I'm Not Scared
by Niccolo Ammaniti
How much trouble can children get into in the summer heat of Italy? Sometimes it’s too much to handle.
It was one summer…
One of those summers that go on forever. Well, they always do when you are just nine years old. But how does a gang of youngsters pass the time when they live in the countryside of Southern Italy? By having adventures and derring-do and races with forfeits for the losers – and it’s the girl who is the loser every time.
There’s always one of the group who will be her white knight. Taking her place and saving her the embarrassment of a revealing exposure can only lead to a more reckless forfeit. What the gang says goes. Clambering through a tumbledown building stirs up fear but it leads Michele to a find – a secret find