French Touch v2.0 - 3. Chapter 3

I didn’t know what to expect really, I just hoped that we could get along. Most of all though I really hoped he wouldn’t just help me in front of the teachers then just ignore me completely at any other time.

“Bonjour, excusez-moi du retard.”

Hello, sorry I’m late.

“Tu es parfaitement à l’heure Hugo, ne t’inquiète pas.”

You’re perfectly on time Hugo, don’t worry.

I turned in my seat at the newcomer, my supposed “buddy” who I had now guessed was named Hugo. My eyes first fell on a plain white t-shirt, and blue skinny jeans, then they went up until I met his gaze.

Honestly, I don’t know even to this day who was more surprised him or me. It was the guy I had been fantasizing about the last two days, even jerking off to. Oops TMI!

There was a second where time seemed to stand still, we just looked at each other silently. I don’t think it was for very long as Ms. Le Collen continued.

“James, this is Hugo, your buddy, he will be showing you around and helping you in any way he can. I hope you two will get along.”

I got up from my chair and extended my hand, still in a sort of daze.

“Eum… Hi Hugo.”

“Hey,” he responded calmly, shaking my hand.

“You two better get going unless you want to be late to class!” interrupted Ms. Le Collen.

I took my bag, slung it over my shoulder, gathered the pieces of paper the teacher and the CPE had given me and took off with Hugo.

“We have Math first, the teacher is cool, but I don’t know if you will be able to follow, no offence, I just had trouble when I came back from LA to adjust back to my native system,” he told me in a perfect accent.

I nodded but stayed silent, still not over the fact that my walking wet dream was walking right next to me.

We meandered through packed corridors to a room with students inside, some already in their seats, some sitting on desks, but all chatting with each other. There was a palpable good mood in the room, even though it was the beginning of the week and the day. Probably a leftover from the Weekend. Hugo took us to the side of the classroom against a line of windows that showed the busy street below. He motioned for me to put my stuff down, and then he tapped a guy in front of us on the shoulder.

“Salut François, passé un bon weekend?”

Hey François, how was your Weekend?

“Super et toi?” responded the guy.

Great and you?

“Impec, je te présente James, tu sais l’Américain qui rejoins notre classe, on nous en a parlé la semaine dernière.”

Good, this is James, you know the American that’s joining our class. The teachers talked to us about it last week.

“Ah oui c’est vrai!”

Oh yeah, I remember!

The guy, who I suppose was named François turned to me and spoke in a heavily accented English while extending his hand.

“Hey, I’m François, good to meet you James.”

I shook his hand, smiled and answered.

“Good to meet you too.”

Our little exchange in English hadn’t gone unnoticed in the classroom, and students turned to us before making their way over. They all started giving me their names at once, I caught a few here and there but most were lost to the general raucous. Hugo tried to calm them down, but it was the timely arrival of the teacher that probably saved me from embarrassing myself on my first day.

“Retournez à vos places et taisez-vous !!”

Return to your seats and be quiet!

He looked us over with stern eyes, but they seemed to soften as he went. Suddenly he took notice of me, he smiled and gestured towards me.

“Je vois que notre ami de l’autre côté de l’Atlantique est arrivé, j’espère qu’il sera bien accueilli. Pour rappelle il parle que peu le Français, donc je, et le reste de vos enseignants, comptons sur vous pour l’aider.”

I see that our friend from across the Atlantic has arrived, I hope you will make him feel welcomed. As a reminder, he doesn’t speak a lot of French, so I, and the rest of your teachers, count on all of you to help him.

All eyes were on me, making me blush a little. The teacher however started the lesson. Thankfully, this was something I had done last year, so following was easy, it was interesting to note the difference in the notation of certain things, but what baffled me the most was when the teacher did a division on the board for one of the calculations. The way he did it confused me more than anything, totally different from what I’m used to (look it up it’s freaky, but seems to work well). From time to time Hugo would look at me to see if I needed help, and I would smile and shake my head, so far so good.

After an hour, the bell rang, and we moved to our next class over in the science building. We had what they caller SVT, which regroups biology, and geology. This I had a harder time to follow, and struggled with the concepts, this being the second week didn’t help, I was missing a week’s worth of material. Hugo assured me he would translate it with me to help. This class lasted two hours, we then had an hour of study hall, but it being an hour before lunch we didn’t get much work done before as a class it was decided that we would not eat at the school cafeteria. There was a vote held to choose what we would all eat. By a slim margin the local Kebab was chosen. Thankfully it was sizable enough to hold about 30 students, the wait was ok too. I was the main attraction for the duration of lunch, everyone wanted to talk to me. I was the circus freak in a way, but at least they were all very nice to me, just very curious. At first, they wanted to talk in English, but some struggled and the conversation transitioned in French, which I tried my best to stay in. Though from time to time I would ask a translation from Hugo. It was really fun.

