He was sitting at the back of the playground, a notebook open in his lap. His pen scratched along the page, forming big loopy words. Other children ran around the playground: yelling, shouting. The boy didn't play, he just observed. And wrote.
The French girl had red hair and a vacant expression. She walked slowly up.
"Christian, what are you doing?" she said in a heavily accented voice.
"Writing,"
"Writing what?"
"Poetry."
"Zat is nice." The girl bent over and kissed the boy's head. Then she ran off.
That was the moment Christian decided he wanted to go to France.