“Good luck with your test! And come straight home after soccer, the forecast says a big storm is coming tonight. A real humdinger,” Mum waved as she stood on the beach, throwing kiss after kiss. Pete was glad that his classmates couldn’t see all this, after all, a twelve-year-old adolescent shouldn’t get kisses thrown to him by his mummy.
“Thanks, I’ll hurry home!” He shouted back with a smile, then thought for a moment and threw her a kiss back. No shame in a twelve-year-old adolescent doing that for his mother. Pete’s boat cut through the waves swiftly, his paddles cutting tiny, rapidly healing wounds in the water’s mirrored surface. He was experienced: he had been going to school in this boat every day for six years, all by himself.
And on the other side, waiting for him today, as they did every morning, were his best friends Lucy and Giovanni.
“I can’t believe how you are able to row a boat through these huge waves, Pete! They are even bigger than usual today!” Lucy shouted from the beach when Pete came within earshot. Pete just smiled as he navigated across the glassy water towards the shore and moored effortlessly.” “Dear Readers, you are right to ask what all this gibberish is all about. What child goes to school by boat? And how can the sea be wavy when its surface is smooth? How is it even possible for someone as young as six to navigate these wild and dangerous waters all by themselves? Bear with me: I promise you; all your questions will be answered in good time.
So, let’s see how Pete, Lucy and Giovanni went to school, and while they do the maths test, they were promised for today, let me quickly tell you that Pete is not an ordinary little boy. He’s ordinary, of course, in the sense that he has the exact same issues as any other twelve-year-old has: what will the pop-up quiz be on, will he be selected for the soccer team, or has the new version for his favourite video game been released yet?
On the other hand, he lives in a place so special that it makes him and his parents extraordinary.
Have you heard of Manono Island? I didn’t think so. Of course, it’s no coincidence that you’ve never come across this word anywhere. Now, let’s start the story with Adam and Eve. But you have to promise me that everything I’m about to tell you will stay our little secret!” “Manono is a tiny island in the Mediterranean Sea, very close to the southern coast of Italy. Even in the port they don’t know its name because everyone thinks it’s a tiny, rocky, deserted island with just one little house: the one where Pete lives with his family. Since the sea is always so stormy, and the locals don’t see any point in visiting such a drab, boring, tiny little island, Manono has been towering above the sea, untouched and unspoiled since the beginning of time or so everyone thinks, except for the one small house.
The truth is known only to Pete, who always has to laugh at his friends when they worry about his light boat in the waves. The waves are not really waves, and life on Manono is bustling.
You may already suspect that there must be some magic involved, and you are right. No one on the mainland knows about Manono’s exciting day-to-day life because that’s what the islanders’ want. They get on well among themselves and don’t care for tourists.
In fact, it is the tourists who are the most feared on Manono. Children are even disciplined like this:
“If you won’t go to sleep, the Bogie-tourist will come and get you!”
Of course, who could fall asleep knowing that a tourist is out to get them?” “By now, you really must be terribly confused, but bear with me a little longer, because you’re about to learn all about Manono. But in the meantime, the maths class is over, Pete and his friends are munching on their sandwiches in the school yard, which resembles a grove, so let’s get back to them.
“I made a mess of that test. I don’t understand why, because I was studying all yesterday afternoon! I’m definitely getting an F” Lucy said tearfully, because she really had spent hours the previous day practising the equations she had to solve.
“But what happened? You could barely speak in history class the other day either, and you’re the best student there,” Giovanni said in disbelief, throwing a few small crumbs of his sandwich at the doves who were wandering around.
“I don’t know. I’ve been like this for days. I study, but can’t remember anything the next day. And I’m not feeling well either. I had a headache this morning, and I feel like I haven’t slept all night. Even though I have. This will be my second F in a week. Mum was already terribly cross about the history test.”
“Anyway, it’s all very strange,” Pete remarked, taking a bite of the tomumber bread his mum had packed for him that morning.” “Now, wait a minute! You must think I’m not making any sense at all. What is a tomumber? Well, tomumber is a mixture of tomatoes and cucumbers, which tastes a bit like bell peppers. It is grown on Manono by the workers at the Institute of Plant Crossbreeding and is one of Pete’s favourite vegetables, but only after pohlrabi (potato + kohlrabi) and brocorn (broccoli + corn).
By now you must be beginning to understand why the people of Manono want to keep such a low profile. The island is, well, a place of magic.
The reason it looks like huge waves are hitting the edges of the island from the shore is because Manono’s shaman has created that very spectacle to protect the locals from curious eyes, and of course tourists.
Magic is part of everyday life on Manono: just as people would quite naturally bite into their bar of chocolate after a tiring maths lesson, it is just as natural for the islanders to cast a rain spell or make fish fly for the fun of it. Pete’s parents moved here from Milan: in fact, they found the island by chance following a shipwreck, and they liked it so much that they decided to settle there. Pete was even born there.