I looked at Zozie.

Zozie grinned back. ‘Neat trick, hey?’

And then I laughed, because of course it was an accident, and no one could have foreseen what was going to happen, but to me it looked exactly as if Zozie had made the teapot fall, with the waitress fussing over the mess, and the pastel ladies with their wet shoes, and no one watching us at all, or laughing at Zozie’s ridiculous boots.

So we ordered cakes from the menu then, and coffee from the special bar. Zozie had a Saint-Honoré – no dieting for her – and I had a frangipane and we both had vanilla latte, and we talked for longer than I thought, about Suze, and school, and books, and Maman, and Thierry, and the chocolaterie.

‘It must be great, living in a chocolate shop,’ said Zozie, starting her Saint-Honoré.

‘It’s not as nice as Lansquenet.’

Zozie looked interested. ‘What’s Lansquenet?’

‘A place we used to live before. Down south somewhere. It was cool.’

‘Cooler than Paris?’ She looked surprised.

So I told her about Lansquenet, and Les Marauds where we used to play, Jeannot and I, by the banks of the river; and then I told her about Armande, and the river people, and Roux’s boat with its glass roof and the little galley with its chipped enamel pans, and the way we used to make the chocolates, Maman and I, late at night and early in the morning, so that everything used to smell of chocolate, even the dust.

Afterwards I was surprised at how much I’d talked. I’m not supposed to talk about that; or any of the places we were before. But with Zozie it’s different. With her, it feels safe.

‘So with Madame Poussin gone, who’s going to help your mother now?’ said Zozie, scooping froth from her glass with a little spoon.

‘We’ll manage,’ I said.

‘Does Rosette go to school?’

‘Not yet.’ For some reason I didn’t want to tell her about Rosette. ‘She’s very bright, though. She can draw really well. She signs, and she even follows the words in her story books with her finger.’

‘She doesn’t look much like you.’

I shrugged.

Zozie looked at me with that gleam in her eye, as if she was going to say something else, but didn’t. She finished her latte and said: ‘It must be tough, not having a father.’

I shrugged. Of course I have a father – we just don’t know who he is – but I wasn’t going to say that to Zozie.

‘Your mother and you must be very close.’

‘Nn-hm.’ I nodded.

‘You look alike—’ She stopped and smile-frowned a little, as if trying to figure out something that puzzled her. ‘And there’s something about you, isn’t there, Annie, something I can’t quite put my finger on—’

I didn’t say anything to that, of course. Silence is safer, Maman says, so that what you say can’t be used against you.