Jules preened under her admiring glance. “But of course, or it would be no fun.”

    And so they had all dessed up in their outdoors clothing, as it was drizzily that day and made their way to the bakery shop up Andelay Street. There Montclief the Chef brought out a tray of sweets he always kept for that special time when his customers needed to be naughty.

    He plied the family with raspberry tarts, strawberry tarts, lemon squares, cherry froths and his specially made crèmes, which he nearly froze in his basement with ice left over from the Winter a few months ago.

    Jules, again, etched this memory into his brain, knowing someday it would become precious. It was not that he could see into the future, but he had overhead his parents sometimes at night, remembering their youth and the things of importance they had forgotten and wished they could remember, but were long gone.

    Jules had promised himself that he would always treasure his past as much as he valued his present, and later the future. He was a child of the moment, and a man of the present. A young man true. But a man, nevertheless. For in the France of that time young men of thirteen to fourteen were treated as adults, and often would step into the shoes of their fathers to take their paths in life.

    Anyway, getting back on topic, forgive me my delays in getting back to the delicate and sweet Marie. She was in the forefront of the naturalist movement, as group of  French leaders who believed that food was next to God, but had to be administered properly, or it would become the devil’s playground…causing such horrible things as Javier’s missing toes, or Grand Ma’s black growth on her scalp, or the horrible smelling things between one’s toes and fingernails.

“Cleanliness and nutrition are the next best thing to godliness, Junior, she would tell him in her sweet, lilting voice.” And he believed her, even as he believed Jules Senior when he boasted of chasing a dinosaur across the Antartic ice for its precious oils. After all, everyone knew that dinosaur oil was the most healthy drink one could consume for one’s health. Though sometimes when he went into the local pharmacy he was puzzled that he never saw any dinosaur oil advertised there. He had asked the pharmacist and been told only Old Timers could purchase it. He had said that with such a strange grin that Jules thought he was pulling his leg, and as he grew older he came to understand what dinosaur oil really was and laughed at his youthful naivety.

But despite all those incredible uplifting moments, Jules found himself lingering longer and longer in the park beneath the Eiffel Tower, savoring all the different personalities of people who strolled, ran, hopped, skipped, cleaned, patrolled, and did the countless thousand other things humanity did moment to moment, and day to day.

Jules was becoming a writer and his ability to observe was being honed, not only by his exquisite diet of fatherly and motherly advise, but by his own inclination to go beyond what was expected of his personal education. To go beyond what people said, to what people truly meant, and what their actions foretold with subtle movements, such as a glimpse, a nod, a dismissal.

Chenie shook a finger at her father. “Naughty. Naughty!”