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Copyright © Debora Cilli 2010

License CC 3.0: you are free to share, copy, distribute and transmit the work under the following conditions:

you must attribute the work to the author, quoting her name and website/blog (but not in any way that suggests that she

endorses you or your use of the work);you may not use this work for commercial purposes;

you may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

You can find the other works of this author hier:

www.deboracilli.com and http://deboracilli.blogspot.com/

Any resemblance to real events and/or to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental

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In a crisp morning with grey clouds hanging over a threat of shower, Agata sprang out of the main gate, happy in her red boots.“Mum, come!”Two drops fell, Paula raised her eyes to the cinereous skeins unrolling at the mercy of draughts, then announced smiling: “We must fly between drops like seagulls, are you ready?” Laughing out loud, they ran through the block, swerving puddles and leaping over tongues of mud. Held by the ribbon loops in Agata's right hand, rocked the gift-parcel for her friend Maia.They sprang at the Volta Square's green traffic light and glided down on Voltamatte meadow.“And now, mum? Where is it?” Paula rubbed her chin dubious, studying the map on a metallic placard.

Chapter 1

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She scanned the intersection at their back, the wall of trees blocking the front view, the incinerator chimney on the right and the livid, impending, block of Snoxtav on the left and took a decision: “This way, I guess...” They crossed the wet grass and turned into a dark path stretching between two parallel fences.“Look, mum!” The mesh of metallic net, hardly keeping the tentacles of a thick hedge, had broken off giving room to a yellow cottage. Paula admired the spray-can graffiti and recognized the place they were looking for: “Here we go, Agata: it's the Robispiel.”A few steps further, the sight opened on a courtyard with running children and groups of adults intent on talking.The smoke of the grill rose to join the grey of the sky with mouthwatering spirals.The rustic hut echoed the voices of Maia's mum and granny, busy at taking delicacies out of the oven. From the kitchen branched off three ateliers, where aspiring young artists were usually trained towards creative tasks, but today the eccentric walls covered with their productions were smirking from the background to the guests of a 6-years-old birthday party.

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Dirty aprons hung up in a blob of mixed colors, a bunch of neglected paintbrushes rose from tin-cans, rolls of canvas crowded a corner, but despite this stillness, a spiteful and perky puff was dancing in every room. It stirred the knick-knacks hanging from pendant lamps, triggered a cluster of reflections flashing through the windows' glass, poked the grimaces of masks blossoming from the ceiling and added vivid brush-strokes to the paintings throning the walls. In short the masterpieces and that fantastic atmosphere animating them joyfully overlapped auspicious festoons, balloons and the jubilation of food and beverages that had invaded the table. Waiting for the last guests (and the lunch...), Agata, Maia, her cousins Ben and Micael, her brother Serdal and friends Emira, Mirushi and Giulia dispersed throughout the park.The silva encircling the yellow cottage appeared more like a real jungle. Trees were so high they touched the blue and had domes of speckled leaves. The branches' wattles opened deep tunnels of dark green into the foliage, while buds had a more tender nuance. Their arms fanned out to embrace the wind.

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Agata imagined to be an explorer on the track of the secret shelter of wood's fairies; raising her eyes she noticed wooden platforms fixed right under the trees' wide green umbrellas. They could be reached climbing ladders hanging down to the ground. A cobweb of hidden cables carried ropes looking like lianas. Kids climbed them and, with one arm crooked for support around cords, had fun rocking and jumping on the wing from one to the other and competing on who could manage to touch the highest leaf. The world was spinning all around, triggering a tickle in the belly. That thrill of fear and pleasure fermented as sparkling bubbles till it bursted out in laughters.

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Yells and chuckles continued when Maia's mum called them for lunch: a colorful, noisy cloud swarmed on the gravel of courtyard to end up sucked into the cottage.The company, in all shades of white, brown and black, was cheerful: clinks of glasses, weaving of arms passing trays, of hands stretching to take pizza slices, raw vegetables, painted boiled eggs, dry fruit... A babel of languages crowned this gay racket the way a rainbow bends on a meadow dotted with multi-colored flowers. Agata, her mother Paula and also Lorena with her daughter Giulia spoke Italian; Maia, her parents Pilar and Ramon and the brother Serdal, Spanish. Their half Portuguese cousins, Ben and Micael, thanked with a shy “obrigado”, while Emira couldn't help using the arabic “shukran”, in need. Mirushi, sitting quietly in her silk sari, grinned still with velvet eyes.

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When gestures, smiles, assonances and travel memories did not suffice to help deciphering foreigner talks, they passed to the common language they had adopted living in Basel: a mixture between the local dialect and the high German.The party lasted long and reached its apex when the tart came in. Maia blew out 6 candles and a chorus of wishes celebrated her one year older. After the last teaspoon of whipped cream, chocolate, sponge cake and chopped nuts, the children fled into the enchanted garden leaving grownups to calmer and serious talks.

S o m e s e c o n d s o f s i l e n c e buttoned up their exodus and t h i s s u s p e n d i n g m o m e n t attracted as a magnet the curiosity of Agata, Maia and Serdal, who came back stealthily and squatted under the open window.

