I tucked my recipe book and my pen into my apron and I abandoned the changing room.

The kitchen was big enough to welcome 25 teeming students, it was wide just about two times our classroom, with a long line of stainless-steel tables in the middle and a series of stoves with their hoods. To the sides you could find the ovens, the cabinets, the stand mixers, and the slicer. Around the corner, after the pillar of ovens, there was the nook of the plonge.

Plonger means to soak in French. The plonge is the place where things get soaked, and the plongeur is the guy that soaks them. Basically, it's where you keep the dishwasher and the sink to wash the dishes.

I walked into the kitchen with lowered eyes. It was still early for the lesson, only a couple of students had already left the changing rooms, and the prof was still checking the ingredients cart.

By that point there was nothing to do but wait. I chose a radiator and I leaned against it. I still felt dump from the rain.

Every day is filled with empty moments, and I made good use of everyone of them.

I pushed reality to the side, and I entered my head. It was like adjusting the sharpness of an image. At first, it's in focus, then you zoom out and it's out of focus.

It was something I could do with my eyes too, observing an object, adjusting the image so that its in focus and then letting it go out of focus. I once thought that everybody could do it, but then I read on Wikipedia that only some people can relax their ciliary muscles on command. Just like only some people can twist their tongue or move singular toes.

So, in that moment the kitchen, my peers and the teacher were out of focus, and Avalon was in focus. I was the one who created Avalon, I'm not really sure when. It was a world of forests, inhabited only by wolves divided by clans, and every clan had a different government system.

When I was thirteen, I found out that Avalon was also the name of a legendary island in the Arthurian Cycle. That's how my everlasting resentment for King Arthur began. It bothered me that Avalon was a known name in British folklore, because Avalon was mine, and nobody else was allowed in.

In that moment, it was raining on Avalon as well, or rather, in the region of Avalon where the Amuck clan decided to flee for the winter. Kass was walking among his wolves, staring at their exhausted muzzles. Of the three cubs born that summer, only two survived, and if the race was going to be this strenuous for much longer, they might have lost them too.

Kass raised his muzzle in the cold rain. He could almost smell the Ten clan in the wind.

"Gioele." A hand went over my eyes over and over until I could no longer keep it out of focus.

Pietro was in front of me, leaning on the remaining half of my radiator. I looked into his eyes.

"Yes?"

"There's an octopus. Do you want to clean it?"

"AH!" That squeak came out of my mouth with all my heat. Octopuses were so softy and slimy! I loved sticking my hands in a bowl full of octopuses. "Yes, I'll clean it."

Pietro took a note on his agenda and then turned around to talk to another classmate. Evidently the teacher had already assigned the roles and Pietro had been picked as the Chef the Partie.

Indeed, I noticed that the teacher was still talking. The circle of students around the stainless-steel tables were listening closely.

I unfocused the outside and went back to Avalon. Kass's pack was hiding in a big cavity in the ground. They were trying to shelter the cubs from the rain and rest a bit from the race. A dismal howl creeped in the distance.

My classmates dispersed occupying my field of vision, therefore the professor must have stopped talking. I was forced to leave my radiator and attempt to stay in the present. I waited for the crowd around the cart to vanish before I approached it. I knew nobody was going to steal my octopus, usually people didn't like fish and clam.

I liked them because I liked the smell and that they were softy and slimy.

I lifted the bowl with the corpse in it and dragged it across the kitchen.

I occupied one of the sinks and let the little beast slip out of its plastic wrap. I put the bowl under the water and started to feel the softy suckers.

Ah. I needed a knife.

I left the sink and made my way to the other side of the kitchen. The knife drawer was a mess, same as usual. The chef's knives were mixed up with the paring knives and the crescent knives. I was forced to slip my hand between the blades to retrieve my little curved paring knife that I needed.

Tornai al lavandino con ancora cinque dita su ciascuna mano, e lì trovai il professore che chiudeva il rubinetto e mi lanciava uno sguardo di delusione arresa.

I went back to the sink with still five fingers attached to each hand, and there I found the professor turning the water off and sending me a look of disappointed defeat.

"Ehm, sorry."

