French version

Chained. He was in chains. Like a convict, like a criminal. Yet he had done nothing. He was sure of that. Why was he so sure? Why was he treated like that? It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. But the person who had done this to him didn’t know right from wrong. He said it was for his own good, but something that compelled him and hurt him couldn’t be for his own good, could it? Something that made his living conditions worse instead of better could not be for his own good? Something that made him suffer could not be for his own good?

No, he definitely did not want this life. He wanted to escape. A place you want to escape from shouldn’t be a good place, right?

Attached. He wanted to leave. He couldn’t.

A little girl saw him walking with her mother. She pointed at him as children often do. He looked at her. She was free. The little girl shouted something, but she was too far away for him to understand what she was saying. She and her mother came closer. The little girl wanted to touch him, but the mother wouldn’t let her. They left. He had understood what the mother had said, and that saddened him. « He may be dangerous, don’t touch him. « Him? Dangerous? She had probably said that because he was tied up. It broke her heart. He wouldn’t have hurt the little girl. He wasn’t evil, like the one who had locked him up like that.

One night he managed to escape. The bond had finally broken. It had taken him days, but he was free! Free to run away from that awful house where he had never been able to enter anyway. Free to run with all his strength, until his paws hurt him so much he had traveled so far. Free to bark at will, not to be chained to his kennel. Free!

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French version

Today, the family was going on a cultural outing. The two teenagers were not very happy to come too, they would have preferred to stay on the beach to sleep or play in the sea. But we couldn’t always choose what we could do in life, right? Their father had left them no choice, and now they followed their parents grumbling on the gravel path. The car ride hadn’t been fun either. They had spent their time ignoring their parents by putting their headphones on their ears. But visiting dusty castles was not their favorite activity. Far from it. Those two didn’t really like to read either. In fact, they preferred to be outside, rather than having to do indoor activities that seemed stupid to them.

After passing the ticket office, they waited for the guided tour to begin. The parents took the opportunity to rest on a bench, but their children kept grumbling. Eventually, they told them to go to the store to buy something. As they watched them walk away, they thought they could have five minutes of peace and quiet. But they were wrong. Their teenagers, who had definitely gotten up on the wrong side of the bed, returned shortly afterwards, complaining that a girl their age had pushed them into the store. The girl came to apologize, but said that they were exaggerating what had happened. She left. The visit began shortly afterwards.

The two teenagers were twins, a girl and a boy. Their interest changed a little during the visit. But not in the same way. While he was more interested in the outdoors and the gardens, she wanted to know more about life in the castle. The girl from the souvenir store, the one who had allegedly pushed them around, was also in the tour. The parents were happy that their children stopped grumbling and became interested in the visit. So they relaxed and let them come and go as they pleased, without really watching them.

During the tour, the twins decided to stop following the guide and go explore the castle as they wished. The girl who they said had pushed them around followed them and told them that they should not do that. But in the end, she just followed them, not trying any more than that to make them go back. She was curious, too. They learned her name was Fanny. During the visit, they had learned that the Dauphin, the king’s grandson, had lived in this castle. They did not remember very well which king it was, but they wanted to find the room of the Dauphin, because they had been told that this room was closed to the public because the tapestries were being restored.

They finally found what they were looking for. The door was not guarded, nor closed. Moreover, it opened rather easily, for a room forbidden to the visit. They entered one by one. Fanny examined the room, pointing out that apart from the tapestries, everything seemed to be in place. The Dolphin could have emerged from a corner of the room, that would not have shocked them. (but he had died many years before, therefore nothing of such was going to happen).

Suddenly, one of the twins started behaving strangely. He fell to the ground shaking violently. The two girls ran towards him, frightened. What was happening to him? After a few minutes, he stood up, telling them that he was fine. But he didn’t seem to be himself anymore. He spoke as if the room belonged to him, claiming to be the Dolphin. This went on for several minutes, with the girls looking at him as if he were crazy. ( and maybe he was, after all) Then Fanny took matters into her own hands. She grabbed the arm of the sister of the man who seemed to have gone more mad than mad, thinking he was the son of a king who had been dead for centuries. She got her out of the room, then she went in again and took the brother out the same way. When he crossed the threshold, he fainted. He woke up a few minutes later with his head resting on his sister’s lap. He couldn’t remember anything.

The parents of the twins, realizing that their offspring had disappeared, had started looking for them. They found them in the same corridor, dazed. The teenagers tried to tell them about their journey, but they did not tell them that they had entered a room that was off-limits to visitors, but the parents did not believe them. How could they be believed? The story was far-fetched. And the teenager who played the biggest role in it didn’t even remember it.…

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French version

It was the long-awaited day for the schoolchildren. Announced several weeks earlier by the teacher, the career day was finally here.

That morning, she got up for once with a smile on her face. She hated school, but that day she felt she could handle it. For once, there was no blackboard, no lessons to recite, no exercises to do, and no interaction with the teacher. Because the class was going to receive parents of students so that they could present their trade. It was the teacher’s idea, an idea strongly supported by the students, who had obviously thought of the fact that thanks to this day, they would have a day where they would do nothing in class. According to the teacher, the goal was of course to introduce the children to the trades to make them want to do the trade later. Or not, it was the principle of discovery. And it was going to give the children an idea of why they had to put up with going to school (for those who hated it, of course).

