Piglettes

by Clémentine Beauvais

  There are, though, a couple of motorbikes behind us when we leave again.

  “Hi, Mireille, it’s Mum. I’ve just read the news. You were struck by lightning yesterday?!”

  “Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you that in my text this morning.”

  “But you’re all OK?”

  “Yes, we’re mutants now. Our IQs have shot up by 100 points, and we can teleport from one end of the galaxy to the other.”

  “[Sigh] Mireille, the police came by this morning. They took a statement from us about Malo. And they… they said you’d talked to them?”

  “Hmm, yeah, I talked to some cops this morning on the phone.”

  “They said you’d told them that a few years ago you stole a present from Malo that his mum had given him before her death, a photo album or something, and that you’d—that you’d burnt it.”

  “Oh yes. Shameful deed. Nasty piece of work, that Mireille.”

  “Mireille, you lied to the police?”

  “They had to believe that Malo had good reasons to resent me, you see. Or else they’d be really harsh on him.”

  “You’re much too nice to that little bastard.”

  “Yes. I’ve understood that it’s in my best interests.”

  It’s high time we got to Choisy-le-Roi: each strike of the pedal is a chore, each turn a torture. No one’s saying anything any more. Hakima, I can tell, is increasingly tense, as if the Seine was a river of dribble carrying her straight to the belly of a monster. The Sun’s behind us now, far behind—we stop almost every ten minutes to wait for him.

  “You OK, Kader?”

  “Hmm.”

  “Right! Let’s stop.”

  “Are you kiddig be?” Astrid cries. “Whed it’s one of us girls who’ve got big problebs, we doad stop, but if Kader’s in paid, thed all of a sudded…”

  “Who has got big problems.”

  She grumbles, but I can tell she’s delighted to take a break. She and Hakima rush off to find a bakery.

  Meanwhile, I sit down near the Sun, just in case he asks me again to help him. His mobile phone tinkles—email or text. He enters his pin—it’s a Snapchat. I watch, from the corner of my eye, the three-second video. It’s Jamal’s girlfriend Anissa, filming herself in her bathroom mirror. Naked.

  He switches off his screen and puts the phone down next to him. A ball of burning charcoal in my throat, I stammer, “If you like, I can leave you alone, I mean, if you’ve got things to look at.”

  He laughs. “No, thanks, I’m OK. I haven’t got anything to look at.”

  “Are you, like… going out with Anissa, or what?”

  “No, I’m not. She keeps sending me things. I don’t reply. Jamal’s been my best mate since childhood, you know, I’m not gonna steal his girlfriend.”

  “Are you going out with anyone?”

  “Mireille, seriously… Have you taken a good look at me lately?”

  “Yeah. Precisely.” He smiles and tsks, sadly. I carry on, full of energy. “But you could, right? I mean… Well, firstly, that’s not the only thing that matters. But even if it was, you could, right?”

  “You’re so nosy! Yeah, sure, I could, since you’re so interested.”

  Me, emitting a dramatic sort of cackle: “Ha! Interested! No, not at all!”

  He bursts out laughing, of course, and I’m getting ready to throw myself into the Seine, but he starts again. “You know, I just don’t meet very many people. I don’t go out much. I downloaded Tinder—I tried but I got bored. At some point it showed me my French teacher from high school; it was so bloody depressing.”

  “Go out then. Go clubbing.”

  He shrugs. “Nothing’s easily accessible, it’s a bit shitty when you’re in a wheelchair.”

  “Are you joking? You’ve just done hundreds of miles on the road, you went through gardens, campsites! You get by, I mean. You were [big effort not to sound pissed off] dancing, the other night, with that blonde girl. You could totally go clubbing and dance.”

  “Yeah, some day,” he murmurs. “Someday I’ll go dancing. When the results of the investigation have been published, I’ll go dancing. When they confirm to me that I’m the victim in that story, yeah, I’ll go clubbing. I’ll buy myself prostheses too and try walking on my own. Until then, I’m in prison. As soon as they tell me I’m not guilty, I’ll find myself a girlfriend.”