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In the darkness of stillness, in fact, urchins know it, there is enough room to hide secrets and kids, adults know it, are greedy for secrets.Cruz, Pilar's friend, nodded in the direction of a camera with which Paula had immortalized the works of art and characteristic corners more than the portrays of merrymakers and urged her:“Cash in on, till you can: soon they are going to knock everything down.”“What do you mean?”“What do they say?” said Maia“Let me also see!” complained Agata, hopping on her feet to cover the distance to the window.“Shush!” Serdal rebuked both of them.“Are they shutting the park?” tried again Maia.“Shush!”“I'm saying: no more cottage, no trees, nor playground or open-air feasts, art exhibitions, ateliers for children... It is all going to be razed to the ground and drowned in cement. Steel and glass towers, office buildings and pharmaceutical labs will take the place of trees...”“Pharma-what?” insisted Maia.“I cannot seeeee!” laid it on thicker Agata.“Shush!” hissed Serdal to his right and left.Paula's reply, “but they cannot be allowed to do it, we must do something and stop them!”, overlapped Maia and Agata's yell who said simultaneously: “Are they going to shut the park?! No! But why?” while Serdal, upset that parents may spot them eavesdropping, waved his hands meaning to lower the voice and finally bursted out in the umpteenth: “Shush!”

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Invv

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Chapter 2

Maia and her brother started quarreling and Agata, pissed about being ignored once again, lost interest in the matter and hopped away. Leaping past the rabbits cage she glanced over to where they were hiding and resolved to pick some large leaves to feed them. The voices of her friends disturbed her efforts to cajole the pets' confidence though, so she abandoned the bunch of leaflets and ran back to involve the kids into a game. She shouted: “Hey, let's play tag!” Then with a swift movement touched the arm of the closer one and fled with a giggle. Serdal ran after her and Maia followed. The sand-and-gravel path crunched under their gallop, covering the fervor of conversations conducted inside the cottage.Paula was still in disbelief: “I did not hear anything about that... I mean... People should talk about such things, right? Everybody seems to be asleep...”Cruz butted in: “Oh some green activists protested with banners and performed a sonata for loudspeakers all along the railings of Snoxtav, but it was like throwing a coin into a well: you don't even get the tinkling back.”Paula would not let go of the bone: “Sure, but a small shouting crowd assembled outside means nothing, they should have alerted media and spread the dreary piece of news!”Her spanish friend shrugged: “As far as I know someone interviewed the locals who grew up in this playground and quite a mobilization of the neighborhood took place, but it has all been ineffective...”Here stands a man, impeccable in his dark grey suit. He wears a hat that casts a long shadow on his face. You cannot see his eyes, it does not matter, 'cause he is blind and he cannot enjoy the sense of touch or smell either. A grim smile deforms his face.Bring him on the top of a hill and unroll the most fabulous landscape of green slopes, silvery rivers and rustling trees, add the chirping of birds, a warm sun and a sky deep as an ocean, he will not move a muscle, nor feel any tenderness.

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His soul is not melt at the sight of beauty, all his heartbeat is tuned on is money's tinkle.

“Cut, poison, kill, uproot, deforest, drill

I will make a lot of moneyand they will pay the bill!”

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”Wow Look at those shapes!” Agata sneaked her face between the carvings of the colored barrier to see what it sheltered. “What is there? It looks like a park! Can we go and play?”“No, it's private,” answered Serdal, sour.“But nobody's there!”“Of course...” Then with a faint voice he added: “It belongs to those who want to get rid of our Robispiel...”“Who are they?”“I dunno, Agata.”“And why?” “Why what? I dunno because I dunno!”“Noooo: why do they want to take our park?” Pressed Agata. “To build new offices and a recreation area...”

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“Ah, one for kids!”“No.”“For whom then?”“For those who work inside there.”“And why?”“You and your Whys! I cannot know everything!”“Our mum smokes a cigarette outside when she has the coffee break at work...” Interrupted Maia. “Smoking is bad!” said Agata. “And then you smoke squirrels out of their holes! Poor things...”“Hey look!” Between the fence's intaglios they recognized the rodent's brown shadow and its soft, fluffy tail, running up a tree.“Why do grownups use parks to fume cigarettes?” The fact did not sound right to Agata.“One says 'smoke', not 'fume'! Come on let's go, your mum is calling... Hey what are you up to?”Agata was ambling towards what appeared to be a pile of rags.A tramp was squatting close to the fence, his back resting uncomfortably on the carved metal. She had mistaken him for a crabbed trunk: his long beard a worn musk, his filthy hat a birdies' nest. He was lost in his thoughts and did not mind the kids' presence. His voice was crooked just like him, still it sounded fierce: “The multinational companies with the left hand give and with the right one take,you will never collect enough evidences to condemn them to the stake. “We send medicines to Africa, for free!” they claim, then you find out they were expired and children's foreheads are aflame.“We raise money to provide humanitarian aid!” they boast, then the CEO flees with charity founds to Caribbean and celebrates with a toast.

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Steal, lie, hide and disguise,the boat is sinking, what a surprise!”

In few days the Robispiel-subject was no more actual and children got back into their routine of drinking from the cup of life with big gulps. Dismissing such issue as old and no more interesting was not a matter of volatility. Just the indulgence to a precise call: chop with greedy jaws all that is new for the insatiable need to learn and experience. One who could not forget easily was Serdal though. He would have, actually, if it was not for a casual statement he had caught the same night of the birthday party. Passing by his parents bedroom in his way towards the kitchen and a glass of water, he grasped the fragment of a conversation. Despite him being half-asleep and having a parched throat that clouded his mind, he would have sworn he heard his mother saying: “There is only one thing to do to stop such megacorps: drop a bomb. A bomb and that's it!” His own chubby mum was talking like that? His mum who was afraid of spiders and reproached him whenever he said “Dumme Kopf!” to Maia? He could not believe it! And on top of everything his father was laughing and teasing her: “And how would you make that bomb, Pilar? Tell me...” “E a s y d o n e , d e a r : c o c a c o l a a n d m e n t o s a n d . . . BOOOOOOOM!”He leaped back with a gasp. What were his crazy parents up to?

