A few days' ellipse

As expected, the gang came down on us and buried us in questions. The whole school, in fact. Naya and I rehearsed the speech the police had devised. Our unconvincing tone left them suspicious. The queen bee takes a bit of a shine to the police. I run away and hide from the others so as not to have to talk to them. Some pundits from the Ministry of Defence came to question us again. My family name, Papinou, being a former General of international repute, and my very rational and square way of describing myself, allowed them to take me a little seriously. The army patrolled the forest and searched it for other monsters without telling us more.

Everyone is going on Christmas holiday. Melia and I have the school to ourselves. To distract ourselves, we offered to take care of the horses so that the grooms wouldn't have to come back. It will also give us some money for our respective kitty. Our parents are squandering Papinou's inheritance shamelessly. We can't count on them to leave us anything. They are already paying our school fees with the money from our personal accounts that Papinou created for us, not even from their own pockets. I'll have to ask if we can sue our parents for embezzlement.

Mélia questions me again. She knows I'm lying. She wants to know. While we are alone, I tell her everything. She finds it strange that nothing has leaked to the news. We call Richard, a friend of Papinou's, also a former soldier. He is my godfather, a follower of the conspiracy theory, but not a fanatic. By code between us, we let him know that we have a problem, in case our phones are tapped. He decides to come and see us. The next day we meet at the local ice cream parlour. Nothing suspicious. Our grandfather's best friend comes to visit us to see if we're coping with the loss. Official version.

I empty my bag. I don't leave out any details, not with him. I thought of taking pictures of the bodies with my phone on the sly while we were being interrogated. He recognises the zombie-like appearance of the humanoid bits. He believes me as always. The three of us trust each other completely. He is the father that Melia and I don't really have. I'm not a crazy, whimsical kid, or one who would play a bad joke. He promises to make discreet enquiries. He leaves, offering us a happy day full of cakes, sweets and hot chocolates. He spoils us like we are his own daughters.

We kind of are. Richard has no children. I'm his spoiled brat goddaughter. But he never made a distinction between me and Melia in terms of pampering. He brought us a surprise. Our Christmas presents, from Papinou who had bought them before he died. A huge panda plush for Mélia. A switchblade knife for me. He buys us clothes on top of our wonderful day. Seeing him for a whole day also cheered us both up.

What made us most happy after Richard's presence were the photos of my cousin. Our little baby has made us a diary of everything that has happened to her since the summer. The notebook is made up of a mixture of photos, drawings, little stories in her childish handwriting, lots of glitter and coloured stickers, drawings of guns and grenades too. Our baby is a perfect mix between Mélia the Kawai and Mégane the soldier. We love her so much. When we saw her on holiday at Papinou's, we looked after her like two mother hens. Her parents are great. They are very present for her while leaving her autonomy. He let us with Papinou and also Richard cover the little one with attention. She's a darling to us all.

Christmas Day is sad. We don't even get a call or a present from our two stupid parents. Melia is disappointed. I'm angry. Especially since I know that the director wrote to them about my aggression. They don't care about us at all. Our friends have thought of us and Mélia's phone keeps ringing with friendly messages. For me, it's just my baby and her parents. But that's normal, I didn't give my number to the others.

It's raining, we have to stay indoors, so we're cleaning the stables. Mélia and I are hard workers and we love animals. In three months we have both become friends with the grooms. We are often in the stables, me even more than Mélia. When we are there, we never sit still. We clean, we give them water, we eat.... As a result, the grooms, but also the riding instructor, like us, which allowed us to have this temporary job despite our young age.

Today we decided to do a big cleaning and care of the saddle leather, reins, harness and boots. We have already fixed a few things here and there. The boxes are clean, the horses too. Tomorrow, Mélia plans to customize the saddle pads of the horses with old rags and scraps of fabric that we have recovered. I'll put away all the small equipment: currycomb, brushes, footpick.... I would take the opportunity to clean it a little and make an inventory. In short, we keep busy.

In the afternoon, we put the finishing touches to our little handmade gifts for our friends. As a diplomatic measure, Mélia forced me to take care of the gifts for my roommates, Thibaut and Alex, the roommate of the three guys who sometimes hang out with us. Mélia takes care of the three Kawais, Blaise and Maltez.

For Thibaut and Alex, it's easy, sweets made in cooking class. I make two huge boxes of small dry cakes, type navettes, fruit jellies and caramels. For my better half, I gathered tons of photos of the two of us to make a scrapbook of our silly things, well, a summary, the main and the most important. I would have needed at least ten notebooks if I had listed everything.

For the girls, on the other hand, I had to wait a long time to find the idea. I ended up thinking of jewellery hangers when I saw their mess. So here I am, harmoniously assembling branches and gluing them to a base to form a mini tree ideal for bracelets and necklaces. The numerous branches are ideal and on Naya's, I even installed little hooks for her rings. A good coat of glitter paint and my three masterpieces will adorn their bedside tables.

Mélia has sewn three mini plush toys for her roommates based on a cartoon I don't know. It's very colourful and cute. Just like Mélia and her three friends. My sister has made a stuffed animal for herself too. For Blaise, she customises a T-shirt and a shirt with patchwork patterns, in the shape of animals like a tiger and a wolf. For me, she customises a jacket with tons of pockets to hide things and fake military-inspired stars and stripes.

It was Maltez's case that she had trouble with. This guy has everything. His family is very wealthy, and on top of that, this weirdo allows himself to be difficult. She's inspired by my idea of the three fashionistas. Maltez has an impressive collection of men's watches and bracelets. So she builds him a mini tree with little logs to store his beautiful jewellery. He better like it, or I'll make him eat it.

A few days' break.

Back to school. The grooms loved our work. They are grateful to us for allowing them to spend the holidays with their families. In addition to the few pennies we put aside, the grooms and students with horses chipped in to thank us and gave us equipment for our horses. Even Naya put her hand in her pocket when she saw that I had trained Prince every day and that Mélia had made him a saddle pad with a beautiful red dragon. We go back to school, proud of our little nest egg.

Today, I will finally be able to participate in a real renovation project for my charity work. I've been learning the theory of nail driving, cement making, painting and sanding for three months. I'm finally going to get my hands on the real thing. I know that unfortunately I will be under the supervision of a senior. As a sophomore and as the only girl among this misogynistic bunch.

The site manager promised to put me with his best student. He warned me that he had a difficult character, but was very committed. I suspect the manager said this to keep my mouth shut, he likes me despite my temper. I look forward to meeting this selfless student. My smile fades to a grimace as soon as I see him. MALTEZ.