I noticed a lot of things even while the octopus was squirting out of my nose into the breadbasket and filling it up and covering the bread sticks, which were made in Milano and had instructions on their packages about how good they were written in six languages, even Japanese. I noticed Jennifer point at me so her parents both looked, and I noticed how they left the dining terrace and didn’t eat their cassata ice cream dessert, which is a pretty good dessert once you pick all the pieces of candied fruit out of it.

Rachael said, “Stop it, stop it!” over and over, then burst into tears.

So Janet slapped her and said afterward it had been to prevent hysterics, and she had learned this, about slapping preventing hysterics, at her first aid class at Summer Bible School. But Rachael said she was just being mean and taking out her feelings on her.

When it was all over I was led from the dining terrace back to my room, and everyone I passed stared at me to see what somebody looked like who could do such a thing to a perfectly nice pensione.

But Lucrezia’s mother came up to me and patted my cheek and said, “Poverino!” which meant she was sorry for me and wouldn’t make us leave the pensione.

Dad started to take it out on Mom, and I heard the beginning of a fight. His tight voice got very polite in a way that meant as soon as he was alone with Mom, he would be very rude. The polite part I heard Dad saying was, “That was a very interesting little episode, Elsa. What exactly did you have in mind by letting him gorge himself on that fool thing?”

Mom said that she was sorry, and Dad said he was too. But the way he said it meant, “You bet you’ll be sorry for ruining my whole vacation just when my ulcer was starting to heal.”

Then they went to their room after Mom cleaned me up and tucked me into bed and prayed with me and kissed me good night and said, “It could happen to anyone, dear.” But I knew it could only happen to me and that I’d stay in my room for the rest of the vacation so I wouldn’t have to see anyone ever again, especially Jennifer.