While Gérard's rebellion leans towareds the side of the Americans, makes him dream of an American family, things have hardly changed at Lilette and Dédé [his parents], except that they have more children. After Catharine, Lilette delivers Franck, her fifth child, and very quickly gest pregnant with her sixth. As usual, she plans to bring it into the world at home and, as usual, Gérard is there. But this time, not everything goes as planned. "With the sixth child - my brother Eric - my mother had a terrifying hemorrhage. Terrifying. The Dédé [his father] was working with the firemen. He believed that there was fire at home, and he came with the big scale.  Whereas my mother was bleeding, and an ambulance was necessary to take her to the hospital…"

Very different is the life he leads with his family and the one he is creating for himself.  Back to school returns sleepy, passive Gérard.  On the other hand, Gérard with his buddy Serge Dubreucq are marvels in soccer. Both of them big and strong, they are leaders and the protectors of the younger kids. In the fall, they play in the school team of soccer.  Gérard begins as an avante center, then becomes goalkeeper, because he is fast and loves to throw himself in the mud.  "Gérard was very combative. One felt in him a strength that the others didn't have."

He also has a jump in trade. Every year, in order to promote an attitude of charity, their schoolmaster, who they nickname "Father Durand", distributes to the pupils sleeves of stamps that they must sell. Every sleeve, sold for 2 francs, contains ten stamps of 20 cents.  The children are supposed to sell the stamps and to give the money to Father Durand, who in turn gives it to an organized charity.  Gérard and Serge transform these sales into a small lucrative enterprise. Instead of selling the stamps in the district, they sell them to the Americans, that they meet close to the bars and elsewhere. "The GIs or their wives gave us 5 or 10 francs for a sleeve that was worth 2 of them, we kept the difference," says Serge. "We bought the sleeves from the other children, and asked Father Durand to give us more to sell. That permitted us to make a little spending money." Toward the end of the 1950's, however, Gérard, who was now approaching adolescence, becomes aggressive and intolerable in class.

"At the end the year," remembers Roger Lucas, "the director, Durand, refuses Gérard's passage to the next grade. Gérard tore up his bulletin and covers and put them in the mail box of Durand."  Roger Lucas also plays a role in Gérard's leaving, on the occasion of an episode that, even today, Gérard hates [to talk about].  At the end the school year, every class makes a collection in order to offer a gift to Roger Lucas, more familiarly named Father Lucas.

The pupils give 5 francs each. One morning, the box that serves to collect money was found empty. "Someone accused me of having stolen money," says Gérard. "Father Lucas called me in. He closed the curtains. And then, pof, pof, he slapped me two times. God, I hated him. Then, he united all classes, under the yard, and he said: 'He is in quarantine. Anyone who speaks to him will be punished.' That was the worst shock, total humiliation. Because I was punished for something I didn't do."

This episode is one of the reasons for his failure at school at this time. During the summer, he had a discussion with the class friend he suspected of the larceny. The boy confessesed, but, because of pride and as a matter of principle, Gérard refused to denounce him. The incident made him even more bitter. "I took that to heart," he says to this day. "That vaccinated me against school." Gérard withdraws more in his shell.  He will leave the local school with the reputation of a mediocre, unruly pupil, with this accusation of flight above his head.

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