‘Well, that’s OK as far as it goes. But sometimes, Nanou, it’s not enough. I learnt that in school. You have to show them once and for all. If they use dirty tricks, then – you’ll just have to do the same.’

If only I could. ‘Hide her shoes, you mean?’

Zozie gave me one of her looks. ‘No, I do not mean hide her shoes!’

‘Then what?’

‘You know, Annie. You’ve done it before.’

I thought of that time at the bus queue, and Suze and her hair, and what I’d said—

That wasn’t me. I didn’t do that.

But then I remembered Lansquenet, and all the games we used to play; and Rosette’s Accidents; and Pantoufle; and what Zozie did in the English tea-shop; and the colours; and that little village by the Loire, with the little school, and the war memorial, and the sandbanks on the river, and the fishermen, and the café with the nice old couple, and – what was its name?

Les Laveuses, whispered the shadow-voice in my mind.

‘Les Laveuses,’ I said.

‘Nanou, what’s wrong?’

I felt suddenly dizzy, all at once. I sat down on a chair – printed all over with Rosette’s little hands and Nico’s big ones.

Zozie looked at me closely, her blue eyes narrowed and very bright.

‘There’s no such thing as magic,’ I said.

‘But there is, Nanou.’

I shook my head.

‘You know there is.’

And – just for a minute – I knew there was. It was exciting, but somehow terrifying as well, like walking along a very narrow windy ledge along a cliff-face, with the ocean milling and churning below and nothing but empty space between us.

I looked at her. ‘I can’t,’ I said.

‘Why not?’

I yelled: ‘It was an accident!’ My eyes felt gritty; my heart was racing; and all the time that wind, that wind—

‘OK, Nanou. It’s fine.’ She put her arms around me, and I hid my hot face against her shoulder. ‘You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. I’ll look after you. It’s going to be cool.’

And it was so good, lying against her shoulder with my eyes closed and the smell of chocolate all around us that for a while I really believed her – that things would be cool, that Chantal and Co. would leave me alone and that with Zozie around, nothing too bad would ever happen.

I suppose I knew they’d turn up one day. Maybe Suze told them where to find me – or maybe I did it myself, in the days when I thought it might help me make friends. All the same, it was a kind of shock. To see them all in there like that – they must have come by Métro, raced up the Butte to beat me to it, and—