All the Way Read Free Page A

suddenly all eyes were on her. It didn’t happen every day, but every day it was a possibility, and there was nothing to be done about it.
    A gang formed around Raphaël. The only day she cried was when they all cut a big strand of hair off the side of her head. She didn’t run away. They would have made even more fun of her. She examined herself in the mirror. What was the matter with her? Was it because she didn’t go to Sunday school, or was it because of her father’s extroversion ?
    And yet there were so many other crazy people. The Lavinasse family had nine children, two of whom lived with their cousins the Boursenave family, who had six children themselves, none of whom could read. On the topic of crazies, Madame Bihotz died enormous but respected by everyone.
    The whole school was cascading over Solange like a liquid. When Concepción González turned up at school with her ringlets, her frilly dress and not a word of French, Solange had hoped that things would change. But Concepión González slipped on a pair of jeans two days later, spoke French by the end of the month, and became best friends with everyone. She had come to the shop for a communion present. ‘That little Spanish moppet is adorable. No silver spoon in her mouth. You’ll have to be nice to her.’
    Of course there was Peggy Salami, but she actually was retarded. On one of her hands she had a sixth finger without a fingernail or bones. And let’s not forget the weirdest of the Boursenave sons, who clutched at his groin and rocked. Nor the Kudeshayan kids, who were called the Dogs’ Arses and were darker than Africans but you must be tolerant .
    The Boursenave kid shouted ‘Faggot!’ to anyone who came too close.
    She was waiting for Grade Six, to leave this dump. Leave primary school behind her like a lost world of dinosaurs and fossils.
    â€˜You got scalped by the Indians?’ Monsieur Bihotz asked her. And at night when he put her to bed: ‘School’s not that easy.’ What would he know. A tiny lifebuoy in a huge flood.
    Rose seemed different too, when she wasn’t at home. That rainy day, when Raphaël put Solange’s head under the drainpipe as Roland Lavinasse and André Boursenave each pinned back one of her arms, that day of deafening rain, Rose, of course, was not holding her head under the water nor was she in the cluster of girls egging the boys on and laughing over the sound of the rain. But she had seen Rose looking across at her, standing back a bit, looking at her as if she didn’t know her, or didn’t recognise her. A bit upset, put out that she had got to this point, to the extreme limit of what is possible to look at, or away from. Her best friend Rose.
    â€˜I like you because you’re really intelligent,’ Rose had said to her over their hot chocolates. ‘Even my father says so.’ She was looking at her intently. ‘You’ve got that thing not many people have. My mother has it. I’ve got it, too. I can’t really say your mother has it; I’m not exactly sure what it is that she’s lacking. Perhaps she needs to leave your father?’ Rose always said the most alarming things in that incomparable syntax and elegant accent.
    Was it sexual ? Did it affect people who, like her, thought constantly about things that others didn’t seem to think about?
    Concepción, pretty now, a ponytail bouncing on her shoulders, was playing elastics with Rose and Nathalie. She imagined her tripping as she jumped and falling with her gob wide open onto a spoon that busted her brain. Crack .
    There is also a photo in the living room. It is there just like the curtains and the pewter trinkets, and a whole pile of things that don’t have a name precisely because they are just there, there from before, before her, Solange. The little boy belongs to the photo like the object hanging next to it belongs to the wall, and another