Viola Bai was admired and feared with equal passion by her classmates, because she was so beautiful she made people uneasy, and because at the age of fifteen she knew more about life than any of her contemporaries did; or at least that was the impression she gave. On Monday mornings, during break, the girls congregated around her desk and listened greedily to the account of her weekend. Most times this was a skillful reimagining of what Serena, Viola's older sister by eight years, had told her the day before. Viola transferred the stories to herself, but embellished them with sordid, and often completely invented, details, which to her friends' ears sounded mysterious and disturbing. She talked about this or that bar, without ever having set foot in them, and she was capable of giving minute descriptions of the psychedelic lighting, or of the malicious smile that the bartender had flashed at her as he served her a Cuba libre.

In most cases she ended up either in bed with the bartender or out behind the bar, among the beer kegs and the cases of vodka, where he took her from behind, covering her mouth with his hand to keep her from screaming.

Viola Bai knew how to tell a story. She knew that all the violence is contained in the precision of a detail. She knew how to work the timing so that the bell rang just as the bartender was busy with the fly of his name-brand jeans. At that moment her devoted audience slowly dispersed, their cheeks red with envy and indignation. Viola was made to promise that she would go on with her story at the next bell, but she was too intelligent to actually do it. She always ended up dismissing the whole thing with a pout of her perfect mouth, as if what had happened to her was of no importance. It was just one more detail in her extraordinary life, and she was already light-years ahead of everyone else.

She had actually tried sex, as well as some of the drugs whose names she liked to list, but she had been with only one boy, and only once. It had happened at the shore. A friend of her sister's who had smoked and drunk too much that evening to realize that a little thirteen-year-old girl was too young for certain things. He had fucked her hastily, in the street, behind a trash bin. As they walked back, heads lowered, to rejoin the others, Viola had taken his hand but he had snatched it away and asked what are you doing? Her cheeks burned and the heat still trapped between her legs had made her feel alone. In the days that followed the boy didn't say a word to her and Viola had confided in her sister, who had laughed at her naivete and said wise up, what did you expect?

Viola's devoted audience was made up of Giada Savarino, Federica Mazzoldi, and Giulia Mirandi. Together they formed a compact and ruthless phalanx: the four bitches, as some of the boys at the school called them. Viola had chosen them one by one and had demanded a little sacrifice from each of them, because her friendship was something you had to earn. She alone decided if you were in or out, and her decisions were obscure and unequivocal.

Alice observed Viola on the sly. From her desk two rows back, she fed off the broken sentences and fragments of torrid tales; then in the evening, alone in her room, she savored every detail.

Before that Wednesday morning Viola had never spoken a word to her. It was a kind of initiation and had to be done properly. None of the girls ever knew for sure whether Viola was improvising or whether she planned the torture in advance-but they all agreed that it was brilliant.

Alice hated the locker room. Her oh-so-perfect classmates stood around for as long as possible in their bras and underwear so as to make the others envious. They assumed stiff, unnatural poses, sucking in their stomachs and thrusting out their tits. They sighed at the cracked mirror that covered one of the walls. Look, they'd say as they sized up their hips, which could not have been better proportioned or more seductive.

On Wednesdays Alice wore her shorts under her jeans so that she wouldn't have to get completely undressed. The others would look at her suspiciously, imagining the horrors that were surely hidden under her clothes. She would turn her back to take off her sweater so they wouldn't see her belly.

She would put on her sneakers and tuck her shoes, neatly parallel, against the wall, and then carefully fold her jeans. Her classmates' clothes, in contrast, tumbled chaotically from the wooden benches, their shoes scattered about and upside down because they had yanked them off with their feet.

"Alice, do you have a sweet tooth?" Viola asked.

It took Alice a few seconds to convince herself that Viola Bai was actually talking to her. She was sure she was invisible to her. She pulled the two ends of her shoelaces, but the knot came untied between her fingers.

"Me?" she asked, looking around uneasily.

"I don't see any other Alices."

The other girls giggled.

"No. Not particularly."

Viola got up from the bench and came closer to her. Alice felt those marvelous eyes on her, bisected by the shadow of her bangs.

"But you like gumdrops, don't you?" Viola continued in her honeyed voice.

"Yeah. I guess. Pretty much."

Alice bit her lip and chided herself for being so wishy-washy. She pressed her bony back against the wall. A tremor ran down her good leg. The other remained inert, as always.

"What do you mean pretty much? Everyone likes gumdrops. Isn't that right, girls?" Viola addressed her three friends without even turning around.

"Mm-hmmm. Everyone," they echoed. Alice noticed a strange trepidation in Federica Mazzoldi's eyes as she stared at her from the other end of the locker room.

"Yes, actually, I do like them," she corrected herself. She was starting to feel frightened, even though she didn't yet know why.

In the first year, the four bitches had grabbed Alessandra Mirano, the one who ended up being thrown out and going to beautician school, and dragged her into the boys' locker room. They shut her inside and two boys pulled their cocks out in front of her. From the corridor Alice had heard the four torturers egging them on and laughing hysterically.

"I thought so. Now, would you like a gumdrop?" Viola asked.

If I say yes, who knows what they're going to make me eat, Alice thought.

If I say no, Viola might get pissed off and I'll end up in the boys' locker room as well.

She sat in silence like a moron.

"Come on. It's not such a hard question," Viola said mockingly. She took a handful of fruit candies from her pocket.

"You girls back there, what flavor do you want?" she asked.

Giulia Mirandi came over to Viola and looked into her hand. Viola didn't take her eyes off Alice, who felt her body crumpling under the gaze like a sheet of newspaper burning in the fireplace.

"There's orange, raspberry, blackberry, strawberry, and peach," Giulia said. She threw a fleeting, apprehensive glance at Alice, without letting Viola see.

"I'll have raspberry," said Federica.

"Peach," said Giada.

Giulia tossed them their candies and unwrapped the orange one for herself. She slipped it into her mouth and then took a step back to return the stage to Viola.

"Blackberry and strawberry are left. So do you want one or not?"

Maybe she just wants to give me a candy, Alice thought.

Maybe they just want to see whether I eat or not.

It's just a candy.

"I prefer strawberry," she said quietly.

"Damn it, that's my favorite too," Viola said, giving a terrible performance of disappointment. "But I'll happily give it to you."

She unwrapped the strawberry candy and let the paper fall to the ground. Alice held out her hand to take it.

"Wait a minute," Viola said. "Don't be so greedy."