I am currently experiencing the opposite of writer's block; diarrhea of the pen. Or keyboard. Or something.

Anyways. This fic will work in this way: it's excerpts from Enjolras' diary or journal or whatever you will. So every chapter will be from a different year in his life. This is the month of April from hiseighth year.

And... He's eight now. Thanks all for that!

April 6th, 1814

Today, I am eight years old. Maman gave me a notebook as a present and I am writing in it now. Maman says that I can write anything I want and no one will ever read it. I think Fleur might read it, except Fleur doesn't know how to read yet, so this notebook is safe for now.

April 7th

I thought it was odd that I've known how to read ever since I was three, but Fleur is five and hasn't even started learning. Maman said it is because she is a girl. I don't know why that was a good answer, but I guess Maman thought it was enough. I asked when Fleur was going to learn, and Maman didn't know, she said.

April 8th

I think maybe I can teach Fleur to read. But then this notebook won't be so safe, and I'll have to hide it.

But Fleur should still learn to read. Otherwise, it wouldn't be fair because that would mean boys are better than girls just because they are boys, and that's not true!

April 9th

I've got to learn my multiplication. I don't like it so much because Papa says I've got to memorize all of them. Memorize means remember, like how I memorized the letters.

But I don't like memorizing multiplication because it's just learning facts, but I don't know what it means.

Seven sevens are forty-nine.

It's not like adding, because addition is like counting, and I can prove things are true by myself, like five plus five. I can count it on my fingers, and I can prove it's true. Multiplication means accepting something to be true just because Papa says it's true.

Fleur says that she wants me to teach her to read.

But we decided to keep it a secret.

April 13th

Teaching Fleur is harder than I thought it would be, but it's still fun.

Maman showed me that you really can prove multiplication, like how three threes are nine. She cut a loaf of bread into three pieces, and cut each piece into three pieces, and then there were nine pieces of bread.

We had four pieces with dinner, and there were five pieces left.

But that's subtraction.

April 14th

Papa sent me to the estate (I guess that means "house") next door with a letter to deliver. I gave the letter to the lady who opened the door. She let me come in and she gave me some cake. Another boy that lived in that estate came in to eat cake with me.

He asked me what my name is, and when I told him, he said, "Well met, Julien." It was a funny feeling right then, because he sounded very old, and he's only nine, a year older than me.

He said that his name is Henri Combeferre.

When I left to go home, a girl stopped me between the two houses. She was very dirty, and she wanted me to give her some bread.

I asked why her parents couldn't give her bread, and why she was dirty.

She said that her parents didn't have any money to buy bread, and that her family lives under a bridge.

I gave her the other five pieces of bread.

Papa found out and he was angry, but I don't know why.

April 16th

There is a funny book in our library. I don't know any of the words in it, and they sounded odd when I tried to sound them out.

Maman said I didn't know any of the words in it because it's in Latin, not French. But she says the same book is also written in French, and I can read it when I'm older.

The book has a nice name, though. It's called "Utopia." That's a pretty word. I want to read it as soon as I can.

I'm allowed to go see Henri today, Maman said. I'll go after I give Fleur her lesson.

Papa said the girl I saw before, the dirty one, was called a "gamine."

And Maman says that Utopia is a place.

I wonder if there are gamines in Utopia.

April 18th

Fleur's reading is going well. She can read and write the whole alphabet now, and sometimes her name, but sometimes she forgets how.

Henri has an eight-year-old sister, and she doesn't know how to read either, because she's a girl. But some girls learn to read, Henri said, and she's going to, when she's older.

Maybe Henri and I should teach her and Fleur at the same time.

Henri can already multiply big numbers by big numbers. But his sister can't. Maybe I should teach Fleur arithmetic, too.

April 19th

Henri's family's library has Utopia in French. We decided that we're going to read it together. But it's hard. We have to look a lot of words up in the dictionary.

I saw another gamine today, but Papa caught me sneaking bread outside, and guessed what I was doing. He was angry again, but I don't understand what's wrong with helping people. I know that I'm supposed to believe what Papa tells me, but maybe Papa's wrong this time.

April 22nd

I've been spending most of my time either learning more math- I can multiply any two-digit number by any one-digit number- or reading Utopia with Henri. That's a bit boring sometimes because we spend more time looking up words we don't know than actually reading. But that's all right because now we know more words. I said "endeavor" yesterday when I was talking to Papa, and he looked very shocked.

Fleur and Henri's sister, Noelle, came to watch us and learn new words with us. Henri and I took turns reading everything that we've read so far from Utopia out loud. We're almost half-way through. We explained all the words they didn't know, and it was good because that meant we'd not forgotten any of the new words we'd learned from the book.

Then Fleur taught Noelle the alphabet, and Henri showed me how to multiply two-digit numbers together.

April 23rd

I wish Utopia were a real place. Henri, Fleur, Noelle and I pretended today that we lived in Utopia. Henri brought the book over today, and we all played and read in my bedroom. The dictionary my family has is bigger than the one Henri's family has, so it was hard to carry it upstairs from the library. So I decided to keep it in my bedroom.

April 26th

We finished reading Utopia. There wouldn't be gamines in Utopia. Why are there gamines here, then? Why doesn't our government do something to help them?

I asked Papa, and he said that I'm much too young to think about politics.

Maybe Fleur should ask him. But not only is she younger, she's a girl. If I can't ask, surely she can't.

Equality. It's a nice word, but here, it's no more than a dream.