By Walter Agnew Moore II, Roving Reporter
10 February 2002, Montdidier and Amiens, France

So I am sitting in this basement rec-room with trophies on the counter and club pennants on the walls, talking in English with eight 15-year-old boys about Brittney Speares. Sebastien asked me out here to this training camp where he works, and here I am.

I am on the rugby team with Sebastien, or Seb, who appeared previously in these pages as "Mr. KillWalter" because that is what happens every time I try to stop him. He still hits way too hard for my peace of mind, but there doesn't seem to be any malice to it once you know him. It's like jumping in front of a train: The train doesn't *hate* you, but it is not going to stop either.

This Football (Soccer) training camp is a sort of a boarding school in the town of Montdidier, a half-hour down from Amiens. You get there on a windy road by a stream, buildings set on a hill covered by fir trees. The kids actually take courses in the local high school, but for most, the camp is home.

I forgot how funny 15-year-old boys can be. One of them has a cast on his hand—the others want to know if I can heal it. Another one mumbles in French: "I got a 15 1/2 (like an A-) in English, but I don't know how to say that in English."

On the way over, Seb said if you don't give something of yourself to your students, you aren't a teacher.

The boys perk up when one of them says Seb is strict. They all have some horror story to air, and Seb sits there grinning as they plead their grievances. "Seb took my cell phone!" cries one lad with a cell phone in his hand.

"Why did he do that?"

I ask. "Uhhhhhhh...." says the boy.

Seb laughs: "Why'd I take your phone?"

"Uh, I don't know."

"You don't know why."

"No..."

"Well, I know why. You were up at 11:30 an hour after lights out, sending textos when you needed to be asleep."

We are going to go see the Amiens team play tonight, we have some time to kill. Seb takes me on a tour of little Montdidier. Seb narrates.

"There are both kinds of churches, Romanesque, and— I forget the name of the other type."

"Gothic?"

"Yeah, that sounds right. Here you can see this one, some acid rain damage, and the war— bullet holes?"

I stand with my back to the church and look about 10 miles away over the plain below this bluff. A man is putting electrical equipment in a car nearby, with a preteen girl next to him.

"That guy, he is my cousin, but he, he doesn't know I know, or maybe he doesn't know it himself. We don't talk. It is better that way, a problem of parents..."

"Here is the town hall. Let's go over here and walk down the street."

We enter a stationary store when Seb says:

"There is my youngest brother and my sister. Hey! Say 'hello' in English."

The big 13-year-old boy grins and hides behind his sister, who looks like a 30-ish farm woman. She discusses some matter with Seb without stopping browsing through the magazines. Then they leave.

"I have six brothers and sisters. I can't go anywhere here without seeing somebody. Look at this new Renault on the cover. I love cars. What do you think about French cars? This one is my favorite."

"What do you eat for le petit gouté, the snack? in the afternoon? Not much? No wonder you are so weak out on the Rugby pitch! Let's check in here."

"Tartelette d'abricot? I'll get that for you. We'll go get some raisin bread and go back to the office, meet the boss, make some coffee."

"That statue of Parmentier, he is the one who introduced the potato to France. There is a recipe named after him, but it is simple, you just mash up the potato and put some butter or something in it."

"That is the Hotel de Dijon, my father was chef there, and my mother was a waitress when they met. They moved around after that, but now they live right by in the village where my father is from."

"This place has the best raisin bread in town."

We get back to the camp and Cristophe is in his office, cleaning up the desk after a brief strom blew rain in the open window all over everything. Cristophe is complaining about Wizards of the Coast while Seb gets the coffee-maker burbling.

"They release version 3.0, and I can't get anything but a pirated copy full of bugs!"

There is a green field behind the office that has been plowed into a vast square of black mud.

"What are they going to plant there, potatoes, sugar beets?" I ask.

"Wheat, right Cristophe?"

"Yeah, probably wheat."

Seb wants to make sure they have extra tickets for the game tonight, so I can ask some friends. Cristophe says "We have 15 tons of extra tickets!"

"So, Walter, you can bring 15 tons of friends."

I call everybody I know, and they are either working, or out of town, or not answering the phone.

The office door is open, and the boys come and go as they please. They are getting decked out for cold weather. Mr. 15 1/2 in English rolls in and plops a heavy bag of sandwiches, fruit, and water in front of each one of us. Then they go down the road to get on the charter bus. Seb and I follow in his car.

"The boys seem to like you." I say.

"Ah— I was too hard on them the first year. I came in here to straighten them out, I didn't realize this is home for some of them. Now, I try to find something they can be proud of themselves about."

We have to park way out by a canal when we get to the stadium. Seb is worried about his car—"There are some kids here who don't like me from when I worked in the schools here, I had to report them for fighting or drugs, now if they see my car they might try to burn it."

Outside the stadium gate, several local youths are milling about. One recognizes Seb, and yells in his ear: "FuckinSubstituteFaggotTeacherTryinToMessWithMEEEEE?"

Seb keeps walking. I get up by him. "What was up with that kid?"

"That's one who got in trouble when I was working there. Thinks I'm persecuting him, but he keeps bringing it on himself. He's under 14, you can't do a thing to him. I can't even act like I notice him, or I'll have to notice all the rest."

The Stade de la Licorne (Unicorn Stadium) is a giant open freezer. Nimes is already a point ahead when we get there, and it gets worse. Seb and I stand beheind a little family with a mother, a 4-year-old girl wrapped in an Amiens Football Club scarf, and a pickled dad. The drummers across the way are going at it. I imitate them: "WHOA-OHHH, WHOA-OHHH"

Seb laughs: "We must look like a gang of loudmouths to you."

"No, we have the same guys beating on drums at games in the States"

"No, I mean the French in general. We are always running off at the mouth, complaining about the government, shutting down the streets with strikes and demonstrations..."

"Well, I guess I just got used to it."

Wind, rain, defeat. We go stand by the bus to count the boys and make sure none of the neighborhood gangs pick on them. The boys come back in twos and threes. "Where's my sandwich!" "I call the window!" "A beautiful victory!"

Seb drops me off at My Goodness to meet Veer. He can get more tickets for this week, so Eddy and Keith can see a game.

Veer has lost his wallet but finds it on the street when he backtracks. I sit and drink cider with Duncan from Devon, and watch the tribes of Britain go at it again tonight. People come in here and start unearthing long-dead rivalries and take pisses at each other. The girls are the worst— an idle comment taken out of context, and somebody will turn around and puke a history book all over you.

Duncan has managed to offend the Scottish Girl, who is carrying on in an accent that sounds like an Irish person trying to speak Danish. I get so tired. She drifts away, and I comment:

"You know, no one in here is over 50 years old, if that. I find references to the battle of Bannockburn highly artificial in such a context. Not to mention that if most of these people's sainted mothers had dropped them 20 miles away somewhere else, they'd be all nationalistic about some other nation."

"Are you an American with a sense of irony?"

"I'm tired of squabblers. The French think we're all the same anyway, English, Irish, American, Australian. And the French don't seem all that different either..."