There were five children talking things over at the corner of the street of The-Cat-Who-Goes-Fishing and the Boulevard Saint-Michel in Paris. They called themselves The Gang of The-Cat-Who-Goes-Fishing. They had spent countless nights in the same air raid shelter during the five years of occupation and even had managed, though they were only children, to play tricks on the Germans. And now they went to school together, came back together, and played together on free days. At this time they were all surrounding ten-year-old Charles. Remi, who was twelve and the oldest, said, “What did the doctor say?”

“He said,” answered Charles, “that it was all because she has not had the proper food for five years.”