There were many mysteries surrounding my friend. How come Haisam was so fat and his father was so thin? And why did he have an Egyptian name when his father was Turkish? And also, above all, why did my noble Egyptian observe the Sabbath, the Jewish day of rest, which didn’t seem to be a very Egyptian thing, nor Turkish either for that matter. There were many things about my friend Haisam that I didn’t understand. Sometimes I looked in my dictionary, but even then I couldn’t always find an answer. So I watched them play chess and stuffed myself with Turkish delight, which is called lokum in Turkish.

Lokum from the Arabic “comfort for the throat”. An oriental sweet made from flavoured cubes of jelly dusted with icing sugar.

“So how did it go?” asked my father later, peering out from underneath the bonnet of the Panhard with his face covered in oil. “I hope you kept out of trouble?”

I sighed.

“So far…”

He frowned suspiciously. At the end of the previous year he’d promised the school authorities – in particular Lucky Luke – that he’d keep tabs on me. To encourage me, he’d bought me a book called The Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas, as well as the dictionary I’ve already mentioned.

“Did you remember to leave 0.15 mm slack on the Panhard’s inlet and exhaust valves?” I asked him. “If not, your rocker arms are done for.”

He said nothing and wiped his tools clean.

“Dad…”

“Yes, what?”

“How long do you think it took Alexandre Dumas to write The Three Musketeers?”

“I don’t know.”

“A whole year?”

“Perhaps … but I expect it took him longer.”

“Maybe three years? One year for each musketeer?”

“Maybe.”

“Another thing, Dad…”

“Yes … hang on, I’m going to sit down, in case you’re going to spring something nasty on me.”

He plonked himself down on the car’s front seat.

“What I’d like to know is… Did you do well at school, in the olden days?”

He looked relieved and smiled, gazing into the distance. He seemed to be searching through his memories. With his right hand he slowly rubbed his chin, as though it was a magic lamp and sparks from the past might shoot out from it.

“Yes, I was completely brilliant!”

“In what subjects?”

“In all of them.”

He gave a rather strange smile, proud and a bit sad at the same time. Behind the windscreen his face looked slightly distorted.