Me and No

Chapter 3

Lucas is sitting in the back row, his usual place. From my see I can see his profile. He looks ready for a fight. I can see his open shirt, his baggy jeans, his bare feet in his trainers. His leaning back in his chair, his arms folded, as if his observing, like someone who's landed there by mistake because of a signalling error or some demonstrate of mix-up. his bag beneath the table looks empty. I'm looking at him furtively, remembering how he was on the first day of term.

I didn't know anyone and I felt scared. I'd gone to sit at the back. Mr Martin was holding out forms and Lucas turn to me and smiled. The forms were green. The colour changed each year, but the boxes were always the same: surname, first name, parents profession and a ton of things to fill in that was nobody's business. Lucas didn't have a pen so I lend him one. I reached over as far as I could from the other side of the central isle between the desks.

" Mr Muller, I see that you've started this year with the right attitude. Did you leave your riding implements on the beach?"

Lucas didn't reply. He glanced over at me. I was afraid for him. but Mr Martin began giving out our timetables. when I got to the brothers and sisters box on my forms I wrote 0 in full.

using a number to express the absence of something isn't self-evident. I read that in my science encyclopaedia. The absence of an object or a subject is better Express by the phase there are none or none anymore. numerals are abstract and zeros can't express absence or sorrow. I looked up and saw Lucas was looking at me. because I'm left-handed and write with my wrist curled round, people are always surprised to see the complicated way I hold my pen. He was looking at me as though he was wondering how such a little scrap of a thing had landed up here. Mr Martin took the register and then started the first lesson. In the act of silence I reckoned that Lucas Muller was the kind of person who isn't scared of life. He was still leaning back in his seat, not taking any notes.

Today I know the names of everybody in class, all the habits, friendships and rivalries, Léa Germans laugh, Axelles whisper, Lucas's never-ending legs sticking out in the aisle, Lucille's flashing pencil case, Corinne's long plait, Gauthier's glasses. In the class photo taken a few days after the start of term, I'm at the front, where they put the small ones. Above me, up at the top, is Lucas, looking sullen. If you allow that a single straight line can be drawn between any two points, one day I'm going to draw a line from him to me or me to him.