My Idiot Sister is the Chosen One
Chapter 1 Santa Lucia
'Are you even listening?'
When I was first thinking of titles for this book I almost decided to call it that. 'Are you even listening?' was almost a catchphrase for the whole of the adventure I am about to tell you about. Mostly it was me that said it, but I've started with somebody else saying it. Usually it's me saying it to my sister and I get really annoyed because she is quite clearly not listening even when it's something really important (and I mean important – not just 'don't forget your homework important' but 'the whole of the Earth could well end up being consumed in an inferno of hellfire' important). But on this occasion because it was someone else getting fed up with her I do admit I thought it was a little bit funny.
A bit.
Luckily I was listening and I'll tell you what he said. Who am I? I'll tell you in the next chapter, which is sort of the proper beginning. And I'll tell you about my sister too and why there was a man who looked a lot like the jack of clubs in a packet of playing cards standing in our front room going on with himself. That's where the story starts for us. But the full story starts hundreds of years ago and that's what the jack of clubs was telling us about, because he was there. I know, that's a bit weird, isn't it? And I mean 'a bit' weird too, because the other stuff that followed it was even weirder. But we're not there yet. No, let me tell you what this strangely dressed man in our living room told me, only I'll leave out the boring bits and just stick to the fairly exciting stuff.
It turns out this bloke was from somewhere near Florence in the 16th century. He was an inventor and a poet by the name of Francesco Cabriatti and he managed to make a time machine out of paintings of dandelion clocks. I think that's what he said, he rushed over that bit, saying it wasn't too important. No, the reason he had used his time machine was the crucial thing. He was running away from someone. Trying to find us. To give us a warning and set us a task that might very well save the world – or destroy it. It all began with Santa Lucia...
In Cabriatti's village, Santa Lucia in Chianti, at the beginning of summer, there is a festival where all the people of the town come together to celebrate the best of the town's artistic achievement. There is music and dance and theatre but disappointingly no ultimate challenge boxing or cage fighting. It didn't really sound like much of a reason for celebrating at all but Cabriatti seemed mad keen for it. He used to have a stall each year where he'd showcase his inventions. Not the serious stuff that he hoped to make some money from – the multiple loading catapult (he showed me a drawing of that one, it looked quite good) or the solar scribe that could burn a man's handwriting into wood. Cabriatti would simply display toys or amusements, mechanical puppets that could dance or wooden animals that somehow made the noises of the real versions. To most of Santa Lucia Cabriatti was nothing more than an eccentric craftsman who would create these curiosities to bring smiles to the faces of the local children. The few coins he earned selling his toys would go toward his bigger projects and displaying this public, harmless version of his work would allay any suspicions his neighbours might have that he could be working or anything dangerous or inappropriate. When he was talking about it it reminded me of the sort of stuff you see companies doing when you see them trying to reassure you that because they have an exclusive collectible stuffed toy range you don't have to worry about the fact that they also make exclusive collectible guns and weapons.
Did I mention that my sister collects teddy bears? I mean honestly, she's sixteen now and her bed is covered in them. She's even got my bear from when I was a baby. Trevor, his name was. I'd thrown him out when I was four because even at that age I knew that you didn't need to have a cuddly toy any more. She rescued him from the bin, despite our mum saying he was far too dirty now. She insisted mum wash him and even now, nearly ten years later, he sits in pride of place at the foot of her bed. I don't want this to become a list but that's another thing about her that annoys me. He's not even her bear.
