Taking Care of You

Combeferre: Reading

Gavroche enter the Café Musain and looked around. He saw Enjolras, Grantaire, Courfeyrac, Joly, Bossuet, and Jehan sitting at one table while Bahorel and Feuilly were playing cards at the next. He couldn't see his sister of Marius and assumed she had taken him to see Cosette. Finally, he saw who he was looking for. Combeferre was sitting alone at a table with his nose in a book as he scribbled away. Gavroche walked over to him, clutching a book in his hands.

"Bonjour Combeferre," Gavroche said and the man in question looked up.

"Ah, Gavroche," he said with a smile, "How are you?"

"I'm alright, I was wondering if you could help me with something?" the boy replied.

"Of course, what do you need?" Combeferre said.

"I was wondering if you could teach me to read?" Gavroche asked, looking very nervous about asking.

"You want me to teach you how to read?" Combeferre said in surprise.

"Only if you don't mine," Gavroche said immediately, "It's just, I don't know how and Grantaire said I should ask you to help me." Combeferre looked up and saw Grantaire watching them from across the room and smiled at his friend.

"Of course Gavroche," he said, looking back at the boy.

"Merci Monsieur!" Gavroche said, looking immensely relieved.

"What do you have with you?" he asked, pulling out a chair for Gavroche as the gamin handed him the book he'd been clutching to his chest.

"Moby Dick," Combeferre nodded, "This is a fantastic read, but it might be a little hard for you to start with."

"I know," Gavroche nodded, "But Eponine gave me the money for it and it was the only one I could afford."

"Well, we can go over some of the basics now if you want and then pretty soon you'll be able to read this," Combeferre suggested and Gavroche nodded eagerly. Combeferre pulled a piece of parchment toward him and wrote down some simpler words before showing them to Gavroche. They sat there for over an hour, Combeferre going through different words and sounds with the boy. Finally, when everyone else left, they did too, though Combeferre promised to resume their lesson in a few days.

Alright, so this one is shorter than the others, but I hope you liked it anyway!

Thank you to the person who corrected paper and told me the correct word to use here is parchment.

I looked up a lot of books written pre-19th century and Moby Dick was written early 1800s before Gavroche came into the story and it seemed like the type of book he might pick up (as opposed to Anna Karenina or Frankenstein).

Thanks for reading and let me know what you thought!