Trafika Europe 14 - Italian Piazza

A Perfect Idiot

away her treasure, as she cal led it, even if it meant not changing her sheets for weeks. Sheets ful l of crumbs and chocolate cookies. If those imbeci les hadn’t told her anything about her l ife, and if she didn’t want to become a psychopath, she was doing the right thing reconstructing it on her own. At night I had the opportunity to think about so much, things that those in charge of taking care of her and the other chi ldren by day couldn’t possibly have imagined on account of al l they had to do– chores, certificates, homework, showers, snack time, and so forth. But I could do it and do it al l night, as I sat in the rustl ing si lence of the garden that only appeared asleep. The squirrel had died after a strenuous battle. Apparently, after a first argument near the parents’ cottage at the far end of the garden, almost on the border with the enclosure of the vast estate swal lowed up by the val ley, the victim and her executioner had moved to a more spacious area in order to play with equal weapons, as was indicated by the traces that Odette and her friends had marked off with the yel low ribbon stolen from the closet with the Christmas presents. Christmas was sti l l far away, it could wait. When she accompanied me over there to see the scene of the crime, and together we found that the victim’s body had been carried away, Odette took

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