It rained all night Tuesday. Hard rain, the kind that wakes you up. By Wednesday morning the streets were clean and the air was sharp and the sun had come back as if nothing had happened.
The four of them met at the boulangerie at seven thirty, the way they had every weekday for the past fortnight. They had not seen each other since Friday. Madame Benali was the first to speak.
— Alors, l'examen ?
— Triomphe.
— Mateo, tu n'as pas encore les résultats.
— C'est pour ça. Triomphe possible.
Amara said it had been correct. Yuki said it had been correct. Wei did not say anything but looked happy. Madame Benali, who knew when not to push, gave them their croissants and waved them out.
In the classroom, the instructor spent the first ten minutes giving general feedback on the exam. Common errors. Things to remember. Then she clapped her hands once.
— Bon. On continue. Aujourd'hui, on parle de la météo.
Yuki, who had filled six pages of her notebook with weather vocabulary the previous evening, was ready. Mateo, who had not, raised his hand.
— Madame, comment on dit « il fait beau » en grec ?
— Mateo, ce n'est pas un cours de grec.
— Pardon, Madame.
They learned: il fait beau, il fait chaud, il fait froid, il pleut, il neige, il y a du vent. They learned the ordinal numbers — premier, deuxième, troisième — because the city was about to become important. They learned that Madame Benali's boulangerie was in the thirteenth arrondissement, which Mateo immediately announced to the class as if it were a personal achievement.
By the end of the morning, the four of them had drawn a rough map of Paris on a piece of paper, with the boulangerie marked at the centre, and the school marked half an hour away by metro, and small notes for places they wanted to visit. Yuki had labelled it carefully. Wei had drawn small arrows. Amara had added the marché. Mateo had added six cinemas.
It was not yet a plan. But it was the beginning of one.
In the afternoon, Yuki announced that she had drawn up a full day's itinerary. For Friday.
Yuki's itinerary was fifteen pages long.
Amara stared at it.
— Yuki, on va à un marché. Pas à la guerre.
— C'est pareil. Il faut un plan.
— Quinze pages ?
— Quatorze. La dernière page, c'est en cas de pluie.
The itinerary was, in fact, beautiful. It contained: the marché aux puces in the eighteenth arrondissement at ten, lunch in the eleventh at one, a museum in the seventh at two thirty, and the canal Saint-Martin at five. Each segment had a metro line, a precise time, and a backup option.
Mateo read it slowly.
— Yuki, tu es trop organisée.
— Et toi, pas assez.
— C'est vrai. C'est pour ça qu'on est amis.
They spent the rest of the afternoon learning how to ask for information about a city. Est-ce qu'il y a un métro à proximité. Qu'est-ce qu'il y a à voir dans le dix-huitième. Comment on va de Place d'Aligre à la Cinémathèque. Yuki asked every possible question. Mateo answered most of them creatively. Amara corrected him. Wei wrote everything down.
At the end of the afternoon, walking home along the rue des Cinq-Diamants, Amara turned to Yuki.
— Tu sais que le plan ne va pas tenir, non ?
— Le plan va tenir.
— Avec Mateo dans le groupe ?
Yuki paused. She looked at Mateo, who was a few steps ahead, talking enthusiastically to nobody.
— Le plan va presque tenir.
— Voilà.