Florian looks injured. “I’m serious. How much is it—two, three hundred euros?”

“No way—it’ll be, like, a hundred and twenty-five, max.”

“A hundred and twenty-five? That’s nothing. You know I’m loaded. If it wasn’t that my granny gets seasick, I’d be living on a yacht in Monte Carlo.”

“I’d be living in Corsica,” says Jérôme. His aunt lives in Corsica.

“Well, I don’t even know for sure the trip’s gonna happen. They always find some excuse to cancel.”

Later on, Rat and Florian and Jérôme make their way back through the jungle to the ruined factory and crawl into their sleeping bags for a few hours’ sleep. But Rat’s too excited to settle down.

Every now and then, she’ll get up and go outside to look at the stars, and listen to the soft waves lapping at the rocks.

At dawn, just when she’s finally drifted off, Jérôme awakens her. They climb down onto the rocks and watch the sun poke its rays above the sea’s horizon. The fishing boats are heading back to Port-Vendres with their catch. And Rat will say, with some surprise, “It’s not my birthday anymore. Now I’m going to be fifteen forever.”

Jérôme turns to smile at her his fond shy smile, before ducking down out of the wind to light a last spliff.

You know those moments when you think this is the happiest time in my life, and just thinking it makes you sad?

Rat feels a pang she didn’t bring along Morgan, and hopes Vanessa remembered to cook him something hot last night because he gets offended if you don’t feed him a proper dinner, appetizer, main course, dessert.

It’s still dark when they leave the dynamite factory. Jérôme, the lucky stiff, doesn’t have school today, but Rat’s first class begins at eight. The sun’s high over the sea as they come around a bend of vineyard, Collioure lying below. She wonders whether Mémé Catherine still lives in the same house with the quince tree in the garden and the wisteria over the door. All these relatives that are strangers to her.

Florian drops her off at the school gates just before they close. Jérôme, head pillowed against his backpack, has already gone back to sleep.

Chapter 2

“Sixty-eight entries,” Jérôme says.

Rat’s heart is pounding. “That’s a lot!”

“No, it’s not. And it’s not necessarily him, either.” He scrolls down the page. There are a bunch of Guillems and a bunch of McKanes, but none of them go together. They are all genealogical registers or runners in sports events.

“Nothing,” he says.