But it’s been four days, and he hasn’t made an appearance yet. I couldn’t stop thinking about him at school, and wondering where he’s keeping his boat, or whether he lied to us about that and he’s just sleeping under a bridge somewhere, or in some old deserted house, the way he did in Lansquenet after Monsieur Muscat burnt his boat.

And in lessons I couldn’t concentrate; and Monsieur Gestin shouted at me for daydreaming, and Chantal and Co. giggled at that, and I didn’t even have Jean-Loup to talk to.

And it got a lot worse; because after school as I stood in the queue next to Claude Meunier and Mathilde Chagrin, Danielle came up to me with that fake-concerned expression she puts on so often, and said: ‘Is it true your little sister’s retarded?’

Chantal and Suze were standing nearby, looking nicely poker-faced. I could see it in their colours, though, the way they were trying to set me up; and I could see they were so close to laughing that they were nearly bursting with it—

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ I made my voice expressionless. No one knows about Rosette – or so I thought until today. And then I remembered one day with Suze, playing with Rosette in the shop . . .

‘That’s what I’ve heard,’ said Danielle. ‘Your sister’s a retard. Everyone knows.’

Well, so much for Best Friends, I thought. And the pink enamelled pendant, and the promise she’d made never to tell, cross your heart and hope to—

I glared at Suze in her hot-pink beanie (redheads should never wear hot pink).

‘Some people ought to mind their own business,’ I said, loud enough for them all to hear.

Danielle smirked. ‘It’s true, then,’ she said, and her colours brightened greedily, like hot coals in a sudden draught.

Something in me flared as well. Don’t you dare, I told her fiercely. Anyone says another word—

‘Sure it’s true,’ said Suze. ‘I mean, she’s like, what is she, four, or something, and she can’t even talk yet, or eat properly. My mum says she’s a mong. She looks like a mong, anyway.’

‘No she doesn’t,’ I said quietly.

‘Yes she does. She’s an ugly retard, just like you.’

Suze just laughed. Chantal joined in. Soon they were chanting – retard, retard – and I could see Mathilde Chagrin staring at me with those pale, anxious eyes and suddenly—

BAM!