A Strange Christmas Lunch

 

It  was the eve of Christmas and in the Martinellis’ House all the family was busy for the preparation of the trip: the mother, Annalisa, was finding a container for the lasagne; the father, Antonio was finding the new GPS to try it on the road. The children were ready to go to their grandparents’ house, they loved their grandparents and every time that they went there, they had a beautiful time. Every Christmas, as the tradition says, all the family gathered in their grandparents’ house to eat and talk together. When the mother was ready to leave, they got in the car toward the grandparents. The oldest child, Marco, tried to call his grandmother, Dina, to tell her that they were travelling, but at home nobody answered. Marco thought that his grandmother was at the church and he decided to call her after an hour. In the car Marco talked to his family and in particular to his brother Alessio, they talked about their hobbies and their friends and nobody remembered to recall grandmother Dina. Two hours passed and they arrived to their grandparent’s house and there they found out of the door all the relatives that had been invited that morning to the Christmas lunch. They were confused for this strange  fact, but nobody knew what had happened and all of them started to worry. Alessio and Marco, thought that their grandparents were ill, or that they were  still at the church, so they suggested their parents to take the car and go to the church to find them. The Martinelli family got in the car and the father drove to the church, but the grandparents weren’t there. They came back to their relatives and the worry was bigger and bigger.

They didn’t know where their old relatives had gone and they started to think the worse.

“Let’s call the police!” said Aunt Anna, “No, it isn’t a good idea, if they return home and see the police they’ll get scared!” replied Alessio.  Uncle Tonio suggested to open the door with the keys that were kept by their neighbour, but to avoid giving suspicions to the neighbour they sent Alessio, the youngest grandson to ask her for the keys. He went to the neighbour’s house and he asked for the keys after he had invented a false story: “Good morning and Merry Christmas Mrs. Margherita, I know that my grandmother gave you the doorkeys and I must go in the house because I have to take a book that I have forgot there last night, but now my grandparents are on a journey and I can’t take my book.”, Margherita was very surprised about the news but she believed in the story and she took the keys for the child. In the meantime all the relatives were hidden in their cars to prevent them from being seen. Margherita opened the house and waited for Alessio, but she started to suspect that the child didn’t want to take a book; in fact Alessio had gone into his grandfather’s bedroom to find something that could help the researches. He searched under the bed, in the drawers and in the wardrobe but he didn’t find anything, so he went to the kitchen to drink some water and in the dustbin he saw a paper printed from the Internet: it was cut in pieces but the URL was clearly readable. When he was writing the Website address on a paper Margherita entered and asked him what he wqs doing and she told him to take his book and return to his parents. Fortunately, he had broght a book some time before and Margherita didn’t understand anything. Alessio went to his parents and told them about the paper and the site, but he didn’t remember the address, he remembered only the first letters: “RYAN”, what do these letters mean? Alessio’s parents went immediately to their relatives to try to understand something about this Website-name. All of the parents were very worried and they decided to go to the police, but they couldn’t get in the police-station together, they decided to send only the Martinelli family to tell the police what had happened and what Alessio had seen. Antonio talked to the policeman and told him all the strange story and finally the strange paper that Antonio had found. Initially the policeman was confused, but after a short time when he was thinking he started to laugh, he took the telephone and called an airplane-company called Ryan Air, but the company couldn’t say anything about their customers for the privacy law. The policeman had to ask a special permission to the judge. Antonio didn’t know what to do, he was very confused and he couldn’t understand what was happening. The policeman tried to explain what he had understood: the grandparents had taken an airplane with a low-cost company and they were on a journey together, without talking about that to nobody. Antonio continued not to understand but he thanked the policeman and he went to the other relatives with his family to tell what the policeman had said. After the narration, all the relatives were more baffled than earlier, only a grandchild, Giulio, could understand something and he said: “Probably I understand! Some months ago Grandad asked me where an Internet Cafè was where he could go on the Internet and I indicated him an Internet point near Piazza Italia. So farI I didn’t understand why he wanted that information, but now I know! Grandad bought a low-cost flight for him and for Granny and they have flown somewhere. The only question now is: Why aren’t they coming back on the eve of Christmas? They knew that we come every eve for the Christmas lunch! Let’s look for someone who knows, certainly they talked to someone about this trip, Mrs Margherita will know, Granny can’t have left the house without telling soething to her. Let’s come to her house!” Some of the relatives went to Mrs Margherita’s House and Giulio told her: “We know that our grandparents went on  a journey, but where? And the most important question is: When are they going to return?”

Mrs Margheirta was surprised about these strange questions and said: “Ehmmm, your grandmother told me not to tell anyone about, because she didn’t want you to get worried. She had to return yesterday, I thought that they had come back during the night, but when Alessio arrived to ask me for the keys I understood that something had happened, so I rang the hotel where they were staying and I asked about them. The owner of the hotel told me that your grandparents  left the hotel this morning because yesterday evening the airport was closed. Now they must be on the plane, I didn’t know that all their relatives were waiting for them, otherwise I would coe and tell you about their trip.” Giulio couldn’t believe his ears and, after thanking Mrs Margherita, he came back to his relatives and told them the strange story. They were amused about this funny story and they decided to go to the airport to wait for their grandparents. They didn’t  have to wait for a long time because the plane landed fifteen minutes after their arrival at the airport. When the grandparents got out from the door of the terminal they stayed in silence to see what was happening. All of the relatives applauded vociferously and they went to embrace their old relatives. They all came back at the grandparents’ house and there they asked them to tell about their adventure. The grandmother started to tell: “We didn’t want to get you worried and our plane had to arrive here yesterday evening but yesterday there were some problems in the airport and all the flights were cancelled. We hoped to take the first plane to Italy last  night or today early in the morning, but the first plane to Italy was this and we couldn’t warn you, we hoped to arrive in time for lunch but we couldn’t. But now we can eat together and we’ll talk during the lunch. The Lasagne will be ready in a quarter of an hour, until that, we can eat some bread with salami. Buon Appetito!”

 

 

 

Dimitri Di Cristofaro