| Subject | Average Mark | General Comments |
| French | 4.5 | There has been progress in recent weeks. However, I would like to remind Victor that the French writer Gustave Flaubert isn’t a journalist and that the Russian author Dostoyevsky didn’t write “The Brothers Kalashnikov”. |
| Maths | 5 | A miracle occurred halfway through the term. Nevertheless, Victor is requested to stop signing his work “Albert Einstein”. |
| History and Geography | 4 | Victor’s work is improving, but I’d like to know what he thinks Tootin’ Carmen has to do with Ancient Egypt. |
| Biology | 5 | Victor is making an effort, but I would ask him to stop looking for transparent fossils, which seem to have become an obsession with him. My frogs have had no cause for complaint this year. At least, those that survived the genocide. |
| PE and Sport | 2.5 | I know you hide behind the plane trees during long-distance running: I can see your beanie hat poking out! |
| Music | 6 | Victor has been drawing cellos on his desk, which indicates a new direction in his musical tastes. But he still sings out of tune. |
It was the end of term. Dad was reading my report and I was reading over his shoulder, standing on tiptoe. I’d been very curious to know what this one would look like. Since Marie had become my coach, she’d kept my nose pressed so close to the handlebars that I could hardly see where I was going or what I was doing. But the rest of the class were almost in sight and I was pedalling as fast as I could to catch up with them. It reminded me of the time when Dad and I were about to move into the house. We had to redecorate the walls. I spent days slapping whitewash over them, but my face was almost touching the surface so I couldn’t see that it was all patchy. It needed another coat.
Still, it was the only report I’d ever had that I wasn’t dreading too much. The first thing I did was to find a calculator and work out my average mark, so that I could really get to grips with my performance. Dad had started sniggering under his breath.
“What’s so funny? Are you laughing at me?”
“The Brothers Kalashnikov … really! Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?”
He rolled up the report and tried to hit me on the head with it, but I managed to dodge him.
“Ka-ra-ma-zov! Not Kalashnikov!”
He was laughing out loud now, with little tears in the corners of his eyes.
“And Flaubert a journalist! Why not a TV newsreader?”
“It was Uncle Zak who told me that Flaubert worked for the papers.”
That made Dad look a little sad.
Thinking about Uncle Zak brought a lump to my throat too. He’d gone off on his travels again, on a journey to the land of our ancestors.