First page of comics is on page 9 of the book.

Chapter 1: Mrs Moinot
It’s the first day of big school. We wait the teacher in front of the classroom.

That’s it, she’s here!
...
Shoot… why do I get a teacher so ugly? What’s more, she doesn’t look very kind…

The teacher tells us to get to line up in pairs.
All the others take a friend by the hand.
I’m on my own. I don’tknow anyone, because last year, in kindergarten, I was in a school in a different area.

Next to me, another pupil is alone. IHe comes over to me and takes me by the hand.
That’s it, we’re all two by two. We can enter.

When everyone is seated, the teacher introduces herself. She is called Mrs Moinot. Shee writes her name on the board. At least, I gues that it’s her name, since I can’t yet read.
Monday 14th September 1970

The teacher asks us our name and our parents’ professions. The first answer and the teacher takes notes in a big notebook.
I start to sweat in my socks. I don’t want it to be my turn. I want time to stop. And then I would run away!!!
I am all red, I’m stiflingly hot. What am I going to reply that she does, my Mother? That buzzing in my ears and my temples makes me feel ill. It is already the turn of my neighbour!
He’s called Alain…
...his mother is a nurse and his father paints lead soldiers.

That makes everyone laugh.
The teacher isn’t happy. She says that it isn’t nice to mock. She orders us to stop laughing and be silent.
I pray that she doesn’t remember where she est and she skips my turn…
But she turns towards me…

My throat is knotted.
She asks me if I have lost my tongue then what I’m called.
My jaw loosens itself a little and I say to her:
IamcalledJean
myfatherisbossofafactory
mymothersecretary
I said it that quick so without doubt no-one understood. But the teacher passes on already to the next.
I didn’t listen to the responses of the others, I am petrified. My feet swim in the juice of my shoes.

After the teacher announces that at Christmas, she will be leaving to retire and that another teacher will be coming to replace her. She is all sad when she tells us that.
That sounds a long way off, Christmas…

Chapter 2: My Father
The mothers and fathers come to collect their children at the school exit.

It is Yvette who comes to collect me.
Yvette is our nanny. She lives with us. She makes us food, makes us learn our lessons, washes us in the morning, dresses us…
...and comes to collect us from school.
In the car, there’s Paul, my little brother. He is one year younger than me, he is still in kindergarten.

Paul and me love each other, and say it to each other every day with our words between us.
In order to stop us fighting, Yvette threatens not to give us our iced chocolate milk.
It us a very effective threat because we love it when she prepares us it as a snack.

Recipe for iced chocolate milk by Yvette

In the evening, after squabbling, arguing, fighting, making up, colliding, chasing through all the rooms, we take a bath and we soup. At our house we say we soup and not we dine. It should be said that, winter and summer, the evening meal starts with a soup.
My favourite soup, it’s the one with numbers and letters.
Each evening, Yvett tries to get us to learn a little of the alphabet.

My father comes back late from work. It isn’t because of the journey, since his factory is just next to our house. It’s because of his responsibilities: he is boss.
And apparently, boss, it’s a nice job to keep you full of worries.
Worries, that sounds like eyebrows. My father, because of his worries, he always creases his eyebrows.
[well, in French “worries” (“soucis”) sounds like “eyebrows” (“sourcils”); I’m sure someone could provide a more elegant translation]

One question obsesses me. Every evening, I tell myself that I am going to ask but I never dare.

Chapter 3: Michèle
My neighbour is called Michèle Meunier…
She is two years older than me.

Her parents own a kennel. They are very strange, especially her father. He yells all the time…
...at her mother…
...or at Michèle.
Since he yells, that excites the dogs who get themselves barking. In turn, he also yells at the dogs which are then even more excited.
And so everybody yells and everybody shouts at the same time. No-one knows any more what started it. It’s truly a noise from hell..

Some nights, the dogs start howling. We say they are wolves.
According to Yvette, that meant that someone had just died. When she said that, my father shrugged his shoulders: he didn’t believe that.
My father won’t let me play round Michèle’s house. He says that their dogs are dangerous. Michèle’s parents won’t let her play round my house, I think it’s because they don’t like my father. So when we play together, we are like this…
...each on one side of the privet hedge that separates our gardens.

In fact, Michèle only plays with me when she is bored. When her friends come round, she’s not interested in me any more.
Well, apart from that, Michèle is very nice. And then, she’s my only neighbour…
Sometimes, she wants to play at hairdressers. I brush her hair and she tells me her girl stories.
But I don’t like that so much. I prefer we play at Indians.

My heart beats very hard when I say to her yes. Often, secrets, they are a bad surprise. There, it is a good one, an INCREDIBLE ONE!
Michèle pulls out of her jumper a postcard…
...she tells me that it is MY MOTHER WHO WROTE IT!!!
Michèle tells me then, looking me right in the eyes, that she wants to read it to me but that first I must promise her that I will not speak to anyone of the card.

Even my father or my brother or Yvette, they would be very pleased to know that mother wrote to me… But Michèle forbids me from telling them. I ask Michèle why it’s her that received the card. Shee tells me that it is just because my mother wants no one to know that she wrote to me.
Dear Jean. All’s well! Today, I am in Spain. It’s very hot! The ladies play castanets and the men do bullfighting. Yesterday, I ate a very good paella with crayfish. After I bathed in the sea. It was hot and very calm. I give you a hug. Mama.