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Back The Lollipop Shoes
Chapters (96)
  1. Cover
  2. About the Book
  3. The Lollipop Shoes
  4. Dedication
  5. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  6. PART ONE
  7. 1
  8. 2
  9. 3
  10. 4
  11. 5
  12. PART TWO
  13. 1
  14. 2
  15. 3
  16. 4
  17. 5
  18. 6
  19. 7
  20. 8
  21. PART THREE
  22. 1
  23. 2
  24. 3
  25. 4
  26. 5
  27. 6
  28. PART FOUR
  29. 1
  30. 2
  31. 3
  32. 4
  33. 5
  34. 6
  35. 7
  36. 8
  37. 9
  38. PART FIVE
  39. 1
  40. 2
  41. 3
  42. 4
  43. 5
  44. 6
  45. 7
  46. 8
  47. 9
  48. 10
  49. 11
  50. 12
  51. PART SIX
  52. 1
  53. 2
  54. 3
  55. 4
  56. 5
  57. 6
  58. 7
  59. 8
  60. 9
  61. 10
  62. 11
  63. 12
  64. PART SEVEN
  65. 1
  66. 2
  67. 3
  68. 4
  69. 5
  70. 6
  71. 7
  72. 8
  73. 9
  74. PART EIGHT
  75. 1
  76. 2
  77. 3
  78. 4
  79. 5
  80. 6
  81. 7
  82. 8
  83. 9
  84. 10
  85. 11
  86. 12
  87. 13
  88. 14
  89. 15
  90. 16
  91. 17
  92. 18
  93. 19
  94. Epilogue
  95. About the Author
  96. Also by Joanne Harris

The lady laughed again. ‘I wish I did! I’m supposed to be looking for a job, and here I am, ogling chocolates.’

Maman relaxed a little at that, and put Rosette down to lock the door. Rosette looked solemnly at the red-shoe lady. The lady smiled, but Rosette didn’t smile back. She rarely does for strangers. In a way, I was pleased. I found her, I thought. I kept her here. For a while, at least, she belongs to me.

‘A job?’ said Maman.

The lady nodded. ‘My flatmate moved out last month, and there’s no way I can pay for the whole flat on nothing but a waitress’s salary. My name’s Zozie – Zozie de l’Alba – and by the way, I love chocolate.’

You couldn’t help liking her, I thought. Her eyes were so blue, her smile like a slice of summer watermelon. It dropped a little as she looked at the door.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘It’s a bad time. I hope it wasn’t a relative?’

Maman picked up Rosette again. ‘Madame Poussin. She lived here. I suppose she would have said she ran the place, although to be honest, she didn’t do much.’

I thought of Madame Poussin, with her marshmallow face and her blue-checked pinafores. Rose creams were her favourites, and she ate far more of them than she ought to have done, though Maman never said anything.

It was a stroke, Maman said, which sounds quite nice, like a stroke of luck, or someone smoothing down the bedclothes over a sleeping child. But it came to me then that we would never see Madame Poussin, ever again, and I felt a kind of dizziness, like looking down and seeing a big sudden hole right at your feet.

I said, ‘Yes, she did,’ and began to cry. And before I knew it her arms were around me, and she smelt of lavender and delicious silk, and her voice in my ear was whispering something – a cantrip, I thought, with a twist of surprise, a cantrip, just like the days in Lansquenet – and then I looked up and it wasn’t Maman there at all. It was Zozie, her long hair touching my face and her red coat shining in the sun.

Behind her, Maman, in her funeral coat and her eyes dark as midnight, so dark that no one can ever, ever tell what she’s thinking. She took a step – still carrying Rosette – and I knew that if I stayed she would put her arms around us both, and I wouldn’t be able to stop crying, though I couldn’t possibly tell her why, not now, not ever, and especially not in front of the lady with the lollipop shoes.