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Another one who could not easily dismiss the matter was Paula. She had tried to hush the news plunging into her daily duties. She imagined to be into a padded underwater jelly: a distant place away from unpleasant thoughts. But while she was floating weightlessly a population of sea turtles, whales and manatees gathered around her, swimming away from the threat of thousands of gallons of oil pouring into the ocean from a tanker's leak. They all know already that when oil gets on their skin it sticks, when it gets in their lungs it burns and when they ingest it, the gunge can damage their inside. A disheartening cognizance bursted her daydream, matter-of-factly: since ever the stronger and bigger ones [who are mostly pretty brainless] squeeze in their grasp the weaker ones. “And this is how world spins.” Such thought hounded her like the beats of many birds' wings shaking the air in terror till it flooded, from the background, every fold of her conscious mind. Needing an outlet to that noisy buzz, she started spreading the news with friends and acquaintances.

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At the beginning Paula sounded casual and vaguely detached as if she was not talking about a dreary likely future, but of a long-distant past. Despite what she had expected, people did not react with apathy though. They shared her same feeling of furious impotence, that is true, but she discovered soon that the initial discomfort could spontaneously become the fuse setting off a proper engagement. So she had to change her initial statement: weaker ones are helpless only as far as they remain ignorant. When they gain awareness, they are granted the resources to operate. Now she knew that all together they would have been able to contrast what had appeared to be the inevitable course of events: “We can do something! But... What?”

Serdal was also ruminating about strong deeds and bold enterprises, but more in the sens of halting his wanna-be-terrorist mum from sinking her middle-age crisis into the pool of crime. “But... How?”While scrutinizing one worst-case scenario after the other, to test his reaction capacity, he behaved in a very off-putting way with his friends, especially Agata who hassled him a lot.“Hey, look here! Looooook Ser-daaaaaaal! See what I can do!” She shouted while performing her acrobatic skills in the playground, springing across the grass and hanging off of the ankles by bracing them between the bars of a metal tower used as a trapeze.His sister Maia was pulling his T-shirt: “She has learnt it at the circus school, cool uh?”“Ser-da-aaaaal, look: without hands!” Agata was still rocking, waving arms in the air.“Ooooooh shut up you and your circ...” But he had to stop because a sudden idea had enlightened a bulb in his mind. He smacked the forehead with his palm and exclaimed: “Sure: the circus!”

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He roused from his indifference and started jumping around as electrocuted, prey to uncontrollable excitement: “Let's go guys, we have a lot of work to do!” Maia and Agata shared a questioning glance. Despite the fact that now he had a plan, Serdal did not ever lower his guard on parents' front. He could not afford any 'letting go and dropping down' mode. If his father was too blind or busy to realize the gravity of the situation, he had the duty of performing a vicarious male-role: he would have led the family boat, now without a compass, to a safe track. Spying his mum became his badge of honor and he started obsessively noticing any flaw in her usual demeanor. Checking her bag, running to the phone whenever it rang, rummaging in her drawers for a clue of the impending crime implied also some irritating backlashes, like when he found his

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grandma at the other end of the receiver and had to indulge her talks of corns and improbable soap-operas' plots.Overwhelmed by anxiety he took a definitive decision: “She said coca cola and mentos, right?” His plan took shape with sharp clarity: “Just check the shopping bags, detect the rough material for the molotov and destroy it!”His fondness for the task did not match the organizing skills: after he had filled his under-bed storage with coca cola bottles and packages of menthol drops, he did not know where to hide the spoils any more. Moreover his mother had became suspicious of such baffling increase of supplies' consumption. Once, while kissing her children goodnight, she caught a bottle sneaking from under the bed, raised the blanket and discovered the cache.“What are you doing here?”He felt goofy and tried to hide it back with clumsy movements: “Nothing, mum, nothing...” Then he broke down and whimpered: “I don't want you to make a bomb!”“What are you talking about, Serdal?”Embarrassed, he burst into sobbing and finally confessed: “You said the only thing to do is to drop a bomb... I had to stop you!”“Me? A bomb? Oh dear... But where? When did I say that?”“About Snoxtav and the Robispiel, mum...”She finally recalled that snatch of conversation she had had with her husband and felt a thorn of shame and regret in her heart: “But, sweetheart, it was just for talking, not for real. I would never do anything like that, you should know me!”“Then why you said that?”“Sometimes adults brag, just like kids...”Always sniffing he asked: “But why?” with a touch of anger.“Because sometimes we feel impotent, like little ants in front of a high mountain... We feel frustrated in front of injustice and abuse, so we vent saying silly things. It does not change reality but gives you the illusion of feeling a bit better.”

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“What does 'impotent' mean?”“Not being able to turn something bad into something good.”Serdal's heartbeat quickened in anticipation, while he thought with a secret smile: “Don't worry, mum, there is a way to change things.”

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Chapter 3

Paula shared his conviction. The first thing to do, she thought, is to connect all friends who could have helped her to foster her intentions. In the last few days a bold idea had muscled in on her thinking. Cruz had mentioned locals who were bred up into that Robispiel park, senior citizens whose heart must surely yearn: destroying their dear playground would have meant throwing into the fire the pictures of their childhood memories. She may have found allies there. Then there were the handicrafter working in the yellow cottage and the current kids learning, playing and making art there (Paula listed them under the column 'helpers' as well). She could include the inhabitants of the neighborhood, better if families with children who were directly affected by the loss of another green space. Seeing the matter under a wider perspective, she thought to involve those institutions who would have been more sensitive to the cause. First the agency for preservation of historical monuments, after all the Voltamatte playground opened in 1957, first in the whole Switzerland to be dedicated to children's care and free time. Secondly the one in charge of conserving the natural environment, and perhaps also some green activists.When Paula put the pen down, her lungs swelled with pride: she felt like general Custer inspecting the different branches of his army: commander-in chief (she did not want to boast, but...), infantry, artillery, the mule train with supplies (fight makes hungry...), and the trump card: the cavalry! After few minutes a reality check knocked on the door of her enthusiasm and she had to adjust her vision considering that she was a hard-core pacifist and she had always been on Indians' side, at that...In the meanwhile Agata had popped into the room and was still at her mother's desk, bouncing on the balls of her feet and playing nervously with her fingers.

