“Do you like our town?” Sophie asked as we walked to class.

“No, can’t say I’ve had that much fun…”

“…But it’s a nice small town.”

“And a minnow is a nice small fish. But right now, I think I’m sick of fish. If that makes sense,” I replied coldly. Sophie shut up looking a little hurt. We walked in silence and with the absence of chatter I began to feel a little guilty. I could tell that Sophie was the type who usually stayed quiet, and by trying to make small talk, she was probably doing something bold for her shy nature.

“Well, its not that I don’t like it… I mean it’s a nice place and all. I just miss… Me.”

She screwed up her face and looked at me incredulously, “You?”

“Er… home. I miss home.”

Sophie looked thoughtful. “Has it been hard not being able to understand everyone?”

I stopped walking. “Yes. Yes it has.”

We found my new classroom. It looked like it was white walled at one time, but had now faded to an off yellow. Wooden desks faced a much used green chalk board, which Angélique was in front of at a large desk of her own. She was looking through a book while a dozen students were busy writing. As Sophie opened the door, Angélique looked up and smiled at me.

“Ah, here’s our new student. Class, this is Aluoette,” Angélique said to her class.

I heard my name and blushed as everyone looked up at me. I waved a little shyly, and noticed Sophie just hurried to her desk, to avoid attention. Angélique looked full of pride, like I’d just been pronounced clean at an AA meeting or something. She walked up to me and bent down putting both of her hands on my shoulders.

“You look wonderful in that uniform, let’s get you seated for class.”

Angélique pointed to an open desk in the back row. Sophie sat to the right of it, and on the other side sat a boy. I carefully went to my seat, conscious that all eyes followed me as I did so. The boy sneered at me and I realized I recognized him. He was in the group of boys in the street the other day. I think his name was Marcel.

“Aluoette will be in our class for a little while. She’s visiting from America . I want you all to make her feel welcome.”

Angélique was talking about me again, no idea what though. I looked around my desk and frowned. I didn’t have books, pen, paper, or anything a normal student might have.

“Um… could I get… some school supplies?”

Angélique looked back at me a little hotly. I think she thought I was interrupting her. She started to walk back towards me. I quickly reached over and tugged at Sophie’s sleeve. She gave me a look like she didn’t know me. I tugged a little harder.

“She says she doesn’t have anything to write on,” Sophie said reluctantly.

Angélique stopped walking towards me. She smiled and playfully slapped her forehead. “Silly me, I completely forgot she’d need school supplies,” and started back towards her desk. As soon as her back was turned a ball of paper hit me in the side of the head. In front of Marcel sat the bigger boy of that group from the other day, Gérard.

“There’s some paper for you to write on Amerloque,” Gérard said with a laugh, Marcel and a few others sitting nearby chuckled too.

Gérard = ass-hat. Okay, that’s the first thing I learned in French school. No idea what he said, which is just as good; if I can’t understand their stupid remarks, then I can’t be affected by them.

Angélique came back with some paper and a pen, and also one of the books on French I’d been using most of the weekend. She just flipped it open to where I’d left off. After a few more minutes of blabbering about me, she began in on one of her lessons.

Class was fairly dull. Angélique droned on about this or that. Occasionally I could guess what she was talking about when she’d point to a map and say a few things. I think she was a civics teacher of sorts, but later, she switched gears and started talking about some reading all the students (except me) had been doing. They all took out the same book and took turns reading aloud. I busied myself with my book, and occasionally stared around the classroom. Some of the kids I’d seen in town or at church before. Including the ass-hat boys nearby and also that girl whose house I’d stopped at the other day.

Eventually a bell rang somewhere close to noon . I watched as the boys clustered together and looked at me menacingly before leaving the room, and some of the girls didn’t really look at me favorably either. Sophie left the room quietly, and by herself, leaving me alone with Angélique.

I went to the door and made sure no one was nearby. Satisfied, I went to Angélique who was busy making a few notes on a piece of paper at her desk.

“It’s lunchtime now Aluoette, you don’t need to stay,” she said motioning to the door.

I recognized the French word for Lunch, but I didn’t need to know about where I should have been going, I needed to talk to her.

“I don’t have another pull-up,” I said in a whisper. She knew the word pull-up and her eyes widened.

“You know we didn’t plan today very well did we? You go to lunch, I’ll see if I can’t run home really quickly.”

