Manny's Reviews > N°57 Lili trouve sa maîtresse méchante

I hadn't read an Ainsi va la vie for a few months, but Not bought a bunch of them cheap at a book stall yesterday and I'm catching up. This one has the author on top form, showing you with her usual effortless ease how a 40 page graphic novel for small children can combine insight, suspense and psychological accuracy in a character-driven narrative. How does she do it?

Lili, our young Everywoman, is having problems at school again. This time it's her teacher. Usually kind and mild-mannered, she has turned into a monster who yells at the kids for the smallest thing - sometimes even things she's imagined. Lili, a diligent and hard-working girl, is mortified when she's accused of cheating on a math test. The teacher's sure she's got the goods on her: her working was wrong but she got the right answer, so she must have copied from Marlène, who's sitting next to her?

"I didn't cheat!" says Lili. "It's not true!" Marlène backs her up. But Teacher refuses to believe either of them and then makes a gratuitous comment about chubby Marlène's obvious love of chocolate. Lili gets a black mark, and Marlène is so angry about the teacher's spiteful words that she says she'll never talk to her again. When Lili goes home and complains to her parents, they refuse to listen. "A teacher's got to maintain order in the classroom," says Mom primly, ignoring her daughter's tears.

The kids get together and discuss the problem. Some of them agree with Lili, but others aren't so sure. "They used to beat you!" says one kid. "They'd pull down your pants and smack you on the bottom. Even the girls!" Another points out that their teacher is far from being the worst one in the school. There's another who sometimes does crazy things like sticking tape over the kids' mouths when they say something he doesn't like. But one quiet boy has some genuinely useful information to contribute. "My dad knows her a bit!" he says. "It's her husband. He's, like, really sick or something."

The kids think about it. Lili remembers that Teacher told her once how she had been adopted after her own parents died when she was very young. She can suddenly see it from her perspective: she's all alone in the world, and now she's terrified that something awful is going to happen to her guy. But they still have to do something. "Look," says one kid to Lili. "Why don't you, you know, tell her that we understand, but she needs to lighten up a bit?"

"You're asking me to tell her?" asks Lili, not believing what she's hearing.

"Yeah!" says the boy. "You're good at that kind of thing! We'll give you room!"

Somehow, Lili gets stuck with this delicate diplomatic mission. The next morning, the class is deathly quiet. Teacher asks what's going on. Lili puts her hand up, and, horribly nervous, starts in on her prepared speech. She's about halfway through when a secretary comes in. "Urgent phone call for you," she says awkwardly. Teacher is out of the room in two seconds. "I'm leaving you in charge," she says to Lili as she departs. "And I don't want any trouble."

It's really not Lili's day: now she's somehow ended up responsible for a whole class of rowdy kids, who have no respect whatsoever for her new authority. Within twenty seconds, it's chaos. The crazy teacher who puts tape over the kids' mouths suddenly comes in. "You're in charge?" he says to Lili. "Tell me who was making all that noise!" Lili hesitates. "Give me their names!!" he yells, and grabs hold of her by her hair. But Lili still won't snitch on her friends.

The door opens again; it's the class's regular teacher, back from the urgent phone call. One look at her face is enough to see that it was good news. "Let go of my student at once!" she says to the psycho. She hustles him out and closes the door.

"I'm so sorry," she says, as she faces the class. "I've been having a really hard time, but it's all okay now. Can we just forget everything?"

"As long as you forget our homework assignment too!" yells the smart guy at the back of the class. Smiles all round: life has returned to normal.

Awwwww!