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“Muuuum?”“Yes, darling?”“Would you make me a cake?”“Oh, Agata, you know that I don't like you eating sweets, it's bad for your teeth and belly...”The little one pinched her lips: “But it's not for me...”“For whom then?”“For a new swing...”Paula looked at the child with curiosity, she blushed and continued: “Mums of my friends make a tart each, then we sell them at the flea-market to buy a new swing for the garden...”“It sounds like a great idea, sweetheart!”They closed that they would have baked it together the next day, because “Now we have to go and make some interview!” Paula said lifting Agata into the air.The two information-hunters rode the bicycle in the city far and wide and stopped here and there to achieve their report tasks.Paula listened to the memories of old citizen who had enjoyed their youth at the Robispiel, “I was very happy there,” one said “and I'm sorry to know that my grandchildren won't have a chance to share such a feeling.” The man sitting next to him on the park's bench showed his hands: “I have been a blacksmith all my life and as a child I learnt the craft in that same workshop. What a pity...”She also got opinions of people in the park, while Agata was running behind a ball with new friends.“This is really sad,” one mother said, rocking a pram, “you know? We keep relocating in search of some vert. We used to live in front of a beautiful meadow with trees; from the window I could see my older kids frolicking downstairs. Then one day bulldozers came to dig an underground parking lot and thebeautiful green turned into an amount of mud, broken roots gazing at the sky and debris.

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When we got out we saw all little animals escaped from destruction searching refuge on the walls of our building. Its surface was covered by crickets, lizards, geckos, climbing squirrels, running mice, jumping frogs and birds flying about. One month later I decided I could not stand seeing the thin carpet of yellow grass covering the garage and we moved to another place.” Paula had been allowed to shoot the interviews and had also obtained from some senior citizens old pictures of the area. She discovered that what now appeared to be a lost island squeezed between cement giants, in the past was a colorful spot into an ocean of green, the navel of a wood. “If we keep paving nature,” Paula thought, “there will not remain an inch to tell our grandchildren how it was before greed had turned green into grey.”She collected pictures, some hours of filming and filled a notepad with data. Made lots of phone-calls and spent some nights giving all that material a compelling order. When she finally called her friend Andrea, who lived with the family in Manila, he told her that in the Philippines it was actually 3 a.m. “Oh I'm so sorry! I forgot the time zone...” “No worries, my little Laura is keeping me up tonight, so what's the matter?” She told him about the project and said she had sent him a plan for editing the footage and the whole rough stuff: “I need you to put pieces together into a telling way: we want a strong documentary. Will you help me?” Two days later her mail box was pulsating for an incoming mail: the sender was Andrea and it carried an attachment. The object: “here we go my fighter friend” made Paula smile.

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Serdal's plan was simple, so simple that when Agata's acrobatics had given him the idea, he was surprised not to have thought about it before. Of course he was very aware that the only way to save their park was to redeem it from Snoxtav, what puzzled him was how to get the money for the transaction. In his piggy bank he had only 1 Swiss franc (he would have had 2, if he had not spent one for stickers...) and as far as he knew in Maia's languished a lollypop forgotten from last carnival... But then an epiphany manifested itself: he could put together a circus-show with friends (ok, maybe the expression sounded a bit high-flown, but one cannot hope to raise public's interest if entitles the exhibition 'look what I can make show', right?) and raise their needed founds by selling the entry tickets and cakes plus beverages in the break. In his inventory of 'things to do' he listed: call Robin's brother who works in the theatre and may arrange some bench, costumes and juggling stuff, write invitations and promotional placards, spread/glue them around, recruit mums for baking cakes and... Ah, yes, ummm: start training sessions with friends.

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Agata arrived in Petersplatz completely out of breath, balancing the chocolate cake (her favorite one and she could not even give a small bite, what an injustice!) on her flat hands. “Take it inside!” shouted Serdal, busy with an improvised ticket booth, jerking a thumb at a wooden storage-wagon. She climbed up its two steps, entered the dark box packed with play stuff and laid her tart on a table, between the other delicacies. People were milling about the open space occupied by benches and chairs while, on the other side of a scarlet curtain, young artists, busy rehearsing their turns, tried not to get distracted by the buzzing. Agata stood, fascinated. A bracing fear bit into her heart, as she was peering at the crowd: soon she would have been performing in front of all of them and that revelation gave her a grain of anxiety. She recognized her kindergarten mates, friends and acquaintances. There was Joel hoisted on his father's shoulders and Samira with her dog tugging at the leash. Agata saw her mum leading her way with a wavering gait: her myopic look was groping about the area in search of her.

