Chapter 20
20
Back at the chalet it’s cold, dark and late and we’re all ready for bed.
‘Goodnight,’ we whisper, as we let ourselves in. There’s no fire lit or lights on. I put my hand on the banister to head straight for bed.
‘Hey!’ Frédéric jumps up from one of the chairs in the living room, scaring me. ‘Where have you all been?’ he demands, almost like an accusation. ‘Been to the bar, have you? It’s okay. I’m used to not being invited.’ He looks like he’s been crying.
‘No!’ I look at the others, then at him. ‘No, it wasn’t like that!’ I wonder what on earth has upset him.
‘We didn’t go to the bar,’ says Fleur, matter-of-factly.
‘Where’s Patrice?’ Frédéric asks.
‘I’m here!’ He follows us into the living room.
‘Oh, great!’ Frédéric throws up his hands. ‘So you all went out without me! When you said you were popping out, I thought you might be going to find the others, see if they were at the bar! Looks like you found them,’ he says crossly, to Fleur and Patrice.
‘They didn’t find us there,’ I say, really not wanting to say where we’ve been, and looking shiftily at Michel and Fleur, then back at Frédéric. Tentatively, I say, ‘Are you okay, Frédéric?’
He wipes his cheeks. ‘Fine,’ he repeats, then crumples a little. ‘I tried to get Sébastien to go out, but he said I was the last person he wanted to be seen with and went straight to his room. It’s okay, I get it.’ He turns to go. ‘You didn’t want me there. It’s – it’s my birthday. I just wanted to …’ He trails off.
‘No,’ Fleur says quickly. ‘We didn’t go to the bar or anywhere else for that matter. We were just—’
‘We were planning what we could do, after we present our sculptures to the tutors, to celebrate your birthday tomorrow,’ I cut in. ‘An end-of-week party!’
He brightens. ‘Really?’
‘Really,’ say Fleur and I together.
‘We’ve been thinking about chocolate so much, we thought we’d do a barbecue, with sausages. Hotdogs with raclette !’ she says.
‘Out there!’ I point to our unused terrace, surrounded by trees growing on the mountainside.
‘Ooh! I saw a recipe like that on Facebook! We could copy it,’ says Patrice.
‘Oh, yes!’ Frédéric claps his hands.
‘A proper get-together!’ I nod.
‘ Merci! Merci! ’ he says. ‘No one has ever thrown a surprise party for me before! I’m sorry if I got the wrong idea.’
I hold up my hands, feeling bad for making this up but glad that he’s so pleased. I’m exhausted after our marathon stint in the classroom to sort out Sébastien’s sculpture.
‘No, it’s fine. We wanted to,’ I say, looking sideways at Fleur and Michel
‘Well, not so much a surprise party,’ Michel says.
I tread heavily on his toe. He yelps and jumps back.
‘Because you know about it now!’ Fleur fills in.
‘We wanted it to be today, but with the sculptures tomorrow, we thought it best to do it afterwards,’ I join in.
Tears are rolling down his cheeks. ‘Thank you. I never had enough friends for a party, let alone a surprise one. I hung around with people but I don’t think they wanted me there. It was when I discovered chocolate that I found myself at home. I’m so happy that I came on this course. Thank you, guys!’ He flings his arms around our necks, practically suffocating me with his enthusiasm.
‘Surprise party it is tomorrow evening,’ I say to Fleur, as we go up to bed, dead on our feet. As long as no one does the Macarena, I think. It’s like my farewell drinks at home all over again. Only this time I’m in Switzerland and I’m looking forward to it. But first we have to get through the presentation to our tutors.