My Brilliant Friend: Childhood: Chapter 2 Summary & Analysis

It is Lila’s fault that she and Lenù are on their way to Don Achille’s. Lila has recently thrown Lenù’s doll Tina down into a cellar grate. Lenù, a small girl in the first grade, is devastated by the loss of her doll. Her doll knows the same “terrors” she faces every day—such as Don Achille, whom Lenù constantly pictures crouching in their shared apartment building’s dank cellar.  Elena recalls playing dolls near the cellar with Lila and her shabby cloth doll, Nu, one afternoon, when Lila suggested that they hold each other’s dolls for a while. The young Lenù agreed to switch—but as soon as Lila got ahold of Tina, she tossed her into the cellar grate in spite of knowing of Lenù’s fear of the cellar, Don Achille, and the black bag he uses to collect the things children drop into the grate.