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The little girl felt a rush of affection and, despite Serdal's shout “On staaaaaage!”, she ran to Paula with open arms. “Ah, here you are!” said her mother. “What luck I found you, mum!” Agata's eyes were smiling. They held each other tight, then Paula planted a kiss on her child's cheek and whispered: “Have fun up there!”When Serdal appeared on the stage with a funny stovepipe hat and a chopstick in his right hand (meant to be the 'scepter' of the spotlight chaser), a murmuring of tenderness and approval floated over the stalls.In the dark corner where she had taken place, Agata missed most of the introduction, she got “Ladies and Gentlemen”, “extraordinary ability”, “will enchant you”, but her thoughts were running fast under the thrill of the waiting. She was so away that when he announced “may the show begin!” and rolled up the red velvet screen, she glanced at the public like a deer mesmerized by high-beams, feeling a shock of exposure. That suspension did not last long though, because soon she mingled with the other colorful sprites hopping, dancing, swinging and flying over the improvised stand. The audience uttered calls of amazement and admiration, enjoying the purest and most archaic celebration of ability. Acrobats were twisting in the air around silk stripes, then it followed the human pyramid and from the public it rose a 'WOW' of disbelief; while they clapped with enthusiasm the skilled jugglers. Each performance merged into the next one with the breath-taking rhythm of a fireworks show. A tickle of joy invaded everybody, the kind of happiness that rises from the belly's button. There where all ancestral moods are, a hidden place that grown-ups cherish because it holds their childhood's memories and that naïve propensity to wonder. The show was not perfect but everybody found it fabulous. Whenever a mistake happened the performers had the grace to turn the impasse into a good chance to make the public laugh with complicity or applaud with solidarity.

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The artist who had failed a catching did not try to make up for lost balls, brimming with anxiety and shame. He would stop, wait to get to the next octave and join the others again. And they would not humiliate him with a reproach glare. On the contrary, they rallied him with casual looks, while making imperceptible changes to the sequence that would have simplified his return into the chorus of acrobatics. That night Agatha was engulfed by the eagerness of articulating in a proper way the tangle of urgent feelings she had felt on the stage. Frustrated by her poor vocabulary she let the emotion vent through her limbs. So she started hopping, dancing and running all around the room, as the hyperkinetic victim of a tarantula's bite. When she dropped on her bed with a last ranting laughter, Paula bent over her forehead to give a good-night kiss and said: “Mind you, Agata, this afternoon we learnt that it's not important to achieve perfection in this world, it's enough to do our best and, most of all, to do it together. We are little stars of infinite constellations, each dot has to perform its orbit in harmony with that of its mates, so that the whole system can function properly.”

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Chapter 4

Paula had heard that in the so called 'doors open day' at Snoxtav a rigid protocol was observed. The first half of the day was devoted to the new members of staff for “the indoctrination...” she thought with a sardonic smile, recalling some akin occasion she had experienced in her past. “For welcoming,” someone else would have said, “and introducing the new employees to the world of a multinational power!” The second half was for public and media and that opportunity was the one Paula would have been swift to seize. She overhauled her plan, fiddling with the DVD and cracked an oblique smile: planning an 'attack' of that nature had an undaunted, bushwhacking ring. A thrill of excitement made her fingers itch. One thing was sure: she had to be focussed, cold and ready for anything! [“Do not exaggerate now...” She told to herself with an indulgent smile.]When the time arrived, she slid the CD-case into her bag, took a jacket and ran out. She felt to be a super-hero: the patrician frowning of one who answers to the call of duty and the look of hard-fought awareness of one who carries world's responsibility on the back. She was ready for big achievements, but what she did not know was that Agata had a role into the game as well. When the child reached the corporation's gates together with Maia and Serdal, who was locking a clay pig into his armpit, visitors were jamming elbow to elbow on the pavement outside. Agata stared at the bunches of balloons rocking in the air like waterfalls of grapes challenging gravity force and jerking Maia's arm, she yelled: “Hey look there! Do you think we might have one?” Serdal silenced her with a medusa glare: “We are not going to share ANYTHING with the enemy, right? We will not let them captivate us with cheap blandishments! Have I made myself clear?” “Mmmm no.” Said Agata, honestly.

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“I don't know what that blandi-thing is... Can I have my balloon now? Would you ask that man?” She pointed at a security guard with crossed arms threatening to burst out of the uniform. He grabbed her hand because she had turned to put the idea into action and whispered to her and his sister as well: “Listen, we are here to accomplish a task, ok?” The two nodded, “good, so let's go and do it, without distractions, ok?” When Maia asked if they would have been allowed to nibble at the canapés, he answered with a discouraging grunt.They pushed their way through the crowd till they reached the entrance. The hall was congested by guests stuffing with the several appetizer courses winking from long tables. Everybody was drinking, gesticulating, talking. The three little friends on the rope stood in front of a billboard displaying clusters of names with the held positions and the respective floor and office. Serdal browsed frantically: he was searching the top of the pyramid, he could not make business with some gofer, right? When he finally reached it, he yelled out loud: “Andréas Luzzi, here we go, that's the man!” Maia and Agata looked at him with the respect due to an older mate for whom the hidden secrets of reading had been disclosed.There was only a little problem: the office they were headed to was on the eighth floor... Now that he was thinking of it, Serdal realized he had not reckoned with a second issue: he was not tall enough to reach the correspondent button on the lift.On top of that he suddenly noticed a security guard presiding over the elevator. He grabbed the girls' wrists and pulled them behind a potted plant.“Ok, guys, we have a problem...”“We are not GUYS!” Maia objected.He dismissed her with a raised-eyebrow stare and continued: “Agata, can you count till 10?”

