While the chicken is cooking, Grandmother cries:

"It was the most beautiful one. They took the most beautiful one on purpose. It was just ready for the Tuesday market."

As we eat the chicken, we say:

"It's very good, this chicken. We'll eat chicken every Sunday."

"Every Sunday? Are you crazy? Do you want to ruin me?"

"We shall eat a chicken every Sunday, whether you like it or not."

Grandmother starts crying again:

"But what have I done to them? Woe is me! They want to kill me. A poor old defenseless woman. I don't deserve this. And I've been so good to them!"

"Yes, Grandmother, you are good, very good. So it is out of goodness that you will cook a chicken for us every Sunday."

When she calms down a bit, we say to her again:

"When there's something to be killed, you must fetch us. We'll do it."

She says:

"You like that, eh?"

"No, Grandmother, as a matter of fact, we don't like it. It's for that reason that we must get used to it."

She says:

"I see. It's a new exercise. You're right. It's good to know how to kill when you have to."

We begin with fish. We pick them up by the tail and bang their heads against a stone. We soon get used to killing animals intended to be eaten: chickens, rabbits, ducks. Later, we kill animals that it would not have been necessary to kill. We catch frogs, nail them down on a board, and slit their bellies open. We also catch butterflies and pin them to a piece of cardboard. Soon we have a fine collection.

One day we hang our cat, a ginger tom, from the branch of a tree. As he hangs, he stretches and grows enormous. He has spasms and convulsions. When he isn't moving anymore, we cut him down. He lies sprawled on the grass, motionless, then suddenly gets up and runs off.

Ever since then, we sometimes see him at a distance, but he no longer comes near the house. He doesn't even come to drink the milk we put in front of the door on a little plate.

Grandmother says:

"That cat is getting wilder and wilder."

We say:

"Don't worry, Grandmother, we'll take care of the mice."

We make traps and drown the mice we catch in boiling water.

The Other Children

We meet other children in the Little Town. As the school is closed, they are out all day long. There are big ones and little ones. Some have their homes and mothers here, others are from elsewhere, like us. Especially from the Big Town.

A lot of these children are living with people they didn't know before. They have to work in the fields and vineyards; the people who look after them are not always nice to them.

The big children often attack the smallest ones. They take all they have in their pockets, and sometimes even their clothes. They beat them up too, especially those who come from elsewhere. The young ones from here are protected by their mothers and never go out alone.

We are not protected by anybody, so we learn to defend ourselves against the big ones.

We make weapons: we sharpen stones, we fill socks with sand and gravel. We also have a razor, which we found in the chest in the attic, next to the Bible. We have only to take out our razor and the big boys run away.

One very hot day, we are sitting beside the fountain where people who have no well of their own come to get water. Nearby, some boys who are bigger than us are lying in the grass. It is cool here under the trees near the water, which runs without stopping.

Harelip arrives with a bucket that she places under the spout, which is discharging a thin trickle of water. She waits for her bucket to fill.

When the bucket is full, one of the boys gets up and goes over and spits in it. Harelip empties the bucket, rinses it, and puts it back under the spout.

When the bucket is full again, another boy gets up and spits in it. Harelip puts the rinsed bucket back under the spout. She doesn't wait for the bucket to fill, she fills it only halfway and quickly tries to escape.

One of the boys runs after her, catches her by the arm, and spits in the bucket.

Harelip says:

"Stop it, will you? I have to take clean drinking water back."

The boy says:

"But the water is clean. I just spat in it. Are you saying my spit is dirty? My spit is cleaner than anything in your house!"

Harelip empties her bucket and cries.

The boy opens his fly and says:

"Suck it! If you suck me off, we'll let you fill your bucket."

Harelip kneels down. The boy steps back:

"Do you think I'm going to put my cock into your disgusting mouth? Filthy slut!"

He kicks Harelip in the chest and does up his fly.

We go over. We pick Harelip up, take her bucket, rinse it well, and put it under the fountain spout.

One of the boys says to the other two:

"Come on, we have better things to do."

Another says:

"Are you crazy? This is when the fun starts."

The first one says:

"Drop it! I know them. They're dangerous."

"Dangerous? Those little cunts? I'll take care of them, you'll see."

He comes up to us and tries to spit in the bucket, but one of us trips him up, the other hits him on the head with a bag of sand. The boy falls down. He lies on the ground, stunned. The other two look at us. One of them takes a step toward us. The other says:

"Watch out! Those little bastards are capable of anything. Once they split my head open with a stone. They've got a razor too, and they don't hesitate to use it. They'd slit your throat as soon as look at you. They're completely crazy."

The boys leave.

We hand the filled bucket to Harelip. She asks us:

"Why didn't you help me right away?"

"We wanted to see how you defended yourself."

"What would I have been able to do against three big boys?"

"Throw your bucket at their heads, scratch their faces, kick them in the balls, shout and yell. Or run away and come back later."

Winter

It's getting colder and colder. We rummage in our suitcases and put on almost everything we find: several pullovers, several pairs of trousers. But we can't put a second pair of shoes on over the holes in our worn-out town shoes. Anyway, we don't have any others. We don't have gloves or hats either. Our hands and feet are covered with chilblains.

The sky is dark gray, the streets of the town are empty, the stream is frozen, the forest is covered with snow. We can't go there anymore. So we'll soon be out of wood.

We say to Grandmother:

"We need two pairs of rubber boots."

She answers:

"And what else do you need? Where do you expect me to find the money?"

"Grandmother, there's hardly any wood left."

"Then we'll have to go easy on it."

We don't go out anymore. We do all kinds of exercises, we carve various objects out of wood, like spoons and breadboards, and we study late into the night. Grandmother stays in bed almost all the time. She seldom goes into the kitchen. We are left in peace.

We eat badly, there are no more vegetables and fruit, the hens aren't laying anymore. Every day Grandmother brings some dried beans and a few potatoes up from the cellar- which is full of smoked meats and jars of jam.

The postman comes sometimes. He rings his bicycle bell until Grandmother comes out of the house. He then moistens his pencil, writes something on a bit of paper, and hands the pencil and paper to Grandmother, who puts a cross at the bottom. The postman gives her some money, a package, or a letter and goes off toward town whistling.

Grandmother locks herself in her room with the package or the money. If there's a letter, she throws it into the fire.

We ask:

"Grandmother, why do you throw the letter away without reading it?"

She answers:

"I can't read. I never went to school, I've never done anything but work. I wasn't spoiled like you."