There was a terrified silence.
You could have heard a fly breathe … for five whole minutes.
At the sixth minute, a faint buzzing began again; someone dropped a sabot; Marie Belhomme coughed; I got up to go and measure the height and breadth of the decanter with outstretched arm.
The lanky Anais did the same, as soon as I had finished, and took advantage of the fact that one had to shut one eye to crumple her face into frightful grimaces that made Marie laugh.
I finished sketching the decanter in charcoal and I got up to go and fetch the Indian ink from the cupboard behind the desk where the two mistresses sat.
They had forgotten us; they were talking to each other in low voices and laughing.
Now and then Mademoiselle Aimee drew back with a shocked little grimace which became her very prettily.
In fact, they were now so little inhibited by our presence that it wasn’t worth restraining ourselves either.
Very well, now was our chance!
I shout out an inviting
‘Psst!’ that brought all the heads up, and, indicating the loving Sergent–Lanthenay couple to the class, I stretched out my hands in benediction over their two heads, from behind.
Marie Belhomme burst out laughing with delight, the Jauberts lowered reproving noses, and, without having been seen by the interested parties, I buried myself once more in the cupboard, took out the Indian ink and brought it back to my place.
In passing, I looked at Anais’s drawing. Her decanter resembled herself; it was too tall and had too long and thin a neck.
I wanted to warn her of this but she didn’t hear me; she was too absorbed in preparing some ‘goonygoonya’ in her lap to send to the new arrival in a pencil-box, the great pest! (Goonygoonya is charcoal pounded into Indian ink so as to make an almost dry mortar that stains unwary fingers deeply, likewise frocks and exercise-books.) That poor little Luce was going to blacken her hands and dirty her drawing, when she opened the box, and would get scolded.
To avenge her, I snatched Anais’s drawing and drew, in ink, a belt, with a buckle, encircling the waist of the decanter. Underneath, I wrote: Portrait of the Lanky Anais.
She raised her head at the very moment I finished writing and pushed her box of goonygoonya over to Luce with a gracious smile.
The little thing turned red and thanked her.
Anais bent once more over her drawing and let out a resounding ‘Oh!’ of indignation which recalled our cooing teachers to reality.
‘What’s all this? Anais, you’ve gone mad, I presume?’
‘Mademoiselle, look what Claudine’s done to my drawing!’
Swelling with rage, she took it up to the desk and laid it down. Mademoiselle Sergent cast a stern eye over it, then, suddenly, burst out laughing.
Rage and despair on the part of Anais who would have wept with spleen if tears didn’t come so hard to her.
Resuming her gravity, the Headmistress declared:
‘This kind of joke isn’t going to help you to get satisfactory marks in your exam, Claudine.
But you’ve made quite an accurate criticism of Anais’s drawing for it was indeed too tall and too narrow.’
The great weedy thing returned to her place, frustrated and embittered.
I told her:
‘That’ll teach you to send goonygoonya to that child who hasn’t done a thing to you!’
‘Oho!
So you want the little one to make up for your lack of success with her elder sister – that’s why you defend her with so much ardour!’
Wham!
That was a tremendous slap which resounded on her cheek.
I’d aimed it with all my might, adding a
‘Mind your own business’ for good measure.
The class, completely out of hand, buzzed like a beehive; Mademoiselle Sergent descended from her desk for so serious an affair.
It was so long since I had hit one of my companions that people were beginning to believe I had become rational. (In the old days, I had the annoying habit of settling my quarrels on my own, with kicks and blows, without thinking it necessary to tell tales like the others.) My last battle dated back more than a year.
Anais was crying over the table.
‘Mademoiselle Claudine,’ said the Headmistress severely, ‘I insist on your controlling yourself.
If you are going to start hitting your companions again, I see myself being forced to refuse to admit you any longer to the school.’
But her words fell flat: my blood was up. I smiled at her so insolently that she promptly lost her temper.
‘Claudine, lower your eyes!’
I did not lower a thing.
‘Claudine, leave the room!’
‘With pleasure, Mademoiselle!’
I left the room but, outside, I realized that I was bareheaded.
I went back at once to collect my hat.
The class was dismayed and silent.
I noticed that Aimee had gone up close to Mademoiselle Sergent and was talking to her in a rapid, very low voice.
I had not reached the doorway before the Headmistress called me back:
‘Claudine, come here. Go and sit down in your place.