After lunch, we went back to school, we had only three hours of class that afternoon, two of which were French and one English. The French teacher, Mrs. Silvereanne had the class working on something while she sat with me in a corner of the class and evaluated me on my French as to help me as best she could. She had me do grammar exercises, a small “dictée” (she read me a text and I had to transcribe it on paper), and she just talked to me. At the end of class, she gave me some homework for the next day, a little grammar sheet I had to complete, nothing too fancy. The rest of the class however got a sizable reading and a question sheet about said reading. A lot of them groaned, even Hugo which made me grin. Our last class, English was really fun, Ms. Le Collen was a cool and fun teacher. She made me introduce myself formally to the class, I was to be an example of what they should all sound like. I blushed so hard I must have looked like a ripe tomato. Hugo gently made fun of me the rest of the hour.

“Hugo, why don’t you stop having fun in your corner over there and read to the class?” came the gentle rebuke from Ms. Le Collen.

It made both of us jump, and when I looked at her she had a smirk on her face. Hugo, who had been too busy goading me, had fallen behind in the reading and had no idea where the others were. A girl, Sarah (I think that was her name) helped him by pointing at the correct paragraph.

The rest of class was uneventful, and when the bell rand we happily packed our things and mingled in the tightly packed crowd in the hallway.

“Do you want to come over?” Hugo asked me.

I looked at him, my confusion clear in my eyes.

“To study, I need to get you up to date on our classes!” he added.

I nodded gratefully and followed him out. He took me down a few streets to an old looking building (like a lot they had here in Paris), after three flights of stairs, he opened the door to his place.

“Coucou maman !” he called out.

Hey Mom !

“Coucou mon chérie, tu as passé une bonne journée ?” came a woman’s response.

Hey dear, did you have a good day?

“Ouaip, j’ai invité James, tu sais l’Américain qui a rejoint notre classe, pour travailler.”

Yeah, I invited James over, you know the American that joined my class, for homework.

“Tu as eu une bonne idée, par contre je file, je dois récupérer ton frère et ta sœur, puis les emmenés au Judo. Vous avez de quoi gouter dans la cuisine.”

You had a good idea, I have to go though. I need to pick up your brother and sister, then take them to Judo. You have snacks in the kitchen.

“Merci maman !”

We migrated to his kitchen where I met his mom, though I had seen her the other night at the restaurant, I hadn’t, at the time, realized how much he looked like her. After some quick introductions (basically her name was Marie), she rushed out. Hugo made us some Nutella sandwiches and he motioned me to follow him to his room. He flopped down on his bed to eat, while I awkwardly stood, looking around his room. When you came in, you had a small window that overlooked the street, to the left his desk and a shelf with a lot of books, mostly big fantasy novels, on it. On top of the shelf there four trophies and ribbons. To the right was his bed, at the foot of his bed and against the wall sat a low console with a TV on it. I saw two Wii remotes, so I guessed he either had the Wii or the Wii U. All in all, it was a nice room.

After we quietly finished our snack, he took his bag and got his stuff out.

“You can take the desk if you want, I usually work from my bed anyways.”

“Thanks,” I flashed him a smile.

I took my pad out, and started out on the grammar sheet Mrs. Silvereanne had given me. After I was done, I asked him for his notes on SVT, which he gladly handed over, and helped me go over them, translating as we went, and looking up technical terms on his phone. After two hours, we were done with SVT and Math. I got a text from Mom asking me to come home.

Marie and Hugo’s siblings hadn’t returned when I left for home. He accompanied me to make sure that I knew the way back.

“Thanks dude for today, I don’t know what I would have done if it weren’t for you!” I told him as we got in front of my building.

“No problem dude! I forgot, here’s my phone number like that if you have any questions or want to chat, just send me a text!”

We traded phone numbers, said our goodbyes, and I went up.

“Hi sweetie, so? How was your first day?”

“It was great, they assigned me a ‘buddy’ to help me get around the place and stuff. He’s really nice, he even invited me over to his place after class so we could do our homework together.”

“That was kind of him. Dinner will be ready soon, go wash your hands.”

After dinner, I went to my room and got my computer out, I surfed the internet for a while before sending a message to Hugo, thanking him again for today.

“No worries man! Oh by the way, tomorrow afternoon we have gym so bring a bag with a t-shirt, shorts and some running shoes!”

“Will do thanks mate!”

“Goodnight James :)”

“Night Hugo :P”