“Everyone has the right to talk to their pencil sharpener or their trainers. They don’t replace our actual friends, but sometimes it’s just great to create characters and share our secrets with them.”
Miss Charlotte is really quite convincing. When she speaks, her eyes light up and sparkle. We are all a little spellbound by her. I don’t know if she’s aware of her powers, but the next morning Léo was talking to his toothbrush in the corridor, and Mélanie to a fork.
During lunch break, Mr Cracpote found Guillaume deep in conversation with his pencil case.
“Who are you talking to?” our head teacher wanted to know.
“To my granddad,” Guillaume replied calmly.
That’s when I realized that the arrival of Miss Charlotte was really going to change our lives.
Chapter 3
You Crispy Duck, You!
Miss Charlotte’s lessons had become suspicious. At any time of the day we could see Mr Cracpote’s fat nose pressed against the tiny window of our classroom door.
The head teacher was spying on us when Charles-Antoine, the class boffin, gave a one-hour presentation on his ants. No one knew Charles-Antoine bred ant colonies at home. He brought a fish tank filled with sand and explained how ants communicate by stroking the tips of each other’s antennae and how they dig their subterranean galleries and tunnels. They even make rooms with doors for their cocooned babies. It was fascinating!
Normally Charles-Antoine isn’t very talkative. During break he often sits alone in a corner and reads. Alex says Charles-Antoine thinks he’s too clever to hang out with us. I just think Charles-Antoine is different. And when he talks about winged queen ants courageously breaking off their beautiful wings in order to squeeze themselves into a tiny hole to lay eggs, Charles-Antoine is very handsome. You’d almost say he shines from within.
Mr Cracpote must have felt reassured on the day of the ants. Charles-Antoine had written loads of information on the board and he spoke at length, like a proper teacher. All the pupils listened to him quietly, without moving or talking. But on the day of the spaghetti, our head teacher got very worried again.
Miss Charlotte had given us a problem beforehand. How many strings of spaghetti do you need to go all the way round the classroom? She didn’t want us to find out the dimensions of the room and then divide them by the length of a strand of spaghetti. No, no. She wanted us to just guess or imagine it.
I made a quick calculation. I reckoned a string of spaghetti is about eight inches long, that’s about twenty centimetres. Easy peasy! As for the walls, that was harder. I tried to imagine the length of a metre in my head and to figure out how many I’d need to get from one end of the wall to the other. Twenty-three, give or take. Multiplied by four walls, that was ninety-two. Dividing the length of the wall by the strands of spaghetti, after converting metres to centimetres, I finally concluded that you’d need three hundred and seven strands of spaghetti to go all around the classroom.
Miss Charlotte wrote down each pupil’s response, after which we forgot all about the “spaghetti problem”. A few days later our teacher came to school with a yellow-and-red wheelbarrow. Imagine the faces of the pupils and the teachers in the playground when she made her way towards the main entrance. People still hadn’t got over Miss Charlotte’s outfit – she continued to wear the same old dress and her incredible hat – and there she was, adding a wheelbarrow to her eccentricities.
That remarkable vehicle contained two bulging green bags. It wasn’t until we were inside with the door shut firmly behind us that we discovered what was in them. They were filled with… spaghetti. Thousands of strands of soft spaghetti, still lukewarm and cooked al dente.
“Cooked pasta sticks to walls,” explained Miss Charlotte, with an enigmatic smile on her lips.
We rolled up our sleeves and started to stick the spaghetti to the walls. Meanwhile Miss Charlotte wrote the names of every pupil on the board, followed by their solutions to the spaghetti problem from the other day.
Our teacher had cooked way too much spaghetti. We could have really stuffed ourselves! Even without sauce it was yummy.
Afterwards, we had to count all the strands of spaghetti stuck to the walls again and again, because each time we arrived at a different total. After the third counting Guillaume announced there were three hundred and seventy-seven of them. And Éric yelled: “YABBA DABBA DOO!” like Fred Flintstone always does, because he nearly got it right.
That’s when I saw Mr Cracpote’s fat nose pressed against the window of our classroom door.
Miss Charlotte caught my eye, after which she looked at the door and back at me again. A mysterious smile still played on her lips. It seemed our new teacher didn’t give a hoot about what the head teacher might think. For a few seconds I thought that Mr Cracpote would blow a fuse, fling open the door and sack Miss Charlotte on the spot. He was visibly angry, but he didn’t do anything, and after a few seconds he slunk off.
Things got really bad three weeks to the day after the arrival of our new teacher. That Monday afternoon, Matthieu called Vu Tran a sticky pork belly…
It wasn’t the first time Matthieu had used foreign fare to wind Vu up. Their fights always start with a single dish, but after a couple of minutes Matthieu usually throws the whole menu at him:
“You crispy duck, you! Prawn dumpling! Mouldy old spring roll!
And Vu, who has perhaps never even tasted crispy duck, flies into a rage. And at each insult, instead of calling Matthieu an old custard pie, a fat sausage or a piece of runny cheese, he thumps him. The two of them are always at each other’s throats, because Matthieu is the official boyfriend of Julie, who has taken quite a shine to Vu and often makes eyes at him.