  “Guilty of what?”

  “Of my friends’ deaths. Of joining the army even though my parents didn’t want me to. It was that compulsory day of military service you have to do at sixteen, you know? Have you done it yet?”

  “No. Not yet.”

  “They showed us videos, they said it’d be great, that we’d do lots of humanitarian work, no real conflicts, no real fighting—that’s not what the army does these days, they said. I was top of my class at the time, did you know that? But I decided to leave it all behind and join the army. I wanted to be that happy guy in those videos, hugging a little Somali boy he’d just saved, or some shit like that. Anyway, I join, and the first few years, it’s that kind of stuff—and then suddenly boom—we’re actually at war. Not much that’s humanitarian about my job any more. And the first time I’m sent to a conflict zone, I fuck everything up.”

  “It was Sassin’s fault, not yours.”

  “That’s what I told my parents. Sassin… Sure, he should have predicted we were going to fall into a trap. But at the same time, once they started shooting at us, it was my job to react well. I could have… I shouldn’t have… I don’t know. See, I keep replaying it all in my head, thinking I could have given different orders, found another solution. I could have reacted differently.”

  “You weren’t expecting it.”

  “Yeah, but that’s normal for a soldier. Following orders, any idiot can do that—but reacting to things you hadn’t anticipated, that’s what sets you apart from the rest.”

  We stay there, enjoying the warmth of each other’s company. We talk about ordinary stuff now; he tells me he really appreciates “what we’ve done for Hakima”. Why, what have we done? Taken her under our wing, become her friend. She also became my friend, you know, and it’s kind of her too. You didn’t have any friends before? Kader asks. No. Well, none that I’d like to cycle next to for a week.

  “Boo! We’re back!” shouts Astrid. She’s carrying a bag of pains au chocolat and a pop-music magazine. “Is Kader ady better, Bireille? You’ve bassaged his shoulders?”

  Indochine are on the front page of the magazine. Astrid reads the whole article out loud, so we get a sense of what a monumental band they are, you see, it says it right there: monumental!

  (Well, bodubedtal.)

  We set off again.

  There must be an airport somewhere close by, judging by the ear-splitting noise from the planes above our heads. Since my faithful GPS is asleep, I decide it’s probably Charles de Gaulle. The Sun disagrees: it’s Orly.

  Astrid: “Hodestly, what do we care what airport it is!”

  Hakima: “That’s true, we don’t care, the only thing we care about is that it’s murdering our ears!”

  At last, around 8.30 p.m., when the river’s already black and the trees have swallowed up all the birds: “Smile, everyone. We’re in Choisy.”

  And it looks like at least some people are interested in us here.

  “Come, come, you can sell your sausages in the town-hall gardens!”

  The town hall is a beautiful building that looks a bit like the Playmobil Victorian house. On a stage on the lawn, by the fountains, the residents of Choisy have chosen to welcome us with a brass band.

  “Oh, no,” Hakima whinges, “Mireille’s done her thing again where everyone wants to take us around the city and talk about the historical monuments…”

  But no, the mayor of Choisy has planned a relaxing kind of evening. After selling our sausages, we listen to the band, we talk to people. Some teenagers from the town go up on the stage for a spoken-word poetry show, and I’m a bit depressed beca
use I’d like to be able to write things like that: hard-core, clever, interesting things about my life, with serious political statements inside, but I can’t, because my life in Bourg-en-Bresse is just Mum and Philippe Dumont and the cat Fluffles.

  I tell that to one of the poets, a tall guy called Zimo who slammed about his life and how he strives to get a grip on existence, a sense of balance, standing on top of glass towers for hours scrubbing and rinsing window-panes, sweating in five o’clock trains and feeling the pain of those around him, thinking of the figures he’s seen flash up on computer screens through the windows as he works, six fucking zeros and here’s him slaving two hours for twenty euros.

  “Yeah, see, Zimo, I couldn’t say things like that because it’d be a huge scam, seeing as my life’s really easy and cool and I don’t have to do anything apart from stroke my cat Fluffles.”

