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“So, what. We were eight? Does eight sound right?”
“We would have been in Mme Moulin’s class, so yes, eight or nine.”
“So we were eight years old, and we were given these piggy banks, y’know, and we were supposed to go around to family and have our parents bring it into work and collect yellow coins. It was for charity.”
“It was for hospitalized children, even.”
Nino nodded. “Hospitalized children. But like, we were eight, and have you ever met an eight year old who cares that much about anything? My brother is eight and he doesn’t care that much. So for the first, like, week of the charity campaign thing, we really didn’t do anything. We got, like, maybe five euros in pocket change from everybody’s parents combined.”
“But then Mme Moulin got out these candles in the shape of Jacque Chirac’s face!”
“‘Nette, I love you, you’re getting to the punchline too soon.”
She didn’t seem to care; her face was already broken up into a smile at the memories.
“But yeah, Mme Moulin got out these... I don’t think the word ‘weird’ does them justice. They were fucking bonkers. Orange busts of wax, kinda made Chirac look like a witch, with a big twisted smile. And we loved them. They were just fucked up enough in just the right way that we went crazy for them.”
“She gave us the candle every time we brought in so many coins,” Marinette added. “So suddenly this charity campaign turned into a competition to see who could get the most of these candles. It wasn’t like we talked about it, we just loved them so much. And we had just learned about the Bubonic Plague! Oh gosh, I’d forgotten about that. We’d learned about the Bubonic Plague and Sabrina got this one candle that came super duper deformed, with a big bubble of wax right along the side of the face — she auctioned it away! I lost, and I was so distraught — I remember writing in my diary, ‘It’s just what it would look like if the president had the Bubonic Plague!’”
“Ah, didn’t Chloé win that?”
Marinette’s face turned sour. “Now that you say it, I think she did.”
“But it was a fucking insane period of time. I remember once I was stood out in front of a church and a nun passed by and said that I was surely going to heaven for what I was doing — I mean, I’m Muslim so I think that might change her mind but I didn’t say that — but like. I knew even then that the classwide obsession with Jacques Chirac candles was as far from holy as you could get.”
“And then the teacher ran out of candles!” Marinette continued, struggling to contain her laughter. “And it just ended! Like that! The last of the candles were burnt, down to the wick, and it was over! We stopped caring about the hospitalized children — I hope they’re doing well, I really do — and we were congratulated by the principal because we got more coins than any other class, and by a lot.”
“I wonder if the principal ever asked Mme Moulin how she got us motivated. Out of the goodness of our hearts? Nope. So we would get recognition from him? Nope. It was the fucking candles.”
Adrien and Alya just looked at each other, stunned, wondering what the hell a Chirac candle could even look like, before Alya finally let out a single “What the fuck” and they all dissolved into laughter.