After the insults and the first blow, it’s always a little tense. We stop playing to see which of the two will get the worst of it.
That day it was Vu. When the bell rang, he had a bloody nose and scratches on his right cheek, where Matthieu had dug his nails into him. Vu was dabbing his nose with some toilet paper and Matthieu was gingerly feeling his eye, which was beginning to turn black, when Miss Charlotte entered the classroom twittering away to her pebble.
“What a lovely day it is outside, isn’t it, my beautiful Gertrude? You can really smell the spring in the air. How about going for a little walk later this evening, at least if…”
Our new teacher stopped talking when she saw Vu. She opened her eyes wide and her face turned white. She stifled a cry with her hand, and then she rushed towards Vu as if he’d fallen down the twenty-second storey of a building.
“What’s going on? How are you feeling? Is anyone else hurt?”
To be honest, I nearly burst out laughing. It was so funny. Our new teacher really was odd. Matthieu and Vu had a fight, which is hardly the end of the world. But on hearing Miss Charlotte you’d think the Third World War had just broken out. She seemed ready to declare a state of emergency and alert the doctors, the ambulance drivers, the police and the fire brigade…
“It was that clown who hit me,” said Vu, looking at Matthieu, his dark eyes throwing daggers.
Miss Charlotte turned to the accused, whose eye was swollen and rimmed with purple.
We all heard the little dull thud of Gertrude falling onto the floor. Miss Charlotte was so stunned, so sad and horrified, that she’d dropped her precious pebble.
Charles-Antoine ran towards Gertrude to pick her up and, a little embarrassed, handed her over to Miss Charlotte. Our new teacher took her pebble and put it in one of the pockets of her large dress. She sat down on her desk and gave each and every one of us a long, hard and strangely serious look.
The minutes went by in slow motion and in utter silence. Miss Charlotte seemed to be thinking very deeply. Suddenly she asked:
“These fights, do they happen a lot?”
A lot… What does that mean, “a lot”? Every day? Every week?
Every break? Off the top of my head, I’d say two or three times a week. No more, I reckon.
That’s exactly what Chloé said. But judging from the look on Miss Charlotte’s face, we all understood that for her that was far too often.
A stunned silence reigned in the classroom. Miss Charlotte appeared to be so appalled that Matthieu blurted out, as a kind of excuse:
“I just got a bit carried away, that’s all. Normally we don’t hurt each other this badly…”
The poor lad didn’t know what to say next. And, really, he should have kept his mouth shut, because what he went on to say unleashed a storm.
“And besides, we’re not the only ones. Yesterday Alex pushed Éric into the wall. And last week—”
Miss Charlotte interrupted him. She’d understood that all of us got into a fight every now and again. And it was all too clear that our new teacher came from some bizarre country or faraway planet where punch-ups are unheard of.
“I don’t want to hear another word!” she said categorically.
Then Miss Charlotte got up, slowly smoothed out the creases in her dress and readjusted her hat. She walked to the door with measured steps and a straight back. Before disappearing she simply turned round and told us:
“You can tell Mr Laporte that I hand in my notice. He’ll receive my official resignation by post.”
And she left us.
Chapter 4
A Letter and Seven Garden Gnomes
“What a disaster!”
Alex repeated these words time and again. The other pupils kept their pain and fear to themselves.
In a few seconds we’d come to realize just how important Miss Charlotte was in our lives. What upset us wasn’t just the idea of having to spend all day long doing maths and grammar again with some other teacher. No. It was the idea of never seeing Miss Charlotte again with her smile, her mad hat and her pebble. Of no longer being swept away by her stories or coming up with cool projects… But worst of all was the terrible thought of losing Miss Charlotte.
“She’s just having a tantrum! My little brother does it all the time. She’ll come back,” said Fred with a voice that sounded anything but confident.
But we all knew he didn’t really believe what he said. Miss Charlotte had left us because she couldn’t stand the fact that we hit each other and call each other all sorts of names. Maybe where she was from people simply never do that. One thing was certain: Miss Charlotte was allergic to violence.
Someone knocked on our classroom door. A head peeked through the half-open door. A few pupils let out a cry.
Mr Cracpote!
“Is Miss Charlotte not with you?”
His tone was vaguely threatening. We realized immediately that our head teacher must never find out what really happened.
I took a deep breath.
“She went to the toilet, sir. To the ladies’ toilet.”
My tone was vaguely threatening too. Surely Mr Cracpote wouldn’t dare to go there to check on her.
To make it sound more believable, I added:
“If you want, I can go and find her…”
Our head teacher didn’t insist and left. Phew!
We had to act quickly. Come up with an idea, think up a plan to make Miss Charlotte come back.
First of all we decided that Miss Charlotte’s departure had to remain a secret. No one must find out. Children can’t just run away from school, and we guessed the same goes for teachers.
Everyone had different ideas, but they were all too elaborate and complicated. Finally we decided to write to Miss Charlotte. It was a very straightforward solution, a poor little doubtful plan, but we all put our hearts into it.
