It was Day One of my first year at Clareview Girls High School. I was about to have my very first French lesson. I was standing outside the tutorial classroom in the corridor right after lunch break, with the six girls who had elected to take the subject. I knew most of them already except for an anxious-looking blonde wearing French braids and pink lip gloss.

We filed in and chose our desks. I sat one back from the front, not wanting my excitement to show. I loved everything French and couldn’t wait to learn the language.

I took out my newly contact-covered textbook and smoothed it over with my hand, placing my pen in the groove at the top of the wooden desk. My pen clattered to the ground. The pink lipped girl bent to retrieve it.

“Voici” she handed it to me and I locked eyes with her. My heart skipped a beat. When she blinked, her eyelashes brought to mind a butterfly flapping its wings. Her skin was a translucent alabaster, the blue of her eyes accentuated by the blue of her school tunic. She smiled, two dimples appearing in the corners of her mouth.

“Merci” I whispered. I took the pen from her hand, my heart beating rapidly. I felt flushed and confused.

A loud scraping of chairs announced the arrival of Madame as the class rose to its feet. Our teacher swept into the classroom in a waft of Paris, tall, regal, her long auburn hair stylishly arranged in a bun with tendrils escaping around her heavily made-up face.

“Bonjour la classe,” she boomed. “Je m’appelle Madame Leblanc.” She was writing her name on the blackboard with a scratchy flourish.

I sighed with pleasure, and tried not to smile too widely.

Madame began the roll call alphabetically by surname. “De Chazal De Chamarel, Sophie”, she began, her eyes sweeping the class over the top of her horn-rimmed spectacles.

“Oui,” from my new pen friend.

Madame looked her up and down. “What an exceptionally excellent French name.”

******

The next day at breakfast, my mother was reading the newspaper. “How absolutely terrible!”

She looked up as I sat down at the dining table and gestured towards the pile of buttered toast on the dining table. I loaded up my plate.

“Do you know anyone at your school called De Chazal De Chamarel?”

I felt my heart quicken. “Yes. Sophie. She’s in my French class. Why?”

“Oh my god!” Mum’s face was ashen. “She’s dead. Her father killed them all, his wife and two daughters, and then shot himself.”