Adam's Breed by Radclyffe Hall — Read

It was just as well, perhaps, that the following winter Gian-Luca had to go to school, for though beaten in his one supreme contest with Teresa, he still clung to the hope of imposing himself upon her, if not by one means then by another. Thus it happened that his active and versatile mind concocted quite a new scheme; the scheme was simple, it consisted in the main of becoming extremely naughty, and in this, it must be said that Gian-Luca succeeded beyond his own expectations. Just as his weeping had become automatic, so now did his naughtiness; once launched he found it difficult to stop, and scrape followed scrape with such startling rapidity that even Teresa had to put down her knitting in order to interfere; and in this lay Gian-Luca's miniature triumph; Nonna no longer ignored him.

The shop was a fruitful source of mischief, there were so many things you could do. For instance, you could dip into the huge jar of pickles and consume large quantities of onions and gherkins, after which -- with an effort -- you could make yourself sick, an arresting form of disturbance. Then, of course, there were the cheeses; the hard, manly cheeses could be surreptitiously bitten; the more feminine kind that swooned on wooden platters, could be prodded or partly consumed by the tongue. Salame, when eaten in course brown chunks, was an almost infallible cure for digestion, and the essence of peppermint that Nonna administered, when properly sweetened and diluted with hot water, was really rather in the nature of a treat -- you sipped it out of a spoon.