One Step to You (The Rome Novels #1)(60)

At that very moment, the bell rang. Signora Boi laboriously assembled her various items and walked out of the classroom. The girls didn’t even have a chance to get up from their desks before Signora Giacci came in. They all silently sat back down again.

The teacher went to her desk. Babi had the impression that when Signora Giacci came in, she’d looked around, as if in search of something. Then, when she’d spotted Babi, she’d seemed relieved, almost. She’d smiled.

While she sat down, Babi told herself that it had just been an impression. She needed to cut this out. She was starting to fixate. After all, Signora Giacci had no evidence against her.

“Gervasi!”

Babi stood up. Signora Giacci looked at her with a smile on her face. “Come up, come up, Gervasi.”

Babi left her desk. It had been much more than an impression. She’d already been tested in history. Signora Giacci really had it in for her.

“Bring your notebook with you.” That phrase was like a knife to her heart. She felt like she was about to faint, and the classroom began to spin around her. She looked at Pallina. She’d turned pale too.

Babi, with her notebook in her hands—suddenly a terribly heavy load, practically unbearable—trudged slowly up to the teacher’s desk. In the meantime, she was struggling in vain to come up with an answer, some last hope for that strange request. Why did she want her notebook? She couldn’t seem to come up with any other reasons. Her guilty conscience seemed to have nothing to suggest, save what she already knew. She set her notebook on the teacher’s desk.

Signora Giacci opened it, staring at her. “You didn’t come to school yesterday, did you?”

“No.”

“And why not?”

“I wasn’t feeling very well.” And right now she was feeling decidedly unwell. Signora Giacci was getting dangerously close to the excused absences page. She found the last note, the falsified one.

“So you’re claiming this is your mother’s signature, right?” The teacher laid the notebook right before her eyes.

Babi looked at that attempt at imitation of hers. All of a sudden, it struck her as insanely fake-looking, incredibly tremulous, avowedly false and counterfeit. A yes emerged from her lips so faintly that it almost couldn’t be heard.

“Strange. I just talked to your mother on the telephone a few minutes ago, and she didn’t know anything about your absence. Much less did she have any idea that she’d signed a note. She’s on her way over now, and she didn’t seem very happy.

“You’re done at this school, Gervasi. You’re going to be suspended. A forged signature, if reported to the proper authorities, as I intend to do, amounts to an automatic suspension. Too bad, Gervasi. You could have earned an excellent grade on your final exam. That’ll have to be for next year. Here you are.”

Babi took back her notebook. Now it seemed incredibly light. Suddenly everything seemed different to her, her movements, her footsteps. It was as if she were floating in midair. As she went back to her desk, she saw the glances of her classmates, heard their strange silence. She felt something like joy, an absurd taste of happiness. Then, when she got to her desk, she slowly sat down.

“This time, Gervasi, it was you who made the mistake!”

She didn’t really understand what happened next. She found herself in a room with wooden benches. Her mother was there, screaming at her. Then Signora Giacci arrived with the principal. They made Babi leave the room. They went on discussing the matter while she waited in the hallway. A nun went by in the distance. They exchanged a glance, without a smile or a hello. Later, her mother emerged. She dragged Babi by the arm. She was very angry.

“Mamma, am I going to be expelled?”

“No, tomorrow morning you’ll go back to school. Maybe there’s a solution, but first I need to hear what your father has to say about this and whether he’s in agreement.”

As she went down the stairs, Babi wondered what that solution could be, if her mother seemed to think that she needed her father to agree to the decision. Later, after dinner, she finally found out. It was just a matter of money. They were going to have to pay. The great thing about private schools is that everything can be settled easily. The only real question is just how easily, that is, for how much.

Daniela entered her sister’s bedroom with the cordless phone in her hand. “Here, it’s for you.”

Babi, worn out by the tide of events, had fallen asleep. She ran a hand over her face, brushing her hair back and cradling the white telephone against her cheek. “Hello.”

“Ciao. Will you come with me?” It was Step.

Babi sat up in bed. Now she was wide awake. “I’d be glad to, but I’m not allowed.”

“Come on, let’s go to Parnaso, or else to the Pantheon. I’ll treat you to a coffee granita with whipped cream at the Tazza d’Oro. Have you ever tried it? It’s magical.”

“I’m grounded.”

“Again? But weren’t you ungrounded?”

“Yes, but today my teacher caught me for turning in a counterfeit note from my mother, and all hell broke loose. That woman has it in for me. She filed a report with the principal. She wanted to flunk me, and I’d have to repeat the whole year. But my mother managed to set everything straight.”

“Your mother is powerful! Scary, no two ways about it but she gets what she wants.”