“Sad-looking little thing,” he commented when she left, and the teacher answered him in hushed whispers.

“She lost her whole family in France, and came to live with her great-aunt here.”

“How good is her English?” he asked with a look of concern, and the teacher said that her homeroom teacher was going to test her.

And as they discussed her, Marie-Ange wandered down the hall in the direction she'd been told, and found her classroom filled with children. The teacher was not yet there, and they were a lively bunch, hooting and screaming and throwing paper balls at each other. But no one said a word to her as she sat down at a desk in the back row, beside a boy with bright red hair, blue eyes like her own, and freckles. She would have preferred to sit next to a girl, but there were no empty seats beside them, and no one offered to make room for her.

“Hi,” he said, avoiding her eyes, as she glanced at him, and then at the front of the room as the teacher entered. It took her over an hour to notice Marie-Ange, and then she handed her some papers with questions that were designed to assess her reading, writing, and comprehension in English. It was pretty basic, and Marie-Ange understood most of it, but her answers, when she wrote them, were phonetic. “Can't you spell?” the boy asked her with a look of surprise when he glanced at her paper. “And what kind of name is that? Maree-Angee?” He pronounced it strangely, and Marie-Ange looked at him with dignity as she answered.

“I am French,” she explained. “My father is American.” She could have said “was,” but couldn't bear it.

“Do you speak French?” the boy asked, looking perplexed, but suddenly intrigued by her.

“Of course,” she said, with her accent.

“Could you teach me?” She smiled shyly at the question.

“Do you want to know how to speak French?” It seemed funny to her, and he grinned as he nodded.

“Sure. It would be like a secret language, and then no one could understand what we were saying.” It was an appealing idea to both of them, and he followed her outside at recess. He thought her curls and big blue eyes were beautiful, but he didn't say so. He was twelve, a year older than Marie-Ange, but he had been held back a year after he had rheumatic fever. He had recovered totally, but had lost the year in school, and he seemed to take a protective attitude toward Marie-Ange as he followed her around the schoolyard. He had introduced himself by then, and said his name was Billy Parker, and she had told him how to pronounce her name, his first French lesson, and she giggled at his accent when he said it.

They had lunch together that day, and a few of the others talked to her, but he was the only friend she could claim when she got back on the school bus with him. He lived halfway between school and her great-aunt's farm, and he said he would come to see her one day, maybe over the weekend, and they could do their homework together. He was fascinated by her, and made plans for her to teach him French on the weekends. He seemed to like the idea, and she loved the prospect of having someone who could speak French with her.

She told him about her parents and Robert the next day, and the accident, and he looked horrified when she told him about her Aunt Carole. “She sounds pretty mean to me,” he said sympathetically. He lived with his parents, and had seven brothers and sisters, they had a small farm and grew corn, and had a small herd of cattle. He said he'd come over and help her with her chores sometime, but she said nothing about him to Aunt Carole, and Aunt Carole asked no questions at night when Marie-Ange finished her chores in the barn. Most of the time, they ate dinner in silence.

It was Saturday afternoon, when Marie-Ange saw Billy ride down the driveway on his bike, and hop off with a wave at her. He had told her he might come by, for his French lesson, and she had hoped he would, but didn't think he'd really do it. They were talking animatedly where they stood when a shot rang out, and they both jumped like frightened rabbits, and looked instinctively at the direction it came from. Her Aunt Carole was sitting on the porch, in her wheelchair, holding a shotgun. It was inconceivable to either of them that she had shot at them, and she hadn't, she had fired into the air, but she was looking menacingly at them.

“Get off my property!” she shouted at him, as Billy stared at her, and Marie-Ange began to tremble.

“He is my friend, Aunt Carole, from school,” Marie-Ange was quick to explain, sure that that would solve the problem, but it didn't.

“You're trespassing!” she said directly to Billy.

“I came to visit Marie-Ange,” he said politely, trying not to let either of them see how frightened he was. The old woman looked as though she were going to kill him.

“We don't want visitors, and we didn't invite you. Get on your bike and get out of here, and don't come back. You hear me?”

“Yes, ma'am,” he said, hurrying toward his bike, with a glance at Marie-Ange over his shoulder. “I'm sorry … I didn't mean to make her mad,” he whispered. “I'll see you at school on Monday.”

