Part 4 (1/2)

”Where did you come from?”

”He's not on our team!”

”Shut up, Dominique.” That was Gilles's voice, deep with surprised pleasure. ”Did you see that goal?”

”It doesn't count!” said Pierre, coming up behind them with a red face. ”He wasn't even in the game, the goal doesn't count.”

”Come on, man. We've got a right to a remplacant. Antoine's gone. Hey!” Gilles called down the field. ”Who says it counts?”

Cheers. Julien thought he saw Roland wink.

”We can still beat you, anyway,” said Philippe.

More cheers.

Julien glanced at the trees, away to the left. Henri Quatre was coming back, a small figure moving toward them. In the trees' leafy tops, an army of rooks was cawing and fighting, flying up and settling again in a dark cloud. Henri walked faster.

But he was too late. The ball was back in play, and Dominique got it, and he pa.s.sed it to Julien. Henri had nothing to say. He had to get in there and defend.

Julien's team won.

Dear Vincent, he wrote. Guess what happened today.

They played four more games after that, beautiful games. Henri Quatre won two, and Julien's team won two more than they would have without him. He got out on that field and he played, and he scored, and Gilles and Roland slapped him on the back.

Then the rain came again.

It started during breakfast, softly, the first drops sliding down the kitchen window as Julien finished his hot chocolate. When he put his bowl in the sink, it was drumming on the roof, the air outside was filled with it, clouds of mist splas.h.i.+ng up from the angled roofs down below. No soccer today. No soccer tomorrow. The rains were back for the long haul.

They walked to school with their hoods up and hung their coats beside the others to drip on the floor. The cla.s.srooms that morning had a strange, echoing sound, the sound of an enclosed s.p.a.ce; the squeak of wet shoes on the floor and the voices of boys rang through the school. It seemed as if they all felt like Julien-keyed up, on edge, not ready for rain and winter. Not ready to sit quietly at their desks, go home for lunch, and leave the woods and the empty soccer field to soften into deep mud.

But they did. Julien and Benjamin walked up the hill as the water flowed down in muddy little runnels past their feet, and hung their sodden jackets at the top of the stairs, and opened the door.

A huge packing crate sat blocking the entryway, with Paris written on it. Mama stood smiling over it. ”From your parents, Benjamin,” she said. ”Would you like to open it?”

”Um,” said Benjamin. ”Upstairs. I'd like to open it ... upstairs, please.”

Mama's face fell a little. ”Of course, Benjamin. Julien-could you help carry ...?”

When they went back to school for the afternoon, Benjamin wore a new wool jacket, gray and expensive-looking, and carried a large new book that he slipped into his coat before stepping out into the rain. Julien caught a glimpse of a submarine on the front.

The new gray wool glowed beside the worn jackets on their pegs on the cla.s.sroom wall; people were looking. Out of the corner of his eye, Julien saw Benjamin stroking it. Papa glanced at it when he came in halfway through cla.s.s to call Ricot away for a minute. Ricot left them with instructions to do problems one and two on page seventy-four. They sighed and opened their textbooks.

There were no problems on page seventy-four.

Julien looked around. A buzz of whispers was rising up, a breath of freedom. Pierre was already making spit wads. Even Benjamin had his book open to a huge, color plate of a submarine surfacing. Jean-Pierre at the next desk craned his neck for a look.

Julien was reading about subs in the Great War when it started. A rise in the tone of the whispers; the sc.r.a.ping of desks in the back by the woodstove. Julien turned.

A group was gathering around the coat rack. Where the gray coat had been was an empty peg.

His desk jerked as Benjamin stood.

They were pa.s.sing the coat from hand to hand back there, murmuring in low voices; admiring it. Jeremie pa.s.sed it to Gilles, who felt the soft wool, examined the blue and red threads woven through the pattern to give it color-it really was a good coat; it'd probably cost more than Mama ever spent on a piece of clothing in her life.

”Give it back!” Benjamin's face was white, and his eyes blazed. ”That's mine. Give it back!”

The coat was pa.s.sed to Pierre. Pierre grinned. Then he took the coat by the shoulders and stood, shook it twice like a bullfighter's cloth.

”Come and get it,” he said.

Benjamin took three steps toward Pierre. The group parted to let him in, and closed around him. Pierre looked even bigger with Benjamin glaring up at him, white fists clenched.

”What do you want from me?”

”Just to see if you want your pretty coat back. Here ...”

Benjamin reached out for the coat, and Pierre s.n.a.t.c.hed it back.

”Come on,” he said in a kind voice. ”Here ...”

Benjamin's jaw clenched, but he did not move. Julien was biting his lip, all his muscles tense. The sound of footsteps came from the hallway.

The reaction was instantaneous. Guys scrambled and dived for their seats. Henri Quatre s.n.a.t.c.hed the jacket out of Pierre's hands and hung it on its peg. Julien and Benjamin slid into their desk a split second before Ricot walked in.

The cla.s.s got lines to copy: I attend school to learn, not to play, one hundred times. Even Benjamin, who didn't hear Ricot's rant. He was too busy searching through his desk, through his cartable, through his desk again. He leaned over to Julien and whispered, ”Have you seen my book?”

Julien shook his head.

”They stole it!”

”Don't let them see they got to you,” murmured Julien. ”Wait.”

He dropped his pen behind his chair and reached down for it, glancing casually back. Pierre still wore that grin. Most of the others were smiling too. At him and Benjamin. Roland was the only one who had the decency to look embarra.s.sed.

He sat up, checked his pen nib for damage, dipped it in the inkwell, and went on copying from the board. Benjamin sat staring straight ahead.

Julien looked out the window. The rain had stopped. Sunlight was pouring down through a break in the clouds, and the peak of Lizieux in the distance glowed.

At the bell, Benjamin was out the gate like a shot, home to his shut door and his books and his crate. Julien took his time. Walking slowly downstairs behind a clamoring group with Henri Quatre in its midst, wondering if Benjamin would still have his book if he hadn't acted like an arrogant you-know-what ...

Henri was filling in Luc from quatrieme. ”You should have seen his face. It's the first time he's looked at one of us in two months! Man, I've just had it up to here with these stuck-up Parisian snots-”

Julien hung back, trying to look oblivious. Henri gave a disgusted snort and turned back toward him; his heart sank.

”You tell your friend from me: if he doesn't like it here, he's free to go. And you are too.”

Julien looked into the icy, arrogant eyes and something snapped. ”What do mean, my friend?”

Henri, Luc, Gaston, and Pierre stopped at the foot of the stairs, looking at him.