"Are you the one paying for water? How could you possibly always be forgetting something?"

I had already said sorry, so I had terminated my repertoire for that kind of conversation. I shook my shoulders.

The teacher puffed and moved along to observe the work of another student. I went back to my octopus. I needed to peel all the skin and remove the beak. Maybe not everybody knows that octopuses have a beak. It's located in the middle of the tentacles, hidden in a little hole that you have to squeeze like a zit.

Once the little guy was skinned and rendered beakless, I turned inside out the head sack like a sock and then rinsed everything. Good. I put the corpse back in the bowl and took it back to the cart, where someone more skilled than me would have turned it into food.

"DAGOSTINO! TURN OFF THE DAMN SINK!"

I turned around and...

"NO! YOU REACHED THE CART, PUT DOWN THE BOWL AND THEN TURN OFF THE SINK!"

Eh, but make up your mind. I put down the bowl and run back to turn off the sink. I didn't wait to check if the prof was still looking my way. I fled to the plonge.

After four years, I was really good at washing dishes. You rinse, fill the dishwasher, empty the dishwasher and stack everything on the tables so that when students come to leave something to wash, they can take back something to put away.

It was nice staying in the plonge. There was always the warm steam from the dishwasher, and the smell of lemon from the soap. It was also a pretty mechanical work so that I could lose myself in Avalon.

Sometimes my classmates would bring me stuff to wash and they would tell me something, but it was hard to get in and out of my head so fast, so when I would hear what they had said, they were usually already gone.

It wasn't a big loss. It was usually stuff like: "here it is", "catch that", "can you wash this? I need it right away."

But when the professor walked into the plonge I tried hard to pay attention, in case I had to answer to some questions. Sometimes, though, I didn't notice in time that he had walked in.

And that was one of those days.

Two hands pushed me down from the shoulders to the ground. "Don't stay on your tip-toes, Dagostino. For the millionth time. It's bad for your back."

"Mh-mh." I nodded and tried hard to keep the soles of my feet on the ground. I had to use all of my focus to do it, and that meant that I was washing the dishes at 2% speed.

"Dagostino."

I turned off the water and wiped my hands on the apron. I gave my back to the sink and looked the teacher in the eyes. They were dark and stern and they hated me.

"Boy, you're always back here when I came to chek. The only time you weren't absent for a test, you spent the morning hiding in the bathroom."

"I was sick!"

His hand ordered silence. "We talked about your situation in the last meeting. At the moment we are thinking of failing you in three subjects. You know what that means, right?"

My heart drew a gasp. "What, three subjects?!"

The prof had the kindness to count on his fingers. "Cooking, waitering and physical education."

"Physical education?! You want me to lose a year for PE? It's not even a real subject!"

"It's a subject same as all the others. And you wouldn't have to repeat the year because you're failing one subject, but three."

Failinig... three subjects? They wanted me to repeat the year? Fail me? I was a great student!

"Mine is only a warning. You're still in time to catch up, but I'm expecting you to give your all from now on, I want you to show up to tests and that you come back from your internship with a good evaluation. Do I make myself clear?"

Coming back with a good evaluation? Couldn't I do something more realistic? I don't know, building a perpetual motion machine?

"But..."

"Do I make myself clear?" He repeated.

I lowered my gaze and found my hands tangled in the apron, looking for something to squeeze.

"You're clear."

That day we were done earlier than usual. The menu had been shortened on purpose so that we could have half an hour more to gather in the dining hall, that was a room filled with nicely set tables surrounded by chairs. There was also the counter, with the coffee machine and everything necessary to make hot chocolate and cocktails, but that was off-limits to the students of cooking class.

Everything that my classmates had prepared during lesson was waiting on a buffet table. Everyone could serve themselves freely and then settle at the table.

I took my seat without touching anything. I chose the furthest table from everyone and tried hard to stay well anchored to the present. I knew I had to listen today.

"Good. I knew you were all waiting for this moment." The teacher had some papers in his hand. He arranged them on the corner of the buffet table. "We have received the list of possible venues in which you will be able to complete your internship. You can choose only ONE option, and you need to choose today. The internship will last a month ad won't be waged. Read the indications carefully. Some venues reported how many students they need and of what gender. It's not sexism, before somebody raises any complains. It depends on the accommodation of the rooms for the interns. Not everyone has more than a room available, and you know we can't mix boys and girls."