“I'm sorry,” she said as loudly as she dared, and watched him disappear as fast as he could down the driveway, as Marie-Ange walked slowly toward her great-aunt's wheelchair, hating her for the first time since she had come here. Until then, she had only feared her.

“Tell your friends not to come visiting you here, Marie,” she said sternly. “We don't have time for little hoodlums hanging around, and you have chores to do,” she said, laying the shotgun across her lap and looking straight at Marie-Ange. “You're not going to be hanging around with friends here. Is that clear?”

“Yes, ma'am,” Marie-Ange said quietly, and walked back toward the barn to do her chores. But the attack on them, and the fear she'd caused, had only cemented the bond between Marie-Ange and Billy. He called her that night, and her great-aunt handed her the phone with a grunt of disapproval. She didn't like it, but she didn't object openly to phone calls.

“Are you okay?” It was Billy. He had worried about her all the way home, the old lady was crazy, and he felt sorry for Marie-Ange. His own family was large and open and friendly, and he could have friends over after chores, anytime he wanted.

“I'm fine,” she said shyly.

“Did she do anything to you after I left?”

“No, but she said I cannot have friends here,” she explained in a whisper after her aunt left the kitchen. “I'll see you at school on Monday. I can teach you French at lunchtime.”

“Just make sure she doesn't shoot you,” he said with the solemnity of a twelve-year-old. “I'll see ya…. ‘Bye, Marie-Ange.”

“Good-bye,” she said formally as she hung up, wishing she had thanked him for the call, but grateful for the contact from the outside world. In the barren existence she led, his friendship was all she had now.





Chapter 4




The friendship between Billy and Marie-Ange grew over the years into a solid bond that they both relied on. Through their childhood years, they became like brother and sister. And by the time he was fourteen, and she thirteen, their friends began to tease them about it, and asked if they were boyfriend and girlfriend. Marie-Ange always insisted they weren't. She clung to him like a rock in a storm, and he called her faithfully every night at her Aunt Carole's. Marie-Ange's life with her remained as bleak and as gray as it had been from the first moment she saw her. But seeing Billy in school every day, and riding home on the bus with him, was enough to keep her going. And she visited his family as often as she could. Being with them was like taking refuge in a warm safe place. She visited them on holidays, after fulfilling her obligations to Aunt Carole. For Marie-Ange, Billy's family was her haven. They were all she had now. She didn't even have Sophie anymore. She had written to Sophie for two years, and was still puzzled by the fact that she had never had a single answer from her. She was afraid that something terrible must have happened to her. Otherwise, Sophie would have written.

In some ways, Billy had replaced Robert for her, if not her parents. And as she had promised to, she had taught him to speak French during lunch and recess. By the time he was fourteen, he was almost fluent, and they conversed with each other in French frequently in the schoolyard. Billy called it their secret language. And her English had improved to the point that she scarcely had an accent. But given her fraternal feelings for him, it was all the more surprising to her when he told her he loved her, one afternoon as they were walking to the school bus. He said it under his breath, with his eyes cast down, and she stopped to stare at him with a stupefied expression.

“That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard,” she said in answer to what he had told her. “How can you say that?” He looked startled by her response—it wasn't what he had hoped for or expected.

“Because I do love you.” He was saying it to her in French, so the others wouldn't understand them, and to them, it sounded like a heated argument, as Marie-Ange said, “Oh, alors, t'es vraiment con!” She told him he was a jerk, and then she looked at him and started laughing.

“I love you too. Okay. But like your sister. How can you go and mess everything up between us?” She was determined not to let him risk their friendship.

“I wasn't trying to do that,” he said, frowning, wondering if he had said it wrong, or perhaps at an inappropriate time, but they had no other time together. He still wasn't allowed on her great-aunt's farm, and the only time they had together was in school, or on the school bus. Except for her rare visits to his parents' farmhouse. It was even harder for them during the summer, when they weren't in school together. Instead, they would both ride bicycles to a meeting place they had found the year before, and sometimes spent hours by a small stream, sitting there and just talking to each other, about life, their families, their hopes and dreams and their futures. She always said she wanted to go back to France when she was eighteen, and planned to get a job as soon as she was old enough so she could afford to. And once he had said that he wanted to come with her, although for him, the dream was even less likely and more distant.