I really wanted to know what she was saying. She eventually got to our best form of communication and pointed at herself, then walked her fingers across the desk, then pointed out the window. She was going to run home real quick. I smiled and nodded. She patted my shoulder and left for her house, I went out into the hallway and found it mostly deserted, and I realized I didn’t know where lunch was.

I turned right and started down that hall. I found the ladies room (I made sure to remind myself not to futz up on the men’s room thing again) and went into the bathroom. It was empty, which I was happy about. I carefully went into one of the stalls and sat down. It’d been a while since I’d wet and I knew that I would probably need to go to the bathroom, even if I couldn’t really feel it. Luckily, I was right. Not only was I right, I was right on umm… both accounts. Gave me a shudder thinking I’d never be able to hide… well if I messed myself, I don’t think pull-ups are really meant to handle it. Thankfully I had managed to get to the toilet for that need lately.

The door to the bathroom opened. I froze up. I looked about nervously and noticed that my pull-up was around my ankles and probably visible from outside the stall, so I reached forward and brought it up to my knees.

“Do you want to skip class?”

“Yeah why not, it’s getting so annoying to have to go every day…”

I smelt cigarette smoke. Sounded like two voices holding a quiet conversation in French near the window.

“Did you see the new girl today?”

“I heard she’s American, and that she was arrested last night.”

“Makes me feel kind of stupid just smoking cigarettes, I bet that American girl knows how to have fun… We’ll have to talk to her sometime.”

“Hehe, you love getting into trouble.”

“What else is there to do in this town?”

“Heh I know what you mean.”

The two girls giggled and stopped talking for a little bit. I heard them eventually leave the bathroom and I breathed a sigh of relief before getting up to finish my business and leave the bathroom too.

I was extra cautious to leave the bathroom. I knew that things like cigarette smoke would easily be blamed on me since I apparently had the benefit of immediately being guilty for whatever wrong doing went on nearby me. Finding the coast clear, I made my escape and started down the hall once again.

I walked to the other side of the building, where I started to hear the collective noise of a lot of students. I followed it and reached a large hall which served as the lunch room. I smiled and went to a counter to get a small tray of food. It was very basic, milk, chips and a sandwich. Faces looked up at me, like they had when I’d come into the schoolyard this morning. I nervously looked about for a place to sit and found most of the tables were pretty full. I didn’t really feel like talking to anyone (since probably none of them could understand me anyway). I found a spot towards the middle that didn’t have any people near for like six or seven seats down the table.

My class was interspersed around the room. Sophie was in a corner, sitting near some people, but she was reading a book and really didn’t look much like she was associating with them. That other girl from my class talking excitedly with her friends, if Sophie was the quiet reader, this girl was her opposite.

I finished my lunch in silence, trying to avoid the stares of the people around me. A part of me had entertained thoughts during class of ruling this school. I had done it all before, so why couldn’t I do it all again and do it better then before?

I got my answer in the form of an intentional bump on my back as Gérard passed by me with an empty tray. He tried to make it look like an accident, but I could tell by the smiles from his friends, that it wasn’t. I didn’t say anything and kept eating.

After lunch, everyone started wandering back to their classrooms. As the lunchroom crowd thinned, I took the cue to head back too. Angélique was waiting for me as I returned to her room. She had a small handbag and handed it to me with a wink. I thanked her and scurried off to the bathroom again. It turned out that I had wet my pull-up a little more during lunch, and hadn’t even noticed it. I was thankful to have the dry one.

I got back to class and took my seat. Lessons resumed and I was bored out of my mind. I could only force myself to study French so much. After two more hours of it, I wanted to throw the book out the window. I had taken to doodling on my paper. I was even making up songs. This one I adapted from “Les Mes” since I was Le Miserable…

“In the university of Paireeeeee ,

there is a cheeseburger waiting for me…

Its sits next to a nice cold beer,

And English is the only sound I hear.”

Okay so songwriter I’m not, but it aptly described how I felt. As time passed, the lessons finally changed once again. This time, to my great happiness, Angélique started in on math. A big smile came to my lips. Math was universal, language wasn’t a barrier here.

“Okay, we’ll start with today’s bonus problem. As usual I don’t expect anyone to get it, but its something great to try.”

Angélique started writing on the board. She wrote some French with a series of numbers behind it. I reached over to Sophie and tugged at her sleave once more.

“What’s it say? What’s before the numbers? I need to know, I might actually be able to participate in class if I can understand that.”