I wonder why people were so scared of mixing boys and girls. If it were for the sex, my peers were doing it everywhere all the time, regardless of where they slept at night.

And in that moment, I realized I had been lost in my thoughts again.

Everyone was already on their feet. Now the papers were surrounded by an impenetrable crowd. I knew that I had to break through, I needed to write my name on one of those damn sheets and secure a decent place for my internship. But there were far too many people there. I stood aside rocking on the tip of my feet and opening and closing my hands faster and faster.

I noticed an opening, but no, it was already closed. I made a sound with my throat, like a cat that's been suddenly woken up.

Some of my classmates passed me as they were going back to their seats. And then, suddenly, everyone scattered. The papers were free. The teacher was there next to the table. I had a feeling he was watching me.

I drew closer, one inch at a time, touching each fingertip with my thumb.

I looked at the first document and read every line. Every place, single or double, had been taken.

I turned over the second paper. Da Giovanna Tavern hadn't been taken, but it seemed like they were looking for a girl.

"Ehm... there's nothing left." I said very soflty.

The teacher glared at me. "That's not possible. I counted. You're all covered." He took the sheets and glared at them too.

Maybe that was divine intervention? There was no place for me! I could come to school and be sorted in the other classroom, I could stay at the last desk and mind my own business for a month! Right?

"So... I can't do the internship?"

"Don't talk nonsense! There's gonna be a place left in the other classes."

"In the other classes?" I asked with the kind of terror that I hoped would invoke pity. But the prof was already done paying attention to me, and he was leaving with the papers in hand.

"Prof?" I followed him out of the dining hall. To keep up with his long stride I had to make little jumps like a goat. "I don't know anybody from the other classes!"

The teacher went into the kitchen, were a new group of students was preparing for their hour of practice. "Michele?"

Another teacher, kind of short, smiling, turned around at that name.

"I have a boy without a venue. Do you still have a place for a male in the kitchen?"

"Right on cue!" Exclaimed Michele, as if that was an actual expression that people really used. "Demir is the only one that wants to go to the Barone in Turin, but they are asking us for two boys."

"Who's Demir? What's the Barone?"

My teacher looked at me, and I was fairly sure he thought I was a moron. "The Barone is the restaurant in the five stars hotel Dinastia del Piemonte."

"Five stars?" I asked with the right dose of panic. "Wouldn't it be better to send someone more talented to a place like that?"

The teacher looked at Michele, who shrugged. "There are no other places."

A heavy hand knocked my shoulder. "You know, Dagostino, I think this is the perfect opportunity for you to show how much you're really worth!" And that was definitely a threat.

"You can't be serious."

"I am extremely serious." He gave me another pat, waved goodbye to the other professor, and left the kitchen.

I stood there, impaled, to look at those unknown boys that were buzzing around in our kitchen.

"Uhm, which one of you si Demir?" I should have stopped someone to ask that, instead I had the great idea of asking the air and hoping it would speak back to me.

A girl with a bowl of onions in her arm took pity on me and pretended like I had been talking to her.

"Nicola isn't here. He's receiving an award."

"An award?"

"He won first place in a competition. I don't remember what for. Cakes, I think. He won four since he started the year, we don't even mind anymore."

"Ah." Very well, I was supposed to work with an unkown person who had all the talent I had not. Really stupendous. I needed time to get to know people. Already, the idea of doing the internship with one of my classmates (who I have been acquainted with for four years) didn't appeal me much, but this was a nightmare.

"And him... Nicola? How is he?" I started biting the inside of my cheek tearing little pieces of skin.

Does he like Pokémon? Is he going to dismember my body while I sleep and sell my organs to the black market?

The girl did something with her eyebrows, but I had no idea what it meant. "I don't know. Nicola is..."

Is?!

Somebody giggled, and I realized there were two other girls listening in the conversation. The first girl was smiling a smile I didn't understand.

"He's a normal guy."