[Luca fanfiction] Love in Portorosso

Chapter 5

Daniela and Lorenzo found some clothes hanging on a line to dry. Now that they were dressed to blend in, they approached the town of Portorosso.

"Okay. Okay. Now, what's our plan? Think, Daniela," she said.

"Hey," her husband assured her, "everything's always on you. I wanna step up."

"Uh... You sure?" Daniela said, skeptically.

"Oh, yeah," he said, spying something. "I got this."

The man saw a kid sitting all by himself on the seawall eating gelato.

"Oh, hello there, young man," the man said. "You're not fooling anyone.  Did you really think you could get away with this? You thought we wouldn't find you? Well, guess what?  It's time for us to go home."

"Lorenzo, I don't think-" Daniela tried to talk but by then Lorenzo had already pushed the kid right into the water. He was about to jump in after him when Daniela yanked him back. The kid was still a kid.

"Let that be a lesson to you!" Lorenzo stammered.

"Go, go, go!" Daniela ordered, shoving him away. "Run before its mother gets here!"

"It turns out I don't get this," Lorenzo observed as they leave.

"No, but I do. I'll know my son when I..." Daniela gasped as they ran into the piazza. It was brimming with kids. "-see him. Ah, sharks."

Eimi and her friends left the marina and headed straight for the piazza so they could stand in line and submit their entry to join the Portorosso Cup.

There was a line of kids waiting to do the exact same thing, but it did nothing to Eimi's joy. Something else was waiting to do that.

Eimi and the others walked to the piazza for their entry. Eimi was wearing her pirate hat and her boots.

"Come on!" Giulia called. "We gotta hurry."

Standing in the piazza was a woman dressed in an elaborate costume. Giulia looked at her and grabbed a box of pasta from a nearby display. She held the box so it covered the woman's face. On the back of the box was a picture of a dressed mustached man, a man who looked like a hero. Giulia lowered the box of pasta revealing a mustache on the woman just like the one sported by the man on the pasta box. With a flourish and much bravery, she called, "Fellow Portorossans! It is I, Giorgio Giorgioni! Slayer of sea monsters and beloved purveyor of pasta!"

Luca was terrified. That was the face on the pasta box. That was who the woman was pretending to be. The guy on the fountains and paintings they had seen. Eimi knew this woman well. She love to act a lot during a show.

"Slayer of sea monsters?" Luca whimpered.

"Ah, that's just Signora Marsigliese," Giulia explained. "She works for the sponsor for the race." Watching the show, Giulia sighed. "This is gonna take forever."

"The finest pasta in Liguria at a price every family can afford."

"Get to the rules!" Eimi yelled, cupping her hands over her mouth.

"Enthusiasm!" Marsigliese said. "Love to see it. To win my famous race, your team must be the first to brave the treacherous waters of the bay, devour a mystery bowl of my delicious pasta, and ride to the top of Mount Portorosso and back!"

They faced all the kids who had lined up to enter the race. Eimi looked at the map where it goes. Number one leads to the swimming part, number two is the pasta part and number three is the bicycle part.