Then he picked himself up, brushed the dust off his shorts and T-shirt and went down the path leading to the beach.
He was expecting their examining looks and spent the whole way getting ready for them. He practised looking bored and laid-back as if deep in thought about things which had very little to do with what was going on.
“As red as a tomato!” said Luka with contempt.
“Look, look, his legs are shaking!”
“Did you shit yourself?”
His eyes desperately wanted to look down, but he managed to stop them at the last minute and instead looked each of them in the eye. It was very unpleasant, as they were all a lot taller than him and he had to look up at them. Nevertheless, they did stop shouting, only Luka was still grinning contemptuously.
“I completed my first test,” he said, nearly sinking into the ground with shame about the unsuitability of his voice: it was high, trembling and he even had to take a few deep breaths in order to steady his vocal cords enough to say the first word.
“Yeah, you did indeed,” said Luka, “but this was the easiest one. The worst is yet to come!”
They left him waiting while they retreated to the rocks. Slowly he took a few steps to the sea and let the waves lick his scratched feet. Every time they stung, he said to himself:
“I’ll manage! I’ll manage! I’ll manage!”
A pleading chant, but the pain did become more and more subdued, almost bearable in the end. There was something pleasant in it.
The five of them had their heads together, arguing excitedly. Every now and then one of them would forget himself and look towards him. Only to quickly look back again, with a feeling of guilt. He went a bit further away to show them how he was not going to listen and did not care about what they came up with, they would not break him. Only a few excited negatives, hissed a bit too loudly, reached him.
He looked at the soles of his feet. They were strangely white, discoloured. There was no blood left in them, the edges of the open cuts looked torn. He bent over and watched the skin flapping. A little fish came swiftly, seemed to rip the edge of his skin off and disappeared just as quickly.
“They’re eating me,” he thought, shaken but also surprised to find no disgust in that realisation.
The voices in the background had stopped. He turned round and saw that it was decided. They stood beyond the reach of the waves, looking at him. He deliberately let them wait a bit, splashed a bit deeper into the sea and a slightly bigger wave washed over his knees.
He stopped a good two metres in front of them. They resembled priests in a temple, like the ones he remembered from his father’s bible. There was an uncanny resemblance even though, instead of eastern robes and turbans, they were wearing the shorts and T-shirts that they would be wearing for the rest of the summer and well into the autumn. The state of some of them would soon make it clear that they were the only ones their owner possessed.
“Right, brat, a second test. Do you give up?” said Luka.
“No!”
“You’ll be sorry! We don’t accept such small brats.”
“I’ll complete all the trials!”
“We’ve yet to see that! Let’s go.”
They walked down the beach quickly and he had a feeling they were in a hurry.
Suddenly he saw clearly the horror of his second test. They would take him to one of the holes in the rocks, he would have to lie in the dark dampness and…
… and spiders, spiders would crawl all over him! He would not be allowed to scream or move. Spiders!
“What’s the matter, are you afraid? You’re lagging behind!”
He speeded up, hoping they could not read his mind. He would do even that, if he had to. They had already teased him to death just because he had dared ask to be accepted into a gang of lads who were all three or four years older than him. If he gave up now, he would not be able to leave the house ever again. He would do anything. Even spiders…
He imagined their hairy legs, the prickly feeling of them quickly and almost imperceptibly touching his skin. He had to press his teeth together and gather all his strength to swallow, it was as if he had to break up a lump of dry sand in his throat.
“Here we are,” he heard Luka say.
He looked around him with surprise. No caves, no spiders.
!?!
They stood on a long rock protruding into the sea like a small peninsula. Luka took a small knife out of his pocket, held it briefly on his palm just in front of the boy’s eyes and flung it over his shoulder.
“Bring it back,” he said. The boy could sense pleasure in Luka’s calm voice.
Even though the knife was already disappearing in the breaking waves he could still make out its reflection. But it was fading rapidly in the darkness.
“You can have one go only,” added Luka.
“Eh…”
What comfort! He could see Adriano opening his mouth to (he was certain) object, but Luka stopped him with just a look. The boy’s earlier hunch of who would turn out to be his ally was right. He looked at Adriano gratefully, sighed deeply and jumped.
It was strange that it was the sea they had chosen as the next trial. He had expected that to be right at the beginning. They had all been born on this island and were all good swimmers, unlike their grandfathers, who mostly could not swim at all.
He dived in what he thought was the direction of the disappearing knife. The light became weaker and more diffuse. On his left, he could see a rock covered with mussels. He wondered how deep the sea was around there. Probably quite deep or they would not have chosen that spot. He would swim until he found the knife, he thought. If not, he would not go back. They would be sorry. He let go of a breath, which the water immediately turned into bubbles and carried to the surface. Suddenly, he had a feeling of certainty: this time, nothing would go wrong. A large fish swam past him, looked at him, waved its tail and swam into the open sea. The boy looked after it and with a corner of his eye caught a reflection on his right.
The knife.
Impossible! A rock was reaching up from the depth of the sea, it was as sharp as a tooth. On the top, amongst the few strands of seaweed, stood the knife, waiting for him.
He carefully slowed down and approached the rock. The knife was perched very precariously, the slightest movement could dislodge it and make it fall into the deep waters, where they would both disappear for ever. He gently moved his hand closer and picked it up.
Closed his palm around it.
It had been so very easy!
He held onto the rock until he felt a pain in his lungs. Only then did he swim back up to the surface.
Seeing their faces was even more of a triumph. Adriano smiled briefly to himself and Luka bit his lip when he received the knife.
“Next one…” he said.
Again, the boy waited, wading through the sand. These negotiations were even longer, more objections reached his ears and he was beginning to regret annoying them by having been so openly pleased after the last trial.
What if he were to decline to join the gang after the last successful trial? What if he were to just walk away without looking back? He imagined their looks eating into his back and he wallowed in the sweetness of these thoughts.
“NO!”
Adriano moved away from the others.
“NO!”
“WHAT?” roared Luka.
“No! We can’t do that to him!”