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“I can count to 35!” She answered proudly, “look: one-two-four-seven-eleven-nineteen-twenty-thirty five!”Serdal smote his head with his fist, then in a despairing tone he turned to his sister: “And you?” She got all huffy with him, eyes downcast and stiff manners. “Oh come'n!” She darted a mischievous look and said: “I'll tell you if you let me play with your stickers...” He sighed heavily, “ok, be it so!”“One-two-three-four-five.... ten!”“Great!”“I want to do something too!” Moaned Agata.Serdal had a scheme and whispered it into her ear, the little girl nodded with a smile. She tore herself free from leaves' shadow and started simulating a wretched cry: “I want my muuuuuuuum, bring me to muuuuuuum,” she sobbed out.Serdal, pretending embarrassment and urge, made clumsy attempts to appease her, while rushing past the sentinel. He raised big eyes to the man and said humbly: “We gotta reach mum, you know... Her office is upstairs...” He stepped clear of them and the three disappeared into the lift. Here Serdal put Maia over his shoulders and solicited her to press the button “one and zero: ten.”Agata pulled his T-shirt “How was I?”He raised the thumb up as a sign of approval.Paula funneled into the crowded entrance and stole a morsel from the tray of salmon samples. A flicker of guilt crossed her face. She checked the watch and cast a last glance at the program: time was extremely critical in a plan like hers...She flicked down the folds of her jacket and dismissed any leftover fear with a toss of wild hair, then sighted a woman in suit, who had more or less her features. Paula took a glass of water from the buffet and with a wavering gait she made her way into her mark's direction.“Blimey! I'm so sorry...” She said innocently, after having bumped into her target.

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While excusing herself she fumbled her hands in the apparent attempt of wiping the water split on her victim's suit. In all that bustling she succeeded in snatching with sleight the Snoxtav badge from the stranger lady. She freed herself from the forced encounter and lengthened her stride towards the media area, showing off her brand new identification pin and flashing self-confident smiles all around.Her friend Urs had told her about a movie theater inside the building, where they used to screen self-commemorative documentaries. Such spots consisted of a review of high ranks in chief, the list of achievements in global business and a rosary of praiseworthy deeds in the fields of humanitarian engagement, environmental protection, charity… All spread out with dissimulated pride, fake discretion and hypocrite reluctance, respectively. “It's time to show what the big benefactor hides under the carpet...” winked Paula.

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It was 6 p.m. and the organizers were trying to divert the knots of people from the buffet.Like sheepdogs they succeeded in herding the guests into the audience chamber. Paula found the office of video technicians and stood for a moment outside, overwhelmed by anxiety and doubt: “What am I going to do now?”She figured out a bold last-minute plan and ran away to pick some rough material she needed to perform her show. When she came back she was carrying a tray with cups of steaming-hot coffees and knocked politely at the office's door. At the “Come in!” shout she sneaked inside smiling broadly: “Hi everybody, I thought someone may need some fuel up here!” Two men swiveled in their chairs to face her. They scanned her with suspect for some seconds, then surrendered to the tasty cups.Paula tossed frantic looks around and when she saw a DVD lying on the table with a label “welcome day doc” she let out a stifled sigh of relief. She decided to test the old trick she had performed with their lady colleague and pretended to stumble on a floor's bump. The tray floated in the air for an instant, then landed on the guys' shirts.She acted the abashed bungler and lavished excuses. The two rosed to their feet hurling heavy imprecations and left for the toilet, followed by her theatrical “I'm sooooorrrryyyyy!”She went back inside the room, drew out of her bag her DVD, freed it from the case with a snap and substituted the original disk, lying on the desk, with her own. She rushed out, her heart thumping wildly.

The CEO Andréas Luzzi heard a thump at the door. He frowned but kept typing in. At the second knock he cast the laptop with a gesture of irritation and slammed the door open: “Is this the way of...” To his dismay, nobody was standing in front of him, “what the hell...?”

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Serdal cleared his throat, forcing the man to lower his look and he finally focussed three kids staring at him with open wide eyes.He glowered at them for a long moment, but given that he had not succeeded in scaring them, he finally said: “You lost your mums?”The words tore out of Serdal's throat like a jet of foam fizzing out from a shaken coca-cola bottle: “We want to redeem our park, here is the money,” and he stretched the clay pig. Maia nodded “sure, the Robispiel, you know...” “Rock it, Serdal,” intervened Agata “so he can hear that it's full!”Mr Luzzi was standing flabbergasted, his right hand still on the handle.Agata elbowed Serdal's side and whispered: “I told you, the money is not enough...” Maia objected: “how can he say that? There was no price written on the park's gate!”The CEO burst into a loud laughter, then started scoffing at them with a contemptuous tone: “You really think to come here and buy that shitty place back?” Agata pulled her friend's pullover: “Have you heard? He said 'shitty'!” Serdal dislodged her hand and said, coldly: “You are being impolite, sir, we are here for business.” His words were covered by the man's hysterical laugh, the boy felt his temper raising and was going to say something nasty when a phone rang. Still wiping tears from eyes by laughing so hard, Mr. Luzzi fetched the mobile phone out of his inner breast pocket and answered. His face turned grey: “Whaaaaaat?”When the two video engineers came back from the lavatory with stained shirts their office was empty and a bit of a mess, but they had to make up for lost time, so they focussed on the showing. They slipped the DVD into the player and opened it through a reproducing program.

