I wasn’t entirely sure whether to believe him or not, since it’s a father’s job to set a good example. I went inside. I’d ask Haisam the Honourable about The Three Musketeers and Alexandre Dumas. I drank a glass of water before going up to my bedroom in the attic. Then I emptied my rucksack and put the new textbooks away on the shelves that had been specially built for them. I stuck my weekly timetable to the wall, because in Year Eight I’d got the subjects, days and times muddled up and I never had the right books with me. Lastly, I wrote the subject and the name of the teacher on the first page of all my exercise books and covered them with clear plastic. It took quite a long time, but it was good to see them looking so smart and it felt like progress. Progress in my method. And I don’t care what anyone says, method is important in life. I went back down to the sitting room and asked Dad if we could cook some Egyptian rice, using the recipe that Haisam had given me.

While we were eating, he asked, “So, young man, are you happy with your teachers this year?”

He sounded so serious that I was alarmed. I could see he was thinking of his promise to Lucky Luke and wanted to check that I was setting off on the right foot from the very start of the year. I nodded firmly to reassure him.

“You see, my boy, it’s the beginning of the school year that sets the pace. It’s all about how you start. Not too fast, but lively enough. Obviously, you have to watch out you don’t get knac— puffed out too quickly.”

He put his hand on my shoulder.

“Life, old buddy, is like a cycle race. You have to approach it like the mountain stages of the Tour de France. It’s not a time trial. Remember that.”

Where on earth did he pick up these sayings? He seemed to be developing as much of an obsession with metaphors as Haisam.

“There are too many hills for me and I keep skidding all over the place. And anyway, Dad, cycling hurts your bum. So no offence, but if you want to encourage me and teach me about life you’ll have to come up with a different comparison.”

We cleared the table and sat down facing each other in the two deep, shabby armchairs. I began, because I’d lost the previous evening.

“The date of the first Panhard and Levassor three-point engine suspension patent?”

He thought for a few seconds.

“Easy: January the fourteenth 1901. My turn. In what year was the Panhard car first equipped with a radiator?”

I shut my eyes to make it easier to think. First radiator … first radiator…