My Brilliant Friend

Several months after Fernando pushes Lila out of the window, Lila’s cast is removed and her arm is fully recovered. Lila begins going to a specialized school to learn stenography and home economics, but she starts skipping classes frequently. Lila is stricken by a terrible flu—when Lenù sees her friend out on the street for the first time in weeks, she is shocked by how ghostlike Lila seems. In spite of her ghastly appearance, Lila soon recovers, and Lenù is relieved. At the end of the year, Lila fails out of her special school and does not return.

Lenù, too, does poorly in her first year in middle school. She is grateful that Lila is not in class with her to witness her struggle to keep up. Lenù and Gigliola commiserate about their difficulties with the lessons, but Lenù feels that her and Gigliola’s mediocrity has them mired in a “swamp.” Lenù feels that without Lila, she will never be “the best.” Alfonso, the young son of Don Achille, also attends Lenù’s middle school. Lenù ignores him whenever she sees him, but she soon realizes that he is among the smartest students in school. At the end of the year, Lenù barely passes—her teacher suggests to her, at a meeting with her mother, that she begin taking private lessons. Lenù’s mother believes she should drop out, but her father insists that since she has passed, she should continue.

Lenù spends much of the summer alone. Her distance from Lila depresses her. One afternoon, upon waking up from a nap, Lenù discovers that her underpants are stained with blood. Terrified, she runs out to the courtyard to find Lila. She tries to confide in Lila about what’s happened, but Carmela, who is with Lila as she always is lately, insists on listening in. Carmela reassures Lenù that what’s happening to her is normal and will recur each month along with some minor aches. Lenù is relieved, but Lila, who doesn’t have her period yet, meanly declares that “anyone who has it makes [her] sick.” She turns to leave, but before walking away, tells Lenù that she failed school on purpose so that she can do “whatever [she] want[s]” from now on.

Lila stops socializing with both Lenù and Carmela. Lenù spends a lot of time with Carmela, though she doesn’t like her very much. Lenù notices that Carmela has tried to absorb and replicate Lila’s gestures and cadences, a fact with “repulse[s]” Lenù. Carmela is intensely dramatic and often tells stories of how a mysterious creature, rather than her father, killed Don Achille. Carmela confides in Lenù that she is in love with Alfonso, Don Achille’s son. After Carmela tells Lenù this great secret, Lenù feels slightly more attached to her. When school starts again in the fall, however, Lenù feels she has no time to listen to Carmela’s wild passions and fanciful tales.