At the beginning of this little book, the writers, who were specialists in other people’s difficulties, had included a sort of quiz so that kids like me could see how they were doing. It was very kind of them, like a mark of confidence. I spent part of the evening answering the questions, which were set out a bit like a game. When you’d finished, you had to see where you were in the following categories, according to the marks you’d got:

15/20 to 20/20: You have understood the lesson well. Well done! Go straight to the exercises.

8/20 to 14/20: You have some difficulties. Check your mistakes and review those parts of the lesson and the sample exercises that you didn’t understand.

0/20 to 7/20: You have serious difficulties. Study the lesson in depth and do all the sample exercises.

So, I had serious difficulties. I had to study the lesson in depth and do all the sample exercises. It doesn’t take long for assessments to become disheartening. I flicked through the little booklet’s contents. There were questions about cosines, distances between points, translations, cones, proportionality and a lot of other things with names I won’t mention. I threw the booklet across the room and it smashed against my electric guitar like a pancake.

How could I ever begin to make progress? I felt as though I was in a rowing boat that was leaking everywhere, without enough fingers to plug the holes. I couldn’t even manage to find the answer to the 1901 Paris–Berlin innovations question. I thought about the chess player Reshevsky again. Haisam had told me that he was legendary because he grew up without a coach or any training method, but overcame this disadvantage because of his natural talent. I didn’t have any training method or coach, but nor did I have any natural talent to help me overcome my disadvantages. I was certainly no Escape Artist! Only a miracle could save me. I wondered what I would do if Marie invited me to go and do my homework at her place. It was different with Haisam. I’d made a fool of myself in front of him a few times, but it didn’t count, because he had a noble soul. He never passed judgement and he was always helpful. Since I’d told him the maths teacher carried her dead baby in her right leg, and it was probably the weight of it that made her limp, he’d taken me really seriously. But was Marie as good at understanding people as my Honourable Egyptian was?

“The truth is, I’m not up to it,” I said to my father, who was jabbing at the Panhard’s gear lever.