  That makes him laugh. “Wait, how old are you, fifteen? Even if you had interesting things to say, you wouldn’t say them well. You can’t say good things at fifteen, you’re not mature enough. I see kids your age, they want to slam, but all they talk about is sex even though they’ve never had any, or prison even though they’ve never even smoked a joint.”

  The Sun says, “You’ll write funny things, Mireille. You’ll write things that make people laugh. That’s your calling.”

  “I’d like to, but I can’t,” I say sadly. “I want the Nobel Prize in Literature, and they don’t give it to funny writers.”

  “What do you want the Nobel for?”

  “So I can fail to thank my biological father in my acceptance speech.”

  “Oh, right,” say the Sun and Zimo, who understand, and respect my ambition.

  Suddenly, a woman in her forties comes up to us to introduce herself. “Hi, I’m Valérie, but you’ve probably heard of me under the name of Simone Suffragette—the feminist blogger?”

  “What!?” Astrid exclaims. “You’re Sibode Suffragette?”

  “Yes! Why is that so surprising?”

  “Well, you haved’t got, er…”

  “Haven’t got what?”

  “You haved’t got short hair like a bad!”

  “She means a man,” I explain.

  “Well observed,” Valérie/Simone Suffragette smiles.

  “Are you dot a lesbiad?”

  “Well, I… You know, you don’t need to be a lesbian to be a feminist. Nor do you need short hair to be a lesbian. Or a feminist.”

  “Yes, but it helps, doesd’t it?” Astrid counters.

  Simone Suffragette laughs. “Listen, girls, I’ve been really looking forward to meeting you. I’ve been following you ever since I first heard of you on social media. You might know that there are two big causes I defend with particular passion. First, I’m fighting for the right of teenage girls not to be judged and criticized for their appearance, especially by boys their age. Also, I’m trying to get young women to see sport not as ways of losing weight, but as a path to self-fulfilment. The idea is to lobby politicians to get them to set up concrete policies that incentivize physical education practices which…”

  (Here we go: Astrid and Hakima, those two ninnies, have drifted off. I can see their vacuous, intensely non-feminist glances spreading their tendrils buffet-wards.)

  “…so, anyway—the three of you and what you’ve done are at the heart of those two struggles. That’s why I’m so interested in you.”

  “Are you a Femen?” Hakima asks. “You know, those ladies who flash their boobs because of feminism?”

  “Er, no, I…” (Simone Suffragette seems slightly surprised.) “You do know what feminism is, right?”

  “Ask Mireille,” Hakima says. “She tends to know about that sort of thing.”

  “I do, dear Hakima,” I confirm. “Feminism is the idea that you’re not born a woman, you become one. And that it’s shitty to become one in a world where guys are still organizing Pig Pageants.”

  “Yeah, well, all I dow,” says Astrid pointedly, “is that febidists are very excessive. By bother, for exabple, she’s dot a febidist, because she says that febidists would like a world without bed, a world just with clodes.”

  “Claudes?”

  “Clo-des!”

  “Oh, right, a world without men, just with clones…” Simone Suffragette ponders those words. I can sense she’s already writing a blog post in her head about our schools’ failure to teach kids about what feminism really is. And about how the kids who know about it don’t go around trumpeting their knowledge. Of course, I follow her blog, and those of other important feminists, and read books and stuff… but it’s not like I’m going to run around screaming that I’m a feminist. Calling myself a pig is one thing. Calling myself a feminist would mean instant death.

  (Just in case, though, I ask her how to join her activist group.

  “Really, you’d like to? It would be amazing to have you with us, Mireille.”

  “Shush! Don’t talk so loud, everyone’ll hear us.”

  “So what? It’s not illegal.”

  “No, it’s worse.”)

  Later on, when night has fallen entirely and mosquitoes are feasting on us:

  “Excuse me, young ladies?”

  A tall man, who looks like an umbrella, very well dressed, small titanium glasses balanced on his nose.

  “Very nice sausages. Allow me to introduce myself: Jules du Sty, counsellor to the president of the Republic.”