Sophie hesitated but looked to me after getting a glare from ass-hat and little ass-hat. “It says ‘Find the lowest whole number evenly divisible by’,” and she turned to the board again, I looked on. The numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 were written out under the French writing.

I looked at some of the other kids around. Sophie got out a paper and started multiplying the numbers together. I saw the other kids doing similar long steps too. I looked at the problem and thought about it again. I was a comp-sci major in college and math was a strong point. This problem was a factoring one.

I took out a piece of paper and copied the numbers down, then started to factor them out. I wrote a 1 below one, then a 2 below 2, then a 3 below 3, and another 2 below 4, 5 below 5, nothing for 6, one 7, another 2 for 8, another 3 for 9 and nothing for 10. After I’d done it, I had the numbers 1, 2, 3, 2, 5, 7, 2, 3 written below the original ten. I quickly multiplied them all together and started walking up towards the board.

“Aluoette? Why are you coming up towards the board?”

Angélique was questioning my movement. I held up my paper.

“You solved the problem? But you don’t even have a calculator? You shouldn’t know how to do this yet.”

I ignored whatever she was saying and started drawing lines and numbers under the original ten on the board. The class watched in silence as I wrote like a girl possessed. I factored each number again and then multiplied them quickly to come out with a final product. 2520.

Angélique looked at me incredulously as I put the chalk down and walked back to my desk. The students looked up at the board trying to figure out what I’d done.

“Teacher? How did she get a 2 out of 4, then nothing out of 6?” asked a boy in the front of the class.

Angélique was silent a moment. “She factored out the problem. The factors of 6, which are 2 and 3, were already present in the equation…”

“How did she know to do that?” asked Sophie.

“I… I’m not sure.”

Some of the class looked back at me a little stunned. I smiled smugly. Math, the best language.

I proved that I knew every answer for the rest of the lesson. Not only did I know every answer, I knew them without calculators… I think I raised myself a notch in Angélique’s eyes. She wasn’t expecting any talent out of me. She seemed to drag the lesson out, probably just to test how good I really was. I didn’t mind at all.

Class let out about 3 o’clock . Groups of kids left in just about the same order they had for lunch. I gathered my stuff and put it on Angélique’s desk, where she was busy writing more notes. She beckoned Sophie forward too, who apparently hadn’t left the classroom.

“I’m going to be staying after a little bit. Could you tell Aluoette to wait for me in the library and then take her there? You usually stay after anyways right? I’ve seen you in the library before,” said Angélique, but Sophie paused a moment. “Sophie? Could you do this for me?.... Sophie?”

Sophie turned to me. “She has work to do, wants me to take you to the library.”

I just nodded absently. “Lead on,” I said still feeling bored. We left the classroom. Angélique looking at Sophie curiously as if still waiting for an answer when she’d left the room.

“You don’t like playing translator much do you?” I asked once we were in the hall. Sophie stayed quiet. “You went quiet as soon as we got back to the room earlier.”

“I just like to read, I don’t like trouble,” Sophie said in her soft quiet voice.

“Trouble?”

“Papa told me about your drinking, then all the girls were talking about you getting arrested again this morning, and then teacher made me take you to the office where I was yelled at so I could repeat it to you.”

I felt a little guilty. She was making a lot of sense. All except my drinking thing. “Well… I didn’t really ask for a translator… but it sure does sound nice to hear someone else who can understand me.”

“You didn’t sound too happy earlier when you had just changed into the uniform,” she said indignantly. I nodded and apologized.

“Sorry about that, I was in a bad mood. I didn’t really want to have to go to school all over again.”

“You’ve gone before?”

“Yeah, I graduated 3 years ago; I’m really a junior in college now.”

Sophie stopped walking and looked at me with a sneer. “LIAR!” she squeaked, raising her voice to a normal level. “This is why I hate what I have to do. I don’t like liars, and troublemakers, none of them understand I want to just read and be left alone.”

I felt stupid. Seemed no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t keep my damn mouth from spewing forth more crap about what I really was, but no one believed.

“I was just joking… but… thanks. For translating and all.”

Sophie didn’t reply. She just walked in silence and led me to the library. As we walked I felt my pull-up get a little warm once again. I frowned but kept walking, only it kept getting warm. I was wetting pretty good. I walked a little slower, till Sophie noticed she was getting kind of far ahead of me. I could tell I was still peeing. A small trickle started to go down my leg.

“Hurry up, I just want to show you where it is and…” Sophie had walked back to me, and saw the little trickle. My eyes began to water and I hesitated to say something.