We knew that Miss Charlotte lived in an old house at the edge of town that had long stood empty. Once we’d written the letter, everyone wanted to deliver it to Miss Charlotte. Fortunately Alex pointed out that a delegation of thirty pupils carrying out a supposedly secret mission was not a very clever idea.
We had a vote. We only had to choose a class representative, but to us it was as important as electing the prime minister of a country. Charles-Antoine, my ant king, was chosen to represent us. I was happy for him.
But the icing on the cake was that he invited me to come with him.
“It will be less suspicious if there are two of us,” he said.
I tried not to show just how pleased I was, but when I said “S-s-sure”, I felt myself go weak in the knees. I had just discovered that Charles-Antoine has the most gorgeous green eyes, even more beautiful than my cat Tartiflette’s.
When we set out we felt a bit self-conscious. But then I told Charles-Antoine his ants had made a huge impression on me, and he promised to invite me over to his house to see them. After that, the two of us chatted until we reached the street where Miss Charlotte lived.
The house was not as run-down as I had imagined. There were pretty curtains with flowers behind the windows and… the Seven Dwarfs as garden gnomes on the steps leading to her front door.
I laughed.
That was so typical of Miss Charlotte.
Charles-Antoine knocked on the door. We waited for a long time. Then he knocked again. Three times. In my head I counted to fifty. Nothing.
That’s when I felt the urge to cry, just like that, standing next to Charles-Antoine in front of Miss Charlotte’s door with those Seven Dwarfs staring at me.
Our teacher had really left us.
“Come on! Let’s look through the windows,” Charles-Antoine suggested.
Through the curtains we could see the kitchen table. And on it there was… a large hat. Like a witch’s hat, but with a round top instead of a long and pointy one.
Miss Charlotte was still living there! She hadn’t left town yet.
There was no letter box. So we put our letter between Dopey’s hands. There it was in plain sight and didn’t risk being carried off by the wind.
Coming back from who knows where, Miss Charlotte would be able to read what we had written.
Dear Miss Charlotte,
The whole class is sad. We miss your stories, we miss Gertrude, we miss your spaghetti. We miss you, Miss Charlotte.
We didn’t know you were allergic to fights. How could we?
You are different, Miss Charlotte. But we like you like that. It’s why we love you. So if you come back, we won’t fight any more. Promise. It won’t be easy, but that’s just tough luck.
Come back, Miss Charlotte. Please!
The whole class had signed the letter, and our names were scribbled all over the page.
Chapter 5
Such a Rude Gorilla!
The next morning the class was quiet. We waited, our hearts pounding. Would Miss Charlotte return?
When we heard her funny tap-taps in the corridor there was a thunderous applause. We were so chuffed!
Our new teacher entered and walked calmly over to the window to daydream a bit, like she’d done on the first day. Then she sat down, gently took off her hat and tickled Gertrude a bit. Life had returned to normality. We were happy.
That morning we did three pages of French and four maths problems in under two hours. Everyone worked really hard. After that, Miss Charlotte told us a story.
Two children, Benjamin and Camille, are kidnapped by bandits as they come out of school. After a few days of being driven around in the back of a lorry, they manage to escape and discover – how can it be? – that they are in the middle of the jungle. The air is heavy and the heat unbearable. The place is teeming with huge plants. Lianas come tumbling down from above and amazing birds are letting out shrill cries.
Suddenly the children hear a rustling sound. Someone or something is coming their way with great stealth. The steps come closer. Horrified, Benjamin and Camille see a dark shape making its way slowly through the undergrowth. It makes a sound somewh
ere between a grunt and a growl. A panther!
The children already see themselves reduced to minced meat in the belly of the big cat, when a gigantic hairy animal lifts them off the ground.
Rubbery plants fly by. Benjamin and Camille may have escaped the claws of a panther, but what’s this huge creature clutching them in its paws? The animal’s heartbeat is pounding in their ears. It’s so loud! What’s more, this large beast stinks and its rough hairs scratch their cheeks. But, strangely, the children feel almost safe.
Suddenly Benjamin cried out:
“A gorilla!”
The penny had dropped…
Miss Charlotte stopped right there, promising to continue with the story the next day. We couldn’t wait!
The most amazing thing was not so much what happened to the characters, but what happened to us. We hadn’t just heard her story. We’d been in it. For real.
I could have described in minute detail the back of the lorry where the two heroes were held captive. There was a rusty chain in the corner, and next to it an opened tin of ravioli with a mouldy bit of sauce stuck to the bottom. I’d noticed how the running gorilla crushed a large insect with a purple shell. I even remember the noise it made – scrrroinch! – and the foul yellow liquid that squirted from its body.
Where did the tin of ravioli come from? And the squashed insect? Miss Charlotte hadn’t mentioned these details when she told the story. And I wasn’t the only one who had seen, felt or heard strange things.
Louis swore a magnificent bird, with wings as large as sails on a ship and feathers a hundred times more brightly coloured than those of a common parrot, had landed on his shoulder. Magali had stumbled upon two hissing snakes between her feet. And poor Emma was retching after the gorilla had belched straight into her face.
The New Teacher Page 2