  We shake his hand, which is bony and moist.

  “The president has sent me here on a special mission. She would be very honoured if the three of you and Monsieur Idriss would give her the pleasure of your company tomorrow, for the annual celebrations of the national holiday in the gardens of the presidential palace.”

  “What’s that?” Hakima mumbles.

  I translate: “He’s saying [Barack Obamette] wants to invite us to the garden party at the Élysée tomorrow.”

  “Yeah but… yeah but…” stammers Astrid. “I thought we were supposed to…”

  “Here are four official invitations in your names,” says Jules du Sty. “Unless you are otherwise engaged.”

  He hands me the four official invites.

  “No,” I murmur. “We haven’t got anything else planned. Literally nothing else.”

  “The garden party is at midday. Will you be able to find something to wear? The president and her family will welcome you on the steps of the palace before taking you through to the garden. There will be a short speech. You will then be able to talk to the president for no more than a couple of minutes—there will be in excess of four thousand people, mostly from humanitarian associations and sports charities. A buffet lunch will be provided.”

  “Where can we park our trailer?”

  He pulls a face, glancing at our shiny vehicle from the corner of his eye. “I don’t know. In the street, I guess, as long as it doesn’t bother anyone…”

  “But, Mireille, we were supposed to gatecrash that party tomorrow!”

  “Yeah, that was the idea.”

  “But if we’re invited… we can’t gatecrash it any more!”

  “I guess not.”

  “What do we do, then?”

  “We face the unexpected. We accept the invitation. And once we’re in, we stick to the plan.”

  “What plan? I’m confused. Is it still the same plan?”

  “Yes. Three Little Piglettes, three objectives: humiliate Klaus Von Strudel, rip the Legion of Honour off General Sassin’s chest and, for Astrid, meet Indochine.”

  Astrid, pensively: “Retrospectively, it’s a pretty rubbish plad.”

  The Sun nods. Hakima too. I don’t.

  Even though, yeah, I must admit, that plan sounds a little rubbish now, after all the time and effort we’ve put into this.

  The Bresse Courier, 14th July 20XX

  PIGLETTES TO PARTAKE IN PRESIDENTIAL PICNIC

  The three teenagers are like piglettes in the proverbial clover today, after receiving invitations to the prestigious pres
idential garden party at the Élysée Palace. Astrid Blomvall, Hakima Idriss, Mireille Laplanche and Kader Idriss will be entering Paris today and cycling straight to the palace.

  The young girls are still expected to give their promised explanation as to the reasons for their journey: Mireille Laplanche assures that it will all become clear this afternoon. Several celebrity hairstylists and fashion designers have already announced that they would like to offer their services to the teenagers for free, ahead of the garden party.

  H.L.

  Jean-Paul Gaultier @jpgaultier_official

  Jean-Paul Gaultier would love to dress the #3littlepiglettes for the garden party–ITV @lepoint http://…

  Super Model News @super_model_news

  How to dress elegantly if you look like #3littlepiglettes–Clarissa’s

  advice http://…

  Simone Suffragette @simonesuffragette

  Sad to see so many people wanting to turn #3littlepiglettes into

  princesses.

  Élysée Palace @elyseepalace

  Official honours list for today’s Legion of Honour ceremony at #garden-party http://…

  “We’re out of sausages.”

  “Out out?”

  “Yep. We’ve sold everything. And out of a GPS, too.”

  “How much money have we made?”

  “A lot.”

  “Are we really going to the Élysée garden party? We could see the sights of Paris instead!”

  “Or go back to Bourg.”

  “No. The garden party’s always been our goal. We’re going.”

  “We could at least buy ourselves some nice shoes.”

  “No, we’re staying in trainers.”

  “Why?”

  “In case we have to run.”

  PART III

  Paris

  23

  It’s 9 a.m. when we get into Paris, 9.30 when we reach the Latin Quarter and stop by the Sorbonne. Why are we stopping near the Sorbonne, Mireille? Oh, no particular reason. OK, it’s where my mother…