Luca: A look inside

Chapter Five: Alberto's POV

The next morning I wake up seeing no sign of Luca. All I remember from last night is falling asleep with Luca next to me, and I kind of have a foggy memory of someone screaming? I don't know. But anyway, I get up and walk down to the inside of the tower and I'm only there for a few seconds when I see Luca coming out of the water. Huh? I look again just to be sure I'm seeing this right. I'm not completely sure what time it is, but I can guess that it's pretty early. I look down again, and see Luca struggling to pull on his clothes. He's walking pretty fast and is clearly upset.

"Luca?" I yell down. He doesn't respond but instead comes up to where I am and starts talking super fast.

"I kind of fell asleep last night, then I had this nightm- dream that woke me up. Then I panicked and snuck back to the water to my house, then my mom and dad caught me, and they also found some of the human stuff I had. Then they questioned me and I accidentally told them about you-"

"Wait," I interrupt. "What did they say?"

Luca looks up from the ground. "I don't know! They were obviously surprised, but that's not the point!" I back away. I've seen Luca scared, happy, and as of last night, sad. But never mad.

"Sorry," he says. "I'm just so- anyway, it was already too late. There's no convincing them. They're sending me to the deep! To live with my weird see-through uncle! What do I do?"

"Stay?" I suggest. I've honestly thought about this a lot. I mean, from what I've seen, Luca has way more fun above the surface. Why not just stay. . .

"Up here? They'll come looking for me." He says.

"Okay, that may be true," I look out the window at the human town, and I get an even better idea. "But will they come looking for you over there?"

Luca looks at me. "No way. That's crazy."

I look back. "I mean, that place must be full of vespas. There's gotta be one for us."

"Huh. A real vespa . . . Could we even survive over there?"

"You and me? We can do anything." I quickly wrap my arm around Luca. "We'd swim right over to Vespatown, track down Signor Vespa-"

"Wait," He steps away. "Do you really think there's a Signor Vespa?" He asks excitedly.

"Makes sense, right?" I ask.

"Yes, continue." I grab the paper stuffed in my back pocket.

"And we say, Signor Vespa, build us one of these." I hold out the drawing I made yesterday morning of Luca and I sitting on our vespa.

"Woah," Luca holds the paper with his hands. "This is the greatest drawing I've ever seen." He says, mesmerized.

I pull it away. "Yeah, I know. Luca, think about it. Every day we'll ride someplace new," He leans closer towards me, with wide eyes. "And everynight, we'll sleep under the fish. No one to tell us what to do. Just you and me out there. Free!" I guess I've convinced him, because the next thing I know we're both excitedly climbing the ladder towards the ground. I grab Luca's hand and pull him along towards the cliff. I let go and run off the cliff. "Take me gravity!" I yell.

I wait underwater for a few seconds until Luca falls into the water next to me. "Yeah!" I yell then swim away and Luca follows. We come up to the rock that we almost hit yesterday. I grab Luca's hand again and pull him up out of the water and over the rock. I do a pose, then land back in the water with Luca. I laugh, "Come on!"

I jump back out of the water and feel myself transform. Then I land back in the water and watch Luca do the same thing. We do this the whole way over to the town. Finally we make it. We look at the buildings clustered together, but get interrupted when a boat passes by. We dive under the water and look for a way to get above the surface without being seen.