But I feel that I shall fall ill if I extract this root or any other like it.’
‘Do you want a punishment, Claudine?’
‘I want anything in the world, except roots.
It isn’t because I’m disobedient, it’s because I can’t extract roots.
I’m awfully sorry, I assure you.’
The class jumped for joy; Mademoiselle Aimee lost patience and raged.
‘Once and for all, will you obey me?
I shall report you to Mademoiselle Sergent and then we shall see.’
‘I repeat, I’m simply in despair.’
Internally, I shrieked at her:
‘Nasty little bitch, I’m not going to show you any consideration. On the contrary, I’ll do everything I can to annoy you.’
She descended the two stairs from the desk and advanced on me, in the vague hope of intimidating me.
With great difficulty, I stopped myself from laughing and preserved my expression of respectful regret … That tiny little thing!
Upon my word, she only came up to my chin!
The class was enjoying itself hugely; Anais was eating a pencil, both the wood and the lead, in great mouthfuls.
‘Mademoiselle Claudine, are you going to obey, yes or no?’
With exaggerated mildness, I began again; she was quite close to me, so I lowered my voice a trifle:
‘Once again, Mademoiselle, make me do anything you like … give me fractions to reduce to the same denomination, similar triangles to construct … cracks to verify … anything, anything, at all. But not that, oh not square roots.’
The rest of the class, with the exception of Anais, had not taken it in, for I had slipped in my impertinence quickly, without stressing it. The other girls were merely amused by my resistance but Mademoiselle Lanthenay had received a shock.
Turning scarlet, she lost her head and said shrilly:
‘That’s … that’s too much!
I shall go and call Mademoiselle Sergent … Oh, it’s really too much!’
She made a bee-line for the door.
I ran after her and caught her up in the corridor while the class laughed uproariously, shrieked with joy and climbed up on the benches and stood on them.
I held Aimee back by her arm while she tried with all her feeble strength to throw my hands off. She did not say a word; she did not look at me and she kept her teeth clenched.
‘Now will you listen to me when I speak to you!
We’ve got beyond the stage of making small-talk, you and I.
I swear to you that if you report me to Mademoiselle Sergent, I shall go straight and tell your fiance the story of the crack.
Now do you still mean to go up to the Headmistress’s room?’
She had stopped dead, still without saying a word; her eyes were obstinately lowered and her mouth compressed.
‘Come on, say something!
Are you coming back to the classroom with me?
If you don’t come back at once, I shan’t go back either; I shall go and warn your Richelieu.
Hurry up and choose.’
At last, she opened her lips and whispered, without looking at me:
‘I won’t say anything.
Let me go, I won’t say anything.’
‘You really mean it?
You realize that if you tell the Redhead about it, she won’t be able to keep it to herself for five minutes and I shall soon know.
You really mean it?
It’s a … promise?’
‘I won’t say anything, let me go.
I’ll come straight back to the classroom.’
I let go her arm and we went back without a word.
The noise of the hive stopped abruptly.
My victim, at the desk, laconically ordered us to make a fair copy of the problems.
Anais asked me under her breath,
‘Did she go up and tell?’
‘No, I made my humble excuses.
You see, I didn’t want to push a joke like that too far.’