I had rushed to Gavroche and Gabriel while Genevieve tried to warn Maman and our neighbors. But I couldn’t find Gabriel anywhere. It was strange, for it seemed less than a moment ago that he had been sitting on the pier with the rest of us. He had probably just taken the wrong moment to frolic or chase the butterflies. I searched desperately for him, but in the end, we had to leave him behind.
Our mother, frantic with grief, had also stayed behind.
I picked up Genevieve and started running.I don’t know how long or far I ran, but eventually I felt a tap on my shoulder. I jumped! The soldiers were here! Suddenly, Genevieve’s petite body felt like dead weight, dragging me to certain doom. My eyes started seeing, not in the limited vision of one on a mission. But the tap on my shoulder was just Gavroche, alerting me to our surroundings, to our acute exhaustion.
We were at the Spanish-French border. We had made it!
But our journey was far from over.