Every year Cabriatti was a hit with the kids. Except for this year. Well, not this year, 2011, but his 'this year' which was 1554. There was all the dancing and commedia dell arte stuff going on in the square (which we have been doing about in school recently and I told Cabriatti about this. I said to him that commedia dell arte was a forerunner of modern pantomime, but he didn't know what I was talking about. He got cross when I started to explain it to him and shouted that it wasn't relevant. Quick as you like I shouted back at him 'Oh, yes it is', and on my life, I swear, without even hesitating he replied 'Oh, no it isn't!' That was funny), but no-one was visiting the little alleys where the various craftsmen had set up their stalls. After an uneventful morning, Cabriatti and a few others made their way toward the sound of the merriment wanting to know the reason why it had kept its distance from them. Apparently, the surprising thing was that it wasn't just the craftsmen who were being ignored. As Capriatti got near the centre of town he saw a group of dancers that had decided to call it a day, sitting on the floor in sulky disappointment because no-one had come to see them. There was a juggler and a fire-eater having an argument, each one convinced that it was something the other had done that had driven the crowds away. Even all the minstrels (he didn't use the word 'minstrels', he just said 'musicians', but that's what they were called back then, isn't it? Maybe he didn't know if we still said 'minstrels' and that's why he didn't say it) were drifting away from their own 'patches' (but he did say 'patches'. Weird.) toward the main square to see what had captured everybody's attention.
This was the point at which Capriatti got annoyed with my sister and asked if she was listening. The way he saw it, he was getting to the best bit and thought she should be paying more attention. The way she saw it the X Factor results show was on the telly and there was this tall playing-card looky-likey standing in front of the screen. I sympathised with him but I told him he was wasting his time trying to get through to her. His best bet was to leave her be and just tell me the rest of the story. He wasn't entirely happy about that, but I told him I'd pass on the bits she might need to know when they came up. I was listening.
He looked like he was sulking, but I could tell he must've thought the next bit of his story was really good because he soon perked up and got on with it. Apparently, everybody in the square was watching two women dancing. Even though there were lots of other dancers and groups dotted all over Santa Lucia, nearly everybody seemed to have crowded into this one place to catch a glimpse of this particular pair. The way he was telling it, he didn't think that they were that good dancers and he couldn't understand why everyone was so fascinated. Until he realised that it wasn't the dancing that was getting everybody's attention.
There was a queue of people, all looking as if they were waiting to meet the dancers when they finished, lining up along one edge of the square. It took a second glance for Capriatti to realise that each one of them was suffering from some sort of injury or illness. There were old men with walking sticks, old women coughing and spluttering. There was a mother holding a baby, but she was doing all the crying while her child wasn't making any noise at all. At the front of the queue stood a beautiful young woman that Capriatti recognised. Her name was Angelica (or something like that – although he was speaking English – don't ask me how – whenever he said someone's name he seemed to get, well, a bit more Italian. I'm not sure what he said exactly, but he didn't react when I said Angelica back to him. So I can't have been too far off) and she'd been an artist. Only she'd had an accident where she had fallen off her horse and had her arm trampled. The bones in the arm never healed correctly and her wounds became infected. To the horror of everybody who knew her and her paintings the doctor ordered that her arm should be amputated. He carried out the crude operation himself, leaving Angelica unable to use a brush well enough to paint in the manner she was used to. Some cruel people had said that this had happened because it was wrong that a woman should ever think she could paint. Which just goes to show that people have always had idiotic ideas – it isn't new. When I call my sister an idiot it has nothing to do with her being a girl. It's just that she is an idiot. My other sister's brilliant (and so am I, if I'm honest) so being male or female doesn't have anything to do with anything.
Anyway, there she is, this one-armed painter at the front of the queue and everyone in the crowd is watching her. There's what Capriatti assumed was a monk managing the queue and he beckons for Angelica to come forward. She takes a couple of steps and separates from the rest of the queue. Before you know it the two dancers are circling her and waving their arms and making all sorts of gestures. Again, Capriatti says that their dancing was actually rubbish and he could probably do better himself. But the crowd, at least the crowd that have spent most of the morning already taking in the dancers' performance, are rigid with excitement. They know something incredible is going to happen. Someone screams and the dancers grab hold of Angelica. For a second she struggles, and then she goes limp, pretty much fainting away. One of the dancers supports her weight while the other grabs hold of the stump of her missing arm. She begins to shake it, moving in the clumsy way she had been dancing a few moments ago. The first thing Cabriatti noticed was the gasps of those parts of the crowd that were closer to this bizarre scene.
The next thing he saw was the artist's arm slowly, surely, begin to grow back.
More soonliest.
I'm hooked!!
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