me in Italian.

  "Hey!" Charlie yelled at him.

  Then the other one grabbed Charlie. I screamed at them, "What do you want us for?"

  "Quiet!" He pushed me in the back and forced me down the steps to the floor of the amphitheater.

  Charlie was next to me. We swapped worried glances. Whatever they wanted, it couldn't be good. I looked around for Dad and Mom, but couldn't see them. They were never around when we needed them. The black-shirt guys forced us out the back of the amphitheater to a dungeon, which must've gone underneath the amphitheater. They pushed us in and closed the iron gate behind us.

  When I heard the clang of the gate shut, I began to sweat. What did they want?

  They pushed us against a wall and one said, "You know who kill Petruzzelli?"

  "WHAT?" I stared at him in disbelief. "As if!" A weird thought entered my head. We could be on one of those crazy reality TV shows. These guys could've been asked to terrify a couple of tourists. I looked around for a hidden camera, but it was a bit hard to see anything because it was pretty dark.

  "You talk to Carabinieri. What about?"

  Charlie answered slowly. "They asked us why Mr. Petruzzelli spoke to us in the hotel. When he found out we were from Australia, he asked us to send him stamps."

  "Stamps?"

  Charlie did a whole charade of sticking a stamp on a letter and posting it. He looked like a total loser, but the black-shirt guy understood. I began to breathe more slowly. They only seemed interested in getting information.

  "Carabinieri tell you how he die?"

  "No," Charlie and me said and shook our heads at the same time.

  "Oh," he replied. "You stay in his hotel?"

  We nodded.

  "Franco Petruzzelli kept black book. You must get for me."

  We nodded. Disagreeing with him didn't seem like an option. Every hair on my body stood up. There was a noise at the gate. I turned to see a bunch of the school kids - there were seven of them. Words fired in each direction. They way outnumbered the two black-shirts. One of them yelled at us in Italian and pointed to the open gate.

  We knew what he meant. Charlie and me were out of there. The boy followed us.

  "GO!" one of them shouted at us.

  "Them no good," another said. "Stay away."

  We all ran back the same way. I couldn't hear the black-shirt guys behind us. When we reached the arena, we said to our rescuers, "Grazie."

  I wanted to say so much more, like, We owe you big time! And I wanted to find out about Franco's black book. Maybe his black book was famous in Sicily. It might be like a history of the Sicilian mafia over his lifetime. But I couldn't because we didn't speak the same language. That sucked.

  "Ciao," they replied. They stood and waved while we ran off.

  Breathless, we found Mom and Dad, who were looking out over the sea. We had to get away in case the black-shirts came after us again.

  I held my stomach and screwed up my face. "I need to lie down," I panted. "I think breakfast gave me food poisoning. Can we go back to the hotel?"

  8. GOOD LUCK

  Mom and Dad complained a bit because they would've liked to hang round longer. I lay back in the back seat of the car and groaned every now and again. Charlie backed me up by saying he felt a bit sick too.

  Mom turned round to us. "That's strange, I feel fine." She checked with Dad. He felt fine too, of course. "That's a shame,' she said. "I wanted to go shopping. If the airport reopens, it'll be our last day here."

  "What?" I said, too loudly for someone who was meant to have food poisoning.

  Dad said, "The airport is still closed. It should reopen tomorrow or the day after."

  Charlie and me looked at each other. I knew we were thinking the same thing. That gives the black-shirts extra time to find us. They knew our hotel. Of course Franco's bodyguards would have his black book. As if we could steal it. We'd have to stay real close to Dad - not that he'd be any help if there was trouble. I wondered if the junior black belts Charlie and me had in taekwondo would help if the black-shirts found us.

  When we reached the center of town, I declared, "My stomachache has gone. I'm okay now." I didn't want to go back to the hotel. And anyway, there were meant to be fake soccer shirts. I'd need a bigger size Manchester United shirt when I grew some more.

