They were all wearing black overalls and this, combined with the gentle gloom of the classroom, gave the whole scene a mournful look.
The girls had been reciting something in unison, but when Anna came in with Colette they all stopped and stared at her. Anna stared back, but she was beginning to feel rather small and suddenly wondered, violently, whether she was really going to like this school. She held on tight to her satchel and her sandwich box and tried to look as though she did not care.
Then there was a hand on her shoulder. A faint smell of scent with just a tinge of garlic enveloped her and she found herself looking into a very friendly, wrinkled face surrounded by frizzy black hair.
“Bonjour, Anna,” said the face slowly and clearly so that Anna could understand. “I am your teacher. I am called Madame Socrate.”
“Bonjour, Madame,” said Anna in a low voice.
“Very good!” cried Madame Socrate. She waved her hand towards the rows of desks and added slowly and clearly as before. “These girls are in your class,” and something about “friends”.
Anna removed her eyes from Madame Socrate and risked a quick glance sideways. The girls were no longer staring but smiling and she felt much better. Then Colette led her to a desk next to her own, Madame Socrate said something, and the girls – all except Anna – began to recite in unison again.
Anna sat and let the sound drone over her. She wondered what they were reciting. It was strange to be having a lesson at school without even knowing what it was about. As she listened she detected some numbers among the droning. Was it a multiplication table? No, there were not nearly enough numbers. She glanced at the book on Colette’s desk. There was a picture of a king with a crown on the cover. Then it came to her, just as Madame Socrate clapped her hands for the recitation to stop. It was history! The numbers were dates and it had been a history lesson! For some reason this discovery made her feel very pleased.
The girls were now taking exercise books out of their desks and Anna was given a brand-new one. The next lesson was dictation. Anna recognized the word because once or twice Mademoiselle Martel had dictated a few simple words to her and Max. But this was a very different matter. There were long sentences and Anna had no idea what any of them meant. She did not know where one sentence ended and another began – not even where one word ended and another began. It seemed hopeless to embark on it – but it would look even worse if she just sat without writing at all. So she did what she could to translate the incomprehensible sounds into letters arranged in what seemed like possible groups. After she had covered most of a page in this strange manner the dictation came to an end, the books were collected, a bell rang and it was time for break.
Anna put on her coat and followed Colette into the playground – a paved rectangle surrounded by railings which was already filling up with other girls. It was a cold day and they were running and skipping about to keep warm. As soon as Anna appeared with Colette, a number of them crowded round and Colette introduced them. There were Claudine, Marcelle, Micheline, Françoise, Madeleine …it was impossible to remember all their names, but they all smiled and held out their hands to Anna and she felt very grateful for their friendliness.
Then they played a singing game. They linked arms and sang and skipped forwards, backwards and sideways in time to the tune. It looked rather tame at first, but as the game went on they went faster and faster until at last they got into such a tangle that they collapsed in a heap, laughing and out of breath. The first time they did this Anna stood and watched, but the second time Colette took her hand and led her to the end of the row. She linked arms with Françoise – or it might have been Micheline – and did her best to follow the steps. When she went wrong everybody laughed, but in a friendly way. When she got it right they were delighted. She became hot and excited, and as a result of her mistakes the game ended in an even bigger muddle than before. Colette was laughing so much that she had to sit down and Anna was laughing too. She suddenly realized how long it was since she had really played with other children. It was lovely to be back at school. By the end of break she was even singing the words of the song, though she had no idea what any of them meant.
When they went back into the classroom Madame Socrate had covered the blackboard with sums and Anna’s spirits rose. At least for this she did not need to know French. She worked away at them until the bell went and morning school was over.
Lunch was eaten in a small, warm kitchen under the supervision of a large lady called Clothilde. Nearly all the children lived near enough to go home to eat and there was only one other, much younger girl who stayed, apart from a little boy of about three who seemed to belong to Clothilde.
Anna ate her sandwiches but the other girl had meat, vegetables and a pudding, all of which Clothilde cheerfully heated up for her on the stove. It looked a much nicer lunch than her own and Clothilde thought so too. She made a face at the sandwiches as though they were poison, crying, “Not good! Not good!” and gave Anna to understand, with much pointing to the cooker, that another time she should bring a proper lunch.
“Oui,” said Anna and even ventured “Demain”, which meant tomorrow, and Clothilde nodded her fat face and beamed.
Just as they were coming to the end of this exchange which had taken some time, the door opened and Madame Socrate came in.
“Ah,” she said in her slow, clear voice. “You are speaking French. That is good.”
Clothilde’s little boy ran up to her. “I can speak French!” he cried.
“Yes, but you can’t speak German,” said Madame Socrate and tickled his little tummy so that he squealed with delight.
Then she beckoned to Anna to follow her. They went back to the classroom and Madame Socrate sat down at a desk with Anna. She spread the morning’s work out in front of them and pointed to the arithmetic.
“Very good!” she said. Anna had got nearly all of it right. Then Madame Socrate pointed to the dictation, “Very bad!” she said, but made such a funny face as she said it that Anna did not mind. Anna looked at her book. Her dictation had disappeared under a sea of red ink. Nearly every word was wrong. Madame Socrate had had to write the whole piece out again. At the bottom of the page it said in red, “142 mistakes” and Madame Socrate pointed to the number looking amazed and impressed, as though it were a record – which it probably was. Then she smiled, patted Anna on the back and asked her to copy the corrected version. Anna did so very carefully, and though she still could only understand very little of what she had written it was nice to have something in her book that was not all crossed out.
In the afternoon there was art and Anna drew a cat which was much admired. She gave it to Colette for being so kind to her and Colette told her in her usual mixture of quick French and dumb-show that she would pin it up on the wall of her bedroom.
When Mama came to fetch her at four o’clock Anna was very cheerful.
“How was school?” asked Mama, and Anna said, “Lovely!”
She did not realize until she got home how tired she was, but that evening, for the first time in weeks, she and Max did not have a row. It was exhausting going back to school again the next day, and the day after that, but the following day was Thursday when no one goes to school in France and she and Max both had a whole day off.
“What shall we do?” asked Max.
“Let’s take our pocket money to Prisunic,” said Anna. This was a store she and Mama had discovered on one of their shopping expeditions. Everything in it was very cheap – in fact nothing in the whole store cost more than ten francs. There
