This is not an easy thing to imagine, as Papa does not seem very happy lately. Tap-dance? His father? Leo tries to imagine his father so full of happiness that he tap-danced. Leo flips to the middle, where he reads these words, “When I am happy, I tap-dance.” On the title page: The Autobiography of Giorgio, Age of Thirteen. Inside the box, near the top, he finds a small blue leather-bound book with yellowing pages containing his father’s handwriting in small script, brown ink. Leo unearths a box with his father’s name, GIORGIO, on it. Leo pokes through the dusty boxes, an explorer on the verge of an important discovery. The rain pelts the window, seeping in around the edges, dripping in thin streams down the wall. Pietro and Nunzio are fighting, Contento is whining, and Leo flees to the attic. It is raining, pouring, the wind beating against the house. Leo wished his teacher would tell his family that. Once, the drama teacher called him the dreamer, adding that it was not a bad thing to be a dreamer, that all the great writers and artists and musicians were dreamers. “Fog boy! Wake up! Get with the program!” “Earth to fog boy-” Some of his teachers even call him fog boy. “Hey, fog boy!” his older sister Contento calls. When they are not calling him a sardine, they sometimes call him fog boy.
It is not a good idea to call yourself a sardine in a family like Leo’s, who will not let you forget it. “A sardine?”Īnd everyone laughed and took up the chant: “Leo’s a sardine! Leo’s a sardine!” Leo’s youngest brother, Nunzio, lisps. This is because once, several years ago, when the relatives were over, shouting and laughing and shaking their fists, Leo got squashed in a corner and cried, and when they asked him why he was crying, he said, “I’m just a little sardine, squashed in a tin.” His name is Leonardo, and his friends call him Leo, but his family calls him sardine. “Did you hear me, sardine? You’re going to be in big trouble-” “Hey, sardine! Fog boy! What the heck are you doing? Mom is looking all over for you.”
“You saved her life,” the rescue crew tells Leo. By the time the wail of the rescue squad car is heard, she is breathing normally, color returning to her cheeks. “Stand back,” he tells the gathering neighbors as he works at reviving the woman. Leo reaches the old woman, takes her pulse. “Call the rescue squad!” he orders a neighbor peering from her window. Leo leaps from the tree and races down the street.
He scans the neighborhood, and there, midway down the block, he sees the old woman lying on the sidewalk. Peacemaker Guido, quiet Paolo, and traveling Carloįrom his perch in the maple tree, Leo hears a cry of distress, a high-pitched yelping. Pouty Angela, perfect Maddalena, nosy Carmella, and invisible Rosaria Grandma and Grandpa Navy, who always wear navy blue
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