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Through a transom window, running eye-height along the lateral wall, they could cast a sidelong glance at the crowded pit in the movie theater: random silencing hisses ran over public heads, in order to quiet down the islands of buzz. The two guys flopped down in their armchairs ready to relax while the audience was busy with the projection.Media representatives thronged the hall's perimeter in the dark, setting cameras on tripods. That forest of heads, microphones and cams was almost all Paula could see, peeking through the portholes of two thick swing doors.After few frames though, everybody, from the bigshots in the front row to the last cameraman wedged among others in the rear rank, understood that what was on screen was not the kind of documentary they were supposed to watch. Paula grinned, unnoticed. Then everything happened very fast: the managerial staff members jumped on their feet and started waving arms in direction of the pigeon-house. The engineers, perched up there, translated such unmistakable gesture simultaneously: “Quick! Let's cut it!” But they had reckoned without the greed for news of the reporters who, having smelled an appetizing stuff, threw themselves to the men in suit and started dropping a hail of questions under flashes' light. The guests, ordinary people that had come to plunder the buffet and did not really harbor a inch of interest in whatever multinational enterprises, moved towards the exit in stunned and chaotic clusters. A blare of loud voices, yelled orders, dragging feet spiced the scene. Paula noticed a guy left behind by his crew. He was quite young. She pictured a wanna-be journalist, skilled but not aggressive enough, more prone to daydream than to assault a source. She felt compassion and approached him: “Anything wrong?” asked with a low voice. He shrugged: “I lost the first big shot of my career...”

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Then, with a swift, smoldering smile, he added: “but I'll seize the next occasion, I swear, if I had to...” Paula returned his smile quietly and made a gesture to damp his boast down: “this may already be the one,” said while stretching a copy of her DVD.” The man looked at her inquiringly. “I would stow it away though...” she added before disappearing.

It came a point when everybody seemed to be running into that labyrinthine building. Like video game's blinking dots, chasing each other, Paula, the kids and other people for various reasons were covering corridors, rushing down staircases, passing through rooms budding one from the other like endless matryoshkas. Our heros (unaware of each other) were trying to find a way out, while security guards strode rapidly to catch up a woman who had stolen a badge (that someone had found under a buffet table by the way) and seemed to be chargeable of a DVD swap. Paula could hear the noise of heavy steps behind her back and for a moment imagined herself trapped inside that nightmare forever, “Lorena told me that one needs a bicycle if not a car to cover the whole area,” she thought in despair. Serdal, Maia and Agata were hiding into the narrow recess of a corridor, scared by heavy threads drumming close. Agata was breathing loudly, at the mercy of fear and exhaustion when she recognized the shape of her mum running past. She yelled “hey!” with a gush of solace and one second later Serdal had come out of the hole to pull Paula into their shelter. They hugged and Agata burst into tears: “I was soooo scared, mum! What a luck you are here too!” Paula tried to calm her down, deciding to postpone explanations to a better moment, actually she had thought her child was safe and sound playing in the neighbors' garden...

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A troop of guards went beyond their hideout without noticing them. After they had gone, the four jumped out of the shadow and ran in the opposite direction. They bumped into a latecomer though, who planted himself in front of them to obstruct the passage.Agata raised her eyebrows in ladylike astonishment and commented: “This is really not nice at all, sir!”“Do you feel big and powerful when you pick on children, hu?” Serdal sticked up for her.“It's easy when you pick on someone you can have power over, hu?” Maia stood tall.“Deal with my mum, if you dare!” boasted Agata.Paula waved her hand in a denial gesture: “better not....” Then her child wore a 'don't-mess-with-me' expression and pounced on him.“Bloody hell! She pinched my butt!”“Mind your language!” reproached Paula.“But...”“La guerre c'est la guerre, monsieur!”While they were running away Agata asked her mum what did she mean with that phrase [was it French, by the way?] Paula lowered her eyes to caress the child with a look and replied: “It means that to get out of bad situations, sometimes we have to be brave. But pinching on someone else's behind is not nice any way...” “But he was bullying, mum!” “Right, but bullying back is not the right behavior.”Agata blushed ashamed: “Oooook mum...”The kids led the rush down the corridor, then swerved left and sprang out into a wide room where they recognized in the dark the shapes of metal tables and mews. “What's that?” Asked Maia. Paula felt her throat tighten with misery. When she switched the light on, surgery tools winked from the antiseptic trays where they had been arranged in order.

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They started wandering about with suspicious curiosity, “do not touch anything, kids, please.” Paula warned them. Despite the frightful images that the environment triggered, what catalyzed their attention was the reality of hundreds of eyes staring at them from behind the metal bars. The kids moved towards the narrow cages like hypnotized. First they noticed only long, helpless snouts, smelling the air with absent eyes, heaps of feathers, comose ears, mustached noses and a foot or a tail. Then at a second take each tessera fit into the whole picture and they recognized rats, guinea pigs, pigeons, mice, cats, dogs and primates. A mix of grief and compassion bit into their heart and they all shared the irresistible drive to hug tight those poor animal friends unfairly jailed. “Why are they here, mum?” Agata inquired. Paula drew a long sigh and stared mournfully into space searching for the right words, then she said: “Because there are places where they make tests, experiments on animals.” “Like here?”“Yes, dear. They use these poor creatures to test certain products before marketing them.”“Like what?”“Like medicines, hair sprays, make-ups, chemicals.”Serdal intervened shyly: “I don't understand... What do they do exactly?”Paula caressed his cheek: “They pour certain substances on these animals' skin, or inject them in their bodies to see how they react.”“Does it hurt?” Asked Maia.“Sometimes it does, a lot. Other experiments concern human psychology, so they use these cavies to deduce general paradigms of the way our mind works.”“It works very badly if this is what we do to poor animals!” objected Serdal, with moist eyes.