So when she came to school, she was happy. They weren’t going to do anything today! They had spent all of the previous day’s recess discussing it in detail. All they would have to do was listen to the parent who was on the blackboard at that time, or at least pretend to listen for the less scrupulous ones. In fact, it meant that they would enjoy having adults on the blackboard instead of them, as they did every other day. They would then see who was the most stressed out of the parents. Of course, they would also see which job seemed to be the one they liked best, because that was still the goal of the day.

A first parent would come in, then a second, then a third, until about 20 parents were in the classroom. All in all, she thought, maybe it was better that the parents weren’t there during the school day. She felt oppressed just to see them, because they weren’t usually there. The parents would smile at their child, and often it looked embarrassing that they had waved to her.

She observed the parents. None of them were dressed in any particular outfit, so she couldn’t really tell what they were doing by looking at them. But it was just as well, it was a bit suspenseful.

The first parent spoke. He had prepared slides. The video projector in the classroom made it look pretty bad on the board. The colors were a little strange. But the ease of the speaker easily overshadowed this little problem.

The second parent had nothing to project. She managed to captivate the class with miniature models that she explained in a few clear sentences. She explained almost better than the teacher.

The third, on the other hand, needed to be reviewed. He babbled, stumbled on a table leg, lost his words, only his slides were very well organized. Fortunately, by the way, otherwise the children would not have understood anything.

The fourth had difficulty explaining his job, but he managed to hold the attention of the student who did not like school. His trade had a complicated name, but he simplified it by saying that he was a « Researcher. He was a scientist. At that point she began to see school in a slightly different way. She hadn’t suddenly started to like school, no, but she had made a plan in her head. She wanted to do this job later, and she had to go through school to do it.

So after that day, she worked a little more at school, especially in science, her favourite subject.

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French version

He had to, he knew it. He really would have preferred not to. It was far from being his favorite activity. Of all the sports available, why did the teacher choose this one? He hated sports and he had just found a sport that he hated even more than sports in general.

A week before, they had been sitting in a circle in the gym, tired but happy that this class, which was hard for some of them to bear, was over when the teacher had announced it. The next week they would be doing orienteering! He had said it with such enthusiasm, that the students could almost have thought it was the best sport in the world. Most of the students seemed happy to hear that, swept away by the teacher’s joy. But not the teacher. He wasn’t the best at racing, and he couldn’t even find his way around a city, so why would he do better in the woods? If the two words that make up the name of the activity pushed him away, the activity itself was bound to destroy him.

On the day of the activity, the teacher was just as happy. On the other hand, some of the students, seeing the temperature outside and the thickness of the clothes they had brought, felt strangely worse than when the activity had been announced by the teacher. He was happy to see that he was not the only one to find this sport awful, even before the orienteering race began.

The teacher, dressed warmly in his colourful jacket, began his explanation. The goal was to punch their sheet and get back to the starting point first. All this while running and guiding themselves with the help of a map and a compass.

He sighed. He hated running, he couldn’t read a map or orient himself, and no matter how hard he searched, he couldn’t remember how a compass worked. Oh yes, he did! The red arrow was pointing north! He had better find a good team… The teacher said it was time to make up the teams. And so he made them himself.

He ended up with a team in which no one could read a map or use a compass. Well, good start! The departure was announced. Each team left on its own side, its precious map, the compass and the punch sheet in its hand, the not very sure step because almost nobody had done an orienteering race before.

He reflected. Well, the principle was rather simple, in fact. They had to find the beacons on the way. But it was better not to get lost in the woods…

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French version

Money can’t buy everything. It was something that many people tended to forget.

In a castle located in such a mysterious country that was not written on any map lived a young girl and her parents. Her life was full of gifts, surprises, outings and fun. So her life was a perfect life for many girls her age who had never had the chance to live like that. But, for some reason that would have escaped all the girls who wanted to live like she did, she didn’t find her life perfect. Far from it. She didn’t like her life at all and regularly complained about it in her diary. And her unhappiness could be seen at any time of the day, so no one knew she was unhappy when they went to read it in her diary. It was too obvious. It was obvious.

Her parents showered her with gifts. Every day she had a dozen new things. And of course, this was to make up for the extremely frequent absence of her parents, who were sometimes not even around all year. Of the year! Of course, she would have greatly preferred that her parents were a little more present rather than only seeing them from afar and receiving more and more gifts. Moreover, these gifts didn’t make much sense because, since her parents never saw her, they were buying what they thought was good for a girl her age. But they didn’t really know her, and all the « trendy » things didn’t necessarily suit her.

Anyway, she was tired of her parents never being around and daring to offer her things to make her forgive them. One day, she fled the castle. Of course, since she had never done anything alone in her life and everyone was always passing everything to her, she found it hard to adapt to a life outside her parents’ castle. Fortunately, a maid she already knew from the castle helped her to get used to this new world and to hide from her parents. She soon opened a dressmaker’s shop, because if she was good at anything, it was sewing. No one ever found her and she lived a life where everyone appreciated her for what she had done, not constantly giving her gifts for no reason. Of course, happiness could not be bought.

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