  So Dad found a car park and we wandered up the main shopping street. Charlie and me stayed right behind Mom and Dad because we didn't want any guys with black shirts pushing us into a dark alley.

  First, we stopped to buy postcards. I wrote one to my two best friends.

  Hey Thomo & Chook,

  The pizza in Italy is the best and the TV in our hotel room has about 100 channels. We're in Sicily and there are guys with black suits and black sunglasses who carry guns. Like out of a movie.

  C u,

  Max

  I'd tell them about Mr. Mafia and the black-shirt guys when I got home.

  I got my Manchester United shirt and Charlie got an AC Milan shirt. He'd probably only wear it if they won the Champions League.

  After that we reached a square. There were buskers and guys painting and food stalls. You could see the ocean and a view of Taormina. Mom and Dad were sighing and carrying on about how they'd miss the lovely view.

  A girl was singing and playing a guitar right near us. She sounded good enough to be on the radio, even though I couldn't understand a word. Her guitar case had lots of coins in it, which gave me a real good idea.

  "Charlie, give me Franco's twenty euros."

  "What for?" Then he saw me glance at the busker. He looked at me like I was crazy. "No way. We'll exchange it when we get home and split it."

  "That money has brought us bad luck. Just think about what has happened since Franco gave it to us. There was the fire alarm, Franco was murdered, Mount Etna erupted and those guys in black shirts could've killed us."

  "They wouldn't have! They wanted us to steal his black book, that's all." He rolled his eyes like I was a total idiot. "And you reckon Mount Etna erupted yesterday because a mafia boss gave us money to buy a few stamps?"

  It was impossible to win an argument with Charlie. "I'll pay you back your share when we get home." The busker began a new song.

  "Do you want to pass the bad luck on to her?"

  "I won't. It'll only bring good luck if we give it away."

  He huffed and took the twenty-euro note out of his pocket. "You owe me."

  I grabbed the money, went over, carefully placed the note in her guitar case and tried not to think about how much twenty euros was worth in Australian dollars. The girl saw the note, gave me a nod and kept singing like a professional.


  I felt real good. I knew I'd turned our bad luck into good luck, even if Charlie didn't know it.

  ***

  That afternoon, we all strode back into the hotel and were stopped by a Carabiniere again. Very politely, he took us all into the same office where we'd been questioned before.

  I whispered to him, "Today, two guys with black shirts wanted Charlie and me to steal Franco Petruzzelli's black book. Do you know them?"

  His eyes widened. "Si. Yes. Grazie. Those boys look tough, but ... how you say ... harmless."

  "Oh." I let out a deep breath. I sort of felt let down. Maybe Charlie and me hadn't been in danger after all. I wanted to ask him a million questions about Franco's black book.

  The Carabiniere must've seen my disappointment because he said, "Mr. Petruzzelli used to write everything down in his black book. Who owed him money and who he owed money. The black-shirt boys think Mr. Petruzzelli owe him money, that's all."

  "Oh."

  The Carabiniere stood at attention and said to all of us, "We would like to inform that Franco Petruzzelli died ... how you say ... of natural causes."

  We all sighed at the same time.

  "Coincidence that at the time another family wanted him dead, he died by himself." He nodded. "Good for us. Maybe no more killing."

  I whispered to Charlie, "Told you giving away that money was good luck."

  ***

  The airport reopened the next morning so we could fly to Rome. We put our bags in the back of the taxi and Charlie said, "So we really aren't related to anyone in Sicily?"

  "No." Mom shook her head like she couldn't believe her oldest son was so dumb.

  The driver shut the trunk and we all got in the car. He said to Mom, "You have relatives in Italia?"

  "Yes," she smiled, "they're from the north."

  Charlie and me looked at each other and realized we'd been mega-stupid. And all that time I'd been worrying about being related to a mafia boss for nothing. I slid down in my seat.

  Charlie called out to Mom, "Why won't you tell us who they are? They're descendants of Michelangelo, aren't they?"