If only the earthquake had waited a day, then little Luca, Valentino, Moreno and all the others, all the six-year-olds from the primo elementare, would be alive today. From Paddy Agnew, in Rome.
Yesterday was a national holiday in Italy. Yesterday, Luca, Valentino, Moreno and the others would have had a day off school and if their schoolhouse had collapsed as a result of an earthquake, it would have been nothing other than an ugly pile of rubble.
Instead, of course, their schoolhouse in the little Molise village of San Giuliano di Puglia collapsed at 11.32 a.m. on Thursday. Even as the frantic rescue operation was beginning, it was painfully clear the death toll would be heavy.
Yesterday, on a day of national mourning, the worst was confirmed, with a grim final death toll of 29 people, 26 of them little children. The last child to have been pulled out of the rubble was Angelo (8), extracted from the debris at around 4 a.m. yesterday. After Angelo, there was an eerie silence.
For the people of San Giuliano di Puglia, a village of about 1,200 inhabitants, these have been hellish days. Even as the village was resigning itself to the final death toll, four further tremors struck, the first shortly after 4 p.m.
Up at the village sports centre, temporarily converted into a morgue for all those little bodies, anguished relatives and parents rushed out of the building, screaming in terror, just as soon as they felt the tremors.
Inside that same makeshift morgue, the Mayor of San Giuliano di Puglia, Mr Antonio Borelli, moved among the bereaved, doing his best to console them and in turn receiving their condolences because he too had lost a little daughter in the schoolhouse collapse.
Although seismologists explained aftershocks are normal and that such tremors may continue over the next few months, local police were taking no chances and last night ordered an evacuation of the village. The people of San Giuliano joined the small army of homeless, including more than 3,000 from 14 Molise villages, who spent last night in tents, with friends or relatives, or even in their cars.
As the inevitable nationwide polemics on architectural shortcomings and local government negligence were beginning to gather steam yesterday, perhaps the most eloquent testimony on Thursday's tragedy came from a school teacher, Ms Clementine Simone, one of the survivors.
She told reporters: "I had just told the kids to sit down and be quiet when the floor just opened up under us. It all lasted just about three or four seconds, giving me the time to scream at the children, telling them to get under their desks.
"I was talking to the kids, telling them to be quiet, but some of the little ones didn't understand the seriousness of the situation, and they were asking me, 'Teacher, when we get out of here, will the bus still be waiting for us or will we have to walk home?' Those little children in the primo elementare were little angels. . . I've lost my little angels".