And—’
‘I said stop it !’ Now I was beginning to feel really angry. ‘Why do you keep going on about it?’
‘Oh, you’re hopeless,’ said Suze, losing her temper. ‘You look like a freak, and you don’t even care?’
That’s another thing she does, you know. Makes a sentence sound like a question when it isn’t.
‘Why should I?’ I said. By now the anger had become something like a sneeze, and I could feel it coming, building, ready to burst whether I liked it or not. And then I remembered what Zozie had said in the English tea-shop, and wished I could do something to take the smug look off Suzanne’s face. Not something bad – I’d never do that – but something to teach her, all the same.
I forked my fingers behind my back and spoke to her in my shadow-voice—
See how you like it, for a change.
And for a second, I thought I saw something. A flash of something across her face; something that was gone before I’d really seen it.
‘I’d rather be a freak than a clone,’ I said.
Then I turned and walked to the back of the queue, with everyone staring and Suze wide-eyed and ugly, quite ugly with her red hair and her red face and her mouth hangingopen in disbelief as I stood there and waited for the bus to arrive.
I’m not sure if I expected her to follow me or not. I thought perhaps she would, but she didn’t; and when the bus came at last she sat next to Sandrine, and never even looked at me again.
I tried to tell Maman about it when I got home, but by then she was trying to talk to Nico and wrap a box of rum truffles and fix Rosette’s snack at the same time and I couldn’t quite find the words to tell her how I felt.
‘Just ignore them,’ she said at last, pouring milk into a copper pan. ‘Here, watch this for me, will you, Nanou? Just stir it gently while I wrap this box . . .’
She keeps the ingredients for the hot chocolate in a cabinet at the back of the kitchen. At the front she has some copper pans, some shiny moulds for making chocolate shapes, the granite slab for tempering. Not that she uses them any more; most of her old things are downstairs in the cellar, and even before Madame Poussin died, there was scarcely any time for making our specials.
But there’s always time for hot chocolate, made with milk and grated nutmeg, vanilla, chilli, brown sugar, cardamom and 70 per cent couverture chocolate – the only chocolate worth buying, she says – and it tastes rich and just slightly bitter on the back of the tongue, like caramel as it begins to turn. The chilli gives it a touch of heat – never too much, just a taste – and the spices give it that churchy smell that reminds me of Lansquenet somehow, and of nights above the chocolate shop, just Maman and me, with Pantoufle sitting to one side and candles burning on the orange-box table.
No orange-boxes here, of course. Last year Thierry got us a complete new kitchen. Well, he would, wouldn’t he? He is the landlord, after all – he’s got lots of money, and besides, he’s supposed to fix the house. But Maman insisted on making a fuss, and cooking him a special dinner in the new kitchen. Oh, boy. Like we’d never had a kitchen before. So even the mugs are new now, with Chocolat written on them in fancy lettering. Thierry bought them – one for each of us and one for Madame Poussin – though he doesn’t actually like hot chocolate. (I can tell because he adds too much sugar.)
I used to have my own cup, a fat red one that Roux gave me, slightly chipped, with a painted letter A for Anouk. I don’t have it now; I don’t even remember what happened to it. Perhaps it got broken or left behind. It doesn’t matter, anyway. I don’t drink chocolate any more.
‘Suzanne says I’m weird,’ I said, as Maman came back into the kitchen.
‘Well, you’re not,’ she said, scraping the inside out of a vanilla pod. The chocolate was nearly ready by now, simmering gently in the pan. ‘Want some? It’s
‘I said stop it !’ Now I was beginning to feel really angry. ‘Why do you keep going on about it?’
‘Oh, you’re hopeless,’ said Suze, losing her temper. ‘You look like a freak, and you don’t even care?’
That’s another thing she does, you know. Makes a sentence sound like a question when it isn’t.
‘Why should I?’ I said. By now the anger had become something like a sneeze, and I could feel it coming, building, ready to burst whether I liked it or not. And then I remembered what Zozie had said in the English tea-shop, and wished I could do something to take the smug look off Suzanne’s face. Not something bad – I’d never do that – but something to teach her, all the same.
I forked my fingers behind my back and spoke to her in my shadow-voice—
See how you like it, for a change.
And for a second, I thought I saw something. A flash of something across her face; something that was gone before I’d really seen it.
‘I’d rather be a freak than a clone,’ I said.
Then I turned and walked to the back of the queue, with everyone staring and Suze wide-eyed and ugly, quite ugly with her red hair and her red face and her mouth hangingopen in disbelief as I stood there and waited for the bus to arrive.
I’m not sure if I expected her to follow me or not. I thought perhaps she would, but she didn’t; and when the bus came at last she sat next to Sandrine, and never even looked at me again.
I tried to tell Maman about it when I got home, but by then she was trying to talk to Nico and wrap a box of rum truffles and fix Rosette’s snack at the same time and I couldn’t quite find the words to tell her how I felt.
‘Just ignore them,’ she said at last, pouring milk into a copper pan. ‘Here, watch this for me, will you, Nanou? Just stir it gently while I wrap this box . . .’
She keeps the ingredients for the hot chocolate in a cabinet at the back of the kitchen. At the front she has some copper pans, some shiny moulds for making chocolate shapes, the granite slab for tempering. Not that she uses them any more; most of her old things are downstairs in the cellar, and even before Madame Poussin died, there was scarcely any time for making our specials.
But there’s always time for hot chocolate, made with milk and grated nutmeg, vanilla, chilli, brown sugar, cardamom and 70 per cent couverture chocolate – the only chocolate worth buying, she says – and it tastes rich and just slightly bitter on the back of the tongue, like caramel as it begins to turn. The chilli gives it a touch of heat – never too much, just a taste – and the spices give it that churchy smell that reminds me of Lansquenet somehow, and of nights above the chocolate shop, just Maman and me, with Pantoufle sitting to one side and candles burning on the orange-box table.
No orange-boxes here, of course. Last year Thierry got us a complete new kitchen. Well, he would, wouldn’t he? He is the landlord, after all – he’s got lots of money, and besides, he’s supposed to fix the house. But Maman insisted on making a fuss, and cooking him a special dinner in the new kitchen. Oh, boy. Like we’d never had a kitchen before. So even the mugs are new now, with Chocolat written on them in fancy lettering. Thierry bought them – one for each of us and one for Madame Poussin – though he doesn’t actually like hot chocolate. (I can tell because he adds too much sugar.)
I used to have my own cup, a fat red one that Roux gave me, slightly chipped, with a painted letter A for Anouk. I don’t have it now; I don’t even remember what happened to it. Perhaps it got broken or left behind. It doesn’t matter, anyway. I don’t drink chocolate any more.
‘Suzanne says I’m weird,’ I said, as Maman came back into the kitchen.
‘Well, you’re not,’ she said, scraping the inside out of a vanilla pod. The chocolate was nearly ready by now, simmering gently in the pan. ‘Want some? It’s
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