PICTURES | j.p. mangan

nine

As the Martin sibling walked through the gates to Volitaire that morning, Marie-Madeleine had a flirtatious smile as she stole glances at Jean-Pierre, who was stood with his friends smoking by the bike rack.

Marie's good mood swiftly plummeted as they got test scores back and most of their classes.

"Felbec, excellent as usual, seventeen." History.
"Miss Sabiani, seventeen, well done." Philosophy.
"The highest, Miss Sabiani, nineteen." Maths.

Six.
Eight.
Eight.

Marie-Madeleine sucked in a deep breath as she looked at her failing marks, she only passed French, English and Latin getting a subpar 17 in all three.

Marie tried to hide her disappointment by fiddling with her hair, pretending not to notice her classmates joy at their high or improved marks.

"As you know, this is a school where we like to experiment with new methods." Their French teacher Mr Marcelin, began. "Next week we're going to try a new approach, you're going to prepare a presentation in pairs. Then you will present in front of the class."

"Who will we work with?" Annick asked immediately, eyeing Simone's empty chair next to her, her sick and absent desk partner.

"You will be working with the classmate sitting next to you." Excitement from the class could be heard and Marie and Michele turned to smile at each other.

"What if we are sitting alone?" Pichon, who sat behind Marie, asked cautiously.

The class broke out in laughter because of this.

"You can work with Miss Sabiani, seeing as Miss Paladino is off and will miss this assignment."

"Look! Pichon is blushing! He's turned pink like a pig." Jean Dupin, another class bully, said causing the class to laugh louder than before.

Annick raised her hand promptly.

"Yes, Miss Sabiani." Mr Marcelin answered.

"Do we really have to work in pairs?"

"Yes. That's the whole point. And I'm warning you all now, half a pair's work will result in half the grade."

The class walked out in groups as the bell rang loudly. Marie and Michele walked side by side, behind resident idiots Descamps and Dupin.

"We'll work at your house tonight." Descamps told or more like ordered Dupin.

"Why mines? Your mother won't be home until late, but my mother will be home and my sister will be at the table doing her schoolwork." Dupin asked his leader and God, Descamps.

"Eh, no, my mother and her friends will be over for lunch so big clean up, lots of help will be around and it might still be dirty." Descamps obviously lied, for reasons unknown to Marie, but the stupid Dupin didn't seem to catch on.

"Okay," Dupin agreed, running ahead to annoy Annick who was the first out of the door. "Annick, if you ever have kids with Pichon, you can say you raised pigs together." He started oinking at her, as well as some of the boys from the other class in our year who were walking the opposite way.

"Is there a problem, Jean?" Brigitte, a kind brunette girl whom Marie was rather fond of asked boldly.

"It wasn't me, Brig. It's Pichon, when he's happy he squeals like a pig." Dupin, fluffed her hair and walked away.

Whilst, Marie was half listening to what Michele was telling her, she did not fail to notice the look that Descamps gave Brigitte, Descamps almost looked nice. Impossible, Marie thought, that boy must have been born with an evil smirk on his face.

"So, where should we go to work on the presentation?" Marie turned to ask Michele, trying to push her peculiar theory to the back of her mind.

"My place? It's not too far." Michele said, sitting down on the bench in the courtyard.

"Okay." Marie agreed, knowing her place would be a rather long walk for the two girls to make every day.

"My brother might be there, but..."

"I don't mind." Marie added quickly, her heart skipping a beat and her stomach fluttering at the reminder that she would be seeing Michele's brother, Jean-Pierre tonight.

"That's because you don't know him." Michele stated, turning to look at Labrauc again.

"Okay," Marie hid her faintly forming smile. "I'm going to fail this year." She added sombrely.

"Me too. At least we will repeat together."

"You know, Labrauc is good at maths." Marie hinted, having enough of Michele's silent longing for the foster boy.

"So is Annick." Michele began to rummage through her bag for her maths paper.

"Then I shall ask Annick for help and you Labrauc." Marie stated, forcing Michele to look her in the eye. "Labrauc is rather handsome don't you think?" Marie continued, making Michele blush.

Before the interrogation could continue any further, Jean-Pierre walked up to the two holding out a book.

"Here, this is yours. I put it in my bag by mistake." Jean-Pierre handed the small book to Michele and as she reached under to bench to put the book in her back, he reached over and lightly pinched Marie's nose quickly and softly, causing Marie to smile lovingly and look up at him with doe eyes, seeing he was smiling back.

When Michele sat upright again, he cleared his throat and straightened his long cream trench coat.

"Thank you." Michele said to her brother.

"See you later." He walked away with his hands in his pocket and a confident air around him.

"I'm not doing well in English either, but especially not maths." Michele continued.

"Yes," Marie said dreamily, staring off into the distance where Jean-Pierre had just descended to, her head in a complete cloud.