Bitter Chocolate Read Free

once.
    ‘It’s fun,’ Pascal insisted. He really could mean it when he wasn’t in the middle of a fight, and objected if his mother ever tried to suggest that he was a sensitive child, a bit of a loner and perhaps not cut out for the rough and tumble of boyhood, especially when his father once added that he needed to toughen up, to be more like his cousins.
    ‘Why does he have to be like his cousins?’ his mother argued. ‘That Kamil could do with a little of Pascal’s gentleness.’
    ‘I’m just saying that he won’t get anywhere in life if he doesn’t stand up for himself,’ his father replied.
    ‘I do stand up for myself when I have to, Papa,’ Pascal protested. ‘I’m just not loud and bossy like Kamil.’
    ‘Kamil will go far,’ said Mr Camara.
    ‘Why do you think that, Papa? He’s always missing school and when he’s there he messes about. And his English is far worse than mine.’
    ‘He’s a leader. People will follow him.’
    ‘Not if he’s ignorant. Certainly not for long,’ Pascal’s mother replied. ‘Anyway, he’s two years older than Pascal. Why do you expect our son to have such confidence at the age of ten? I tell you, he’ll be fine if you leave him be. Children are all different, and Pascal will deal with things in his own way.’
    Pascal’s father shrugged his shoulders and muttered, ‘I guess you’re right’, while his mother hurried outside, loudly clattering the pans she was carrying. He grinned at Pascal. ‘You’ll find that with women,’ he said. ‘They’re always right. At least, you have to let them think they are.’
    ‘Maman is right,’ said Pascal. ‘And I know how to look after myself.’

Chapter 4
    Every so often, the noise of gunfire could be heard in the village now. Pascal didn’t know what it was initially. The distant rat-a-tat-a-tat sounded as if it might be loggers or a carpenter or a stonemason at work, but when it happened in the middle of the night, Pascal began to ask questions.
    Mrs Camara shrugged her shoulders when, in the absence of his father, he asked her for the first time.
    ‘There are all sorts of strange noises in the night,’ she said. ‘I don’t know which ones you mean.’
    ‘It’s not just in the night,’ said Pascal. ‘Sometimes you can hear them in the daytime too.’
    His mother shrugged once more. ‘I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about.’ She smiled and carried on with her washing, humming quietly.
    Pascal was sure she was hiding something, and asked his cousins what they thought the noise was. They laughed loudly at him.
    ‘That’s gunfire you’re hearing, dolt,’ Kamil sniggered. He placed a pretend gun at Pascal’s head. ‘Bang, bang, you’re dead!’
    Pascal pushed his hand away. He thought Kamil meant that someone was practising shooting, until Olivier added, ‘There are rebel soldiers all around us, waiting to grab us when we’re asleep.’
    The cousins laughed again. Pascal tried to laugh with them, even though he couldn’t see the joke.
    ‘Poor Pascal, he won’t sleep a wink ever again,’ Kamil snorted.
    ‘Yes, I will, because I don’t believe you,’ Pascal retorted lamely.
    ‘Believe what you like,’ said Olivier.
    Pascal wanted to believe that it was all just stupid talk, but when he spoke to Angeline, she failed to douse his suspicion that something bad was happening.
    ‘Why can’t you tell me what’s going on?’ he asked. ‘I’m not a baby.’
    ‘It’s nothing to be concerned about,’ she replied. ‘It’s a few rogue soldiers from across the border firing a few shots to make themselves feel big.’
    ‘But how far away are they?’ Pascal wanted to know.
    ‘Far enough,’ said Angeline. ‘And our soldiers will soon send them packing.’
    Try as they might to prevent him from worrying, his family couldn’t stop him from listening to the gossip at school. Some of the children had heard that rebels had taken control of a number of nearby towns and that there was fierce