MATHIS

He’d like to go back. Back to when he was small, when he spent hours building things with little pieces of plastic, when all he had to do was make houses and cars and planes, and all sorts of creatures with moving limbs and amazing powers. He remembers a time that doesn’t seem so long ago—almost close enough to touch, yet definitely gone—a time when he played Guess Who? and Whack-a-Mole with Sonia on the living-room carpet.

It all seemed simpler to him back then. Perhaps because beyond the walls of the apartment and the school, the world was abstract: a huge place meant for adults that didn’t concern him.

Access to the place under the cafeteria staircase has been blocked. They don’t have anywhere to hide anymore. This gave Mathis a feeling of relief that he couldn’t have explained, but Théo very soon began looking for another safe place away from all supervision. Hugo told them about a garden near the Esplanade des Invalides that you could get into easily even when it was closed.

This morning, while they’re waiting for the first bell, Hugo comes over to them looking conspiratorial. If he were a bit taller and stronger, Mathis would have told him to get lost even before he opened his mouth, but he’s known for a long time that he doesn’t have the sort of physique that makes sudden outbursts possible. Of course, Hugo still didn’t have the bottle that Théo ordered. But he did have some good news: his brother Baptiste was organizing a party on Saturday. There would be quite a few of them, outdoors, and there would be plenty to drink. Excitedly he kept repeating, “Enough to get really trashed!”

The meeting place was in front of the Santiago du Chili gardens at exactly 8 p.m. Baptiste would show them how to scale the gates without getting spotted. Once inside, they’d have to stay alert and be ready to hide because a park attendant sometimes did his rounds in the evening. And there was no need to worry about the cold; the gin would warm them up.

Mathis has been thinking about it constantly since this morning.

He has absolutely no desire to go. And anyway, he can’t. Given what happened last time, when his parents went out to dinner with friends, his mother isn’t about to let him go out.

If it were just up to him, he’d say no. Baptiste and his friends kept Théo’s money to buy an extra bottle and now they’re bossing them around. He doesn’t like that. They haven’t kept their word.

He wishes Théo had refused to go. But his friend said yes and has already worked out his plan: he’ll say he’s sleeping at Mathis’s. There’s no risk of his father phoning to check. And nothing else matters. He’ll be in control of his time and his movements: a whole evening of freedom. When Mathis expressed concern about where he would really sleep, Théo just said, “We’ll see.”

Mathis would like to keep out of this whole thing, stay at home and know nothing about it. But he can’t leave Théo alone with them.

He’s going to have to find a way to be there. He’ll have to lie. Find an unbeatable reason for his mother to let him go out despite “what happened,” because that’s the way she refers to it, in a low voice.

She hasn’t said anything to his father.

He needs to think.

In fact, lying isn’t difficult when it’s for a good reason. The other day, for example, when she came back barely ten minutes after they left, furious at Théo for giving her the slip under the elevated train, Mathis swore that he didn’t have his friend’s address—neither his father’s nor his mother’s—and didn’t know how to get there either.

The week after, he went down to the cellar with his mother to look for a box that she was hoping contained some of her old things. While they were down there, she had a word with him. She told him she didn’t want him to see Théo or sit beside him in class. She was expecting him to stay away from Théo and make friends with other boys in his grade. It was out of the question that Théo would set foot in their house again or that Mathis would go to his.

He hardly recognized her voice, it was so firm and brooked no appeal. It was not up for discussion. It was an order and she wanted him to comply.

His mother’s been strange for a while. She talks to herself without realizing. She no longer seems sad in that way that made him so uncomfortable, or has the dejected look that sometimes surprised him; now she seems busy, run off her feet. The other day he saw her in the distance in the street. She was muttering to herself. You’d have thought she was crazy.