Free Bitter Chocolate by Sally Grindley Page B

hated the look of excitement on Olivier’s face. This wasn’t a game they were playing. This was real. Seb and Gustav weren’t teaching them to shoot for the fun of it.
    ‘Good shooting,’ Seb said to Olivier. ‘We’ve got a natural here, Gustav.’
    Gustav grunted. ‘You’ll have the whole world descending on us if you keep that racket up.’
    ‘They’ve got to learn,’ Seb argued. ‘It’s the littl’un’s turn now.’ He took the gun from Olivier and handed it to Pascal. ‘See if you can hit it first time.’
    Pascal listened carefully to Seb’s instructions. He held the gun out in front of him, ignoring the pain in his shoulder, and focused on steadying his arms. He squinted down the barrel and pulled the trigger, closing his eyes as he did so. The shock of the retort and the way the gun whipped backwards made him stagger into Seb’s arms. He waited for the laughter.
    ‘Blimey!’ he heard. ‘Did you see that, Gustav? The littl’un hit the rock plum in the middle.’
    ‘Bet he can’t do it again,’ Gustav replied gruffly.
    ‘Good shot, Pascal,’ Olivier joined in.
    ‘Prove him wrong, littl’un. Go on, have another go,’ said Seb.
    Pascal raised the gun and tried to stop himself from shaking with fear and excitement. Could he do it again, when he was struggling to believe that he had hit the target in the first place? He took his time, held his breath, then pulled the trigger and stood firm.
    ‘He’s done it again!’ Seb exclaimed. ‘Proved you wrong, Gustav. This boy’s a genius.’
    Pascal could feel his heart swell with pride. He sat down next to Olivier, who was looking at him in astonishment.
    ‘How come you can do that when you’re so pathetic at using a slingshot?’ Olivier asked.
    ‘Maybe I don’t like killing things,’ he said.
    ‘You’d kill someone soon enough if they threatened you or your family,’ Seb butted in. He didn’t wait for Pascal to reply, but handed them both a cigarette. ‘Here’s to two top marksmen,’ he grinned. ‘If you can fire a gun, you can smoke one of these, no sweat.’

Chapter 19
    Over the next few days, comrades of Seb and Gustav returned to the village with boys they had rounded up. As the first arrivals, Olivier and Pascal felt somehow important, even though Pascal was one of the youngest. None of the new boys could match his prowess with a gun, and he forced himself to cope with smoking in order to stand out from those who were being made to try it for the first time and coughed violently.
    The days began to merge into each other. The boys would wake, groggy and nauseous, eat the thin soup with its token bits of vegetables, make sorties into the forest to search for fugitives, scrap a bit amongst themselves, fire a few rounds at makeshift targets, smoke, drink and sleep. They were issued with blue T-shirts and had their heads shaved down each side to show that they belonged to the same group. They were all housed in the same village hut with its blacked-out window and the door firmly locked at night.
    Pascal tried to remember his previous life, but couldn’t find his way through the blur of images. Nothing seemed to make sense, only what he was told by Seb and the feeling that he could be someone special if he obeyed. He wanted Seb’s approval. And he needed Seb’s help to find his family.
    ‘Do you think they’ll take us home when it’s safe?’ he asked Olivier. ‘I mean, they like us, don’t they?’
    Olivier pulled a face. ‘We don’t even know who they are,’ he said. ‘We don’t know what they want with us.’
    ‘They’re just protecting us,’ said Pascal. ‘That’s all. We could be dead by now if it weren’t for them.’
    Olivier looked at him vacantly. ‘Yeah,’ he muttered. ‘We could.’
    ‘At least we’ll be able to protect ourselves if the rebels come,’ Pascal continued.
    ‘Bang, bang, you’re dead!’ Olivier snorted. ‘Is that how it goes?’
    Pascal hadn’t really thought that far, except in