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his rescue, began to explain why it was that without Duplessis, ‘they’d’ve never got electricity in the stables.’
    I left the group of men. Just what was Pierrette going to lose? I was far more obsessed by this question than by the future of Quebec or the politics of Duplessis. It prevented me from sleeping.
    In the schoolyard the next day, I approached the territory reserved by the big boys for playing ball. A few minutes later, Pierrette appeared. The big boys broke off their game as though the ball had become a heavy stone. Their eyes followed Pierrette as though she were the Pope. It was time to take action.
    â€˜Watch out, Pierrette,’ I shouted, ‘you’re gonna lose them.’
    Pierrette fled, taking refuge in the school. One of the big boys picked up the ball and said to me majestically:
    â€˜Don’t get in a sweat, kid, they won’t fall off, they’re fastened on good and solid. I checked myself.’
    The ball began to fly from one boy to the other, joyously, amid bursts of laughter. I decided then to laugh louder than all the big boys. But I still didn’t know what it was that Pierrette was going to lose, and what was so firmly fastened on.
    For days my glance followed Pierrette; I invented all sorts of tricks to uncover her secret. I spied on her from behind an open book, I brought a little mirror that I used so I could see behind me, I hid under the stairs Pierrette would walk down. But Pierrette still looked as she always did, timid, plump, blushing and the biggest girl in our class. The big boys could have explained to me but I didn’t dare display my ignorance, I was so afraid of their mockery.
    One morning, to celebrate a religious holiday, our whole class was taken to the church. All in a row, by order of height, we went to take Communion. But scarcely had we returned to school when the nun curtly ordered Pierrette to stand up. Blushing, Pierrette obeyed.
    â€˜Instead of displaying such languorous, sensual postures in front of the men in our parish,’ the indignant nun roared, ‘you’d be better off praying to God, Pierrette, to chase the evil thoughts from your possessed body. When a person has such provocative bumps on her body it’s because the Devil’s within you.’
    Pierrette’s face became even redder, then it suddenly turned white; she swayed and crumpled to the floor.
    â€˜You see,’ said the nun, ‘the Devil is leaving her body.’
    When I approached Pierrette, who had fallen to the yellow floor when she fainted, I didn’t see the Devil but Inoticed what I’d never noticed before: Pierrette’s chest was puffed out just like a real woman’s. But why couldn’t the big boys go on playing ball when they saw her?
    I hesitated for a long time before confiding in my friend Lapin.
    â€˜Pierrette fainted today because the Devil put bumps on her body. Two big bumps, right here!’
    â€˜Come on!’ said Lapin, ‘it wasn’t the Devil that did that.’
    My friend Lapin was doubly superior to me: he was older and his father worked in the office of Duplessis’ government in Quebec. I understood what his profession was when, after school, behind the big rock we used as a secret hiding place, my friend Lapin opened a paper bag as I watched him.
    â€˜This comes from my father’s office.’
    He took out a dozen magazines that had nothing but photographs of girls on every page, girls with no clothes on; and all of them were possessed by the Devil because they had bumps! Bigger bumps than Pierrette. The magazines burned my hands like fire, but I was hungry to learn! I wanted to know! On every page I turned I could feel the sea of ignorance retreating. At every picture my body ceased to be that of a child and I became a man.
    â€˜These magazines come from the United States,’ said Lapin.
    â€˜I’d like that, to live in the United States,’ I said, slowly