p 11
No one could tell whence Mondo. He arrived one day, by chance, here in our town, without anyone noticing, and then we got used to it. He was a boy of ten years, with a round face and quiet, and beautiful dark eyes slightly oblique. But it was noticed that his hair, ash brown hair that changed color depending on light, and seemed almost gray in the dark.
(...) We knew nothing of his family or his house. (...) He was dressed every day in the same way, a blue denim pants, tennis shoes and a green T-shirt a little too big for him. (...)
p 33
Mondo looking in shop windows, licking his ice cream. At the bottom of a window where the light was on, there was a large red wooden bed, with sheets and pillow with flowers, as if someone was going to lie down and sleep. A little later, there was a window full of cooks very white, and a rotisserie chicken that turned slowly cardboard. All this was strange. Under the door of a shop, Mondo had found an illustrated journal, and he sat on a bench to read. The newspaper recounted a story with color photographs that showed a beautiful blonde woman doing the cooking and playing with his children. It was a long history, and Mondo was reading aloud, approaching the pictures of her eyes so that the colors are mixed. "The boy named Jacques and daughter named Camille. Their mother is in the kitchen and she made all sorts of good things to eat, bread, roast chicken, cakes. She asked them what you want to eat good today? Make us a great strawberry pie, please, "said Jacques. But their mother said there were no strawberries, there were only apples. So Camille and Jacques peeled apples and were cut into small pieces, and their mom made the pie. She cooks the pie in the oven. It smells very good throughout the house. When the tart is cooked, their mom puts on the table and slicing. Jacques and Camille eat good pie and drinking hot chocolate. Then they say they had never eaten a pie so good! "