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“You are right, this is really cruel.” Agreed Paula.Agata looked at her with imploring eyes: “We must do something, mum!”Paula smiled “I did not expect we would have organized a jailbreak, I'm unprepared...” But her heart was already frisking at the idea of being able to do something that would have stopped the torture of those creatures. Serdal was bustling at a remote control panel and suddenly all cages' hatches swung open. Paula had a sudden idea, fumbled in her bag for the mobile phone and dialed the number of her friend Lara who worked for the wildlife conservation board: “Hi there, listen... We need your help...” And then something extraordinary happened. The children got near the animals and helped them carefully out. Perhaps it was the warmth of their hands, the purity in their eyes, their smell (a mix of biscuit, flowers and dew, unaware of the adult sweat of overpowering and cruelty), but the critters relied on them without a inch of suspect or fear. Paula closed the call and announced: “Ok folks, let's get out of here.”“Run like seagulls between drops, mum?”“Even better, Agata: this time we need to be eagles into a storm.”Loaded with the light weight of the new friends, they grabbed each other's hands, sharing an accomplice, brave smile, ready to leap into their getaway.They rushed down the stairs with monkeys hoisted on their shoulders, rabbits sticking out of backpacks, mice curled up into pockets. Agata was carrying two mewing kittens, Serdal held a trembling frog in the palm of his hand, Maia was cheering some running dogs and Paula led the way to pigeons flying about, hoping they would not drop their gratitude on her head... All the others that they had not been able to carry, followed hopping, running, dangling. They finally leapt out into the fresh night air. Voices of chasers echoed threatening, but far enough to give them the courage to manage.

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By the way, now they were called to grant a safe shelter to their new defenseless friends and this high responsibility made them bigger than they would have been. This is the secret trick of Love. When it burns, it injects stamina to the muscles, pure oxygen to the lungs, positive thoughts to the mind and strong hope to the heart. It warms all around and makes us invincible. The surreal parade of kids, pets and wild animals marching together under the moonlight headed for a van parked across the street. Lara jumped down the driving seat and ran to pull the side door open. After the last tail had been locked inside the improvised Noah's arch, they shot off with a squeal of tires. At the first traffic light, they met Police cars hastening in the opposite direction, towards the Snoxtav' glass and steel tower, in a tangle of sirens, flashing lights and screeching of brakes.They traveled quietly crossing the urban sunset. The cab filled with animals' cries.After they had entrusted their four-legged friends to veterinarians' care, Paula and the kids stood in companionable silence on the still street, contemplating their own thoughts. Serdal, arms folded, broke it thumping his sneakers down on the sidewalk: “We did it all for nothing!”“Why are you saying that?” Paula asked, taking pity on his frustration. “We freed the animals,” smirked Agata “and Lara said we can come and meet them anytime, till they remain here under check...”“I'm not talking about that!”“Serdal? I'm tired, I want mum...” Yawned Maia.“You are such a drag!” Serdal spat out. Then he turned to Paula and stretched the piggy bank he had been carrying the whole afternoon. “Here,” he explained, “there's the money we collected to ransom our Robispiel, but that man did not even want to check it, he laughed!” His eyes were wet now.

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Paula squatted to talk to the children from an equal position:“That's what you were all up to, didn't you? Now I see...” she said with a tender smile.“You have been very brave, guys, you undertook to fight for something you believe in.”Serdal shrugged as if he did not care.Paula continued: “this is what 'growing up' means, Serdal.”“I know what it means!” Barged in Agata: “when I am big I can ride my mum's bicycle, right mum?”“Yes, dear.” Paula ruffled her hair, “but there is a part of growing that is even more important than getting longer limbs, it deals with what you have here,” she said pointing to her heart. “Tonight you reached an important milestone in the develop of your character and I believe that you should be proud of yourselves: not many adults would have dared risking so much to pursue their dreams.”“But we could not save the park though...” groused Serdal.“We don't know it yet...” Winked Paula. “It's time to go home, kids.” The children, dead tired, started moaning.“Ok, see what we make, we walk home at... Let me think.... Frog's pace!” Paula leapt away and Maia, Serdal and Agata followed her, hopping with giggles.“Now I choose,” proposed Maia: “at monkey's pace!” Everybody started dangling the arms and swaying from left to right.“My turn!” said Agata: “now seagull's pace!” They all turned round with an inquiring look then bursted out laughing.

ALTERNATIVE ENDING

In the breaking news that night the reader announced the striking reportage of an unknown journalist with a detailed list of wrongdoings to be charged on Snoxtav' account.Passages of a video he produced (the one a stranger lady had dropped into his palm in Snoxtav movie theater) reached 2.000.000 visits in 3 days on u-tube.It came out that the Web fished even the Stock Exchange in its trawl-net: that week the multinational's shares hit an all-time low.During the press conference, a tight-lipped CEO Andréas Luzzi guaranteed that there would not be any further animal testing in any hub, branch, lab of the firm he represented. Anywhere. When someone from the crowd of international journalists asked updates about the Robispiel park, he snatched a blank check to finance its protection.With the money they had earned from the circus show, Maia, Serdal and Agata payed the treatments of abused animals.

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EPILOGUE

Such a 'happy end' used to leave the smear of a smile on my sleepy face, when I was a child dreaming at the gleam of my bedside's lamp. It spoiled me though: as an adult I still am the same hopeless visionary, nurturing high expectations. To the romantic soup of fiction one should add a pinch of life's salt. The 'good ones' do not always win and the 'bad ones' do not always disappear because defeated or redeemed. While fiction needs to make sense, reality seldom has the complacency to do it. This does not mean that we should stop fighting though. All the contrary. It should just warn us not to lose hope if we cannot drop the ball into the basket at first try. Good causes are worthy lifelong struggle.When we start pursuing a good dream, we stop being a blank face into the crowd, we become an “I”. Different “I”s together can change the world. For the better. That is why the heroes of this little story, who have given it a try, deserve to emancipate themselves from the anonymous ovals and to gain personal, distinctive faces.

THE END