“Then one day, I realized that the girl with blonde pigtails in the other circle was the girl I sometimes saw in the store where my grandmother sent me to shop. Like me, she brought a metal pail that the grocer would fill with either whole or skimmed milk. And like me she had a note telling the grocer what to pack in her bag. Unlike me, she didn’t give him her purse, but paid like a grown-up; slowly, the tip of her tongue between her lips, she took out notes and coins, until she had the closest possible amount, and counted her change just as carefully. We didn’t talk to each other. I wasn’t brave enough, and especially not as long as I still paid like a child.

“So mathematics became the first subject in which I made an effort. I can still remember the first time that I took out the notes and coins from my purse and counted the change. The girl wasn’t there; it took several weeks before we ran into each other at the shop and she saw that I could do what she could. She gave me a quick look – ‘About time’ – and did not put the tip of her tongue between her lips when she counted, perhaps because I did not do it. I didn’t give the grocer the shopping list any more, but read out what I was supposed to buy, and she did the same. I knew by now where she lived; without either of us making a detour, but just taking a different route, we could walk most of the way home together. But neither of us proposed it.

“Sometimes I would follow her home from school at a distance. I don’t think she ever noticed. But then something happened to her that I knew all too well. Two big boys came up behind her, then they were next to her, and then they were pushing her against a fence. She fought back, but didn’t shout. I heard the boys laughing, yelling ‘Come on’ and ‘Give it up’. I ran, ran into the first boy with all my strength and hit the other in the stomach as hard as I could. I took the girl’s hand and I ran off with her, round the next corner, and into a garden and behind a bush. But the boys didn’t follow us.

“After a while I walked her home. I didn’t let go of her hand, and she didn’t try to pull it from mine. In front of her house I asked what her—”

“Is that a true story?”