chapter one

Once upon a time, there was a little topolina and her friend, the papagallo. The topolina and papagallo traveled over the same ocean in the same sorts of craft, but when they arrived, their roads forked. The papagallo lived out each day reading Baudelaire and taking long walks and stroking his bird beard thoughtfully, while the topolina drank too much wine and learned about Italian neo-realism. Both were very content and very heartsick-- until one day, they met each other in Switzerland. And the parrot picked up the little mouse in his beak, taking her over the treetops to see a cabaret act at a youth hostel in the Tyrol.