Lou Bertignac is 13 years old, with an IQ of 160 and head-to-head questions. With her eyes wide open, she observes people, collects words, engages in domestic experiments, and discovers encyclopedias. An only child in a family in disarray, between a broken mother And a feigned champion father of good humor, in the darkness of an apartment whose curtains remain drawn, Lou invents theories to tame the world. At the Austerlitz station, she meets No , a homeless girl scarcely older than she. No, her tired face, her dirty clothes, her silence. No, private love, rebellious, wild. No, private love, rebellious, wild. No one whose wandering and solitude question the world. Men and women are sleeping in the street, queuing for a hot meal, walking not to die of cold. "Things are what they are." That would be enough to explain the violence around us. What should be admitted. But Lou wants things to be different. That the earth changes meaning, that the reality resembles the posters of the metro, that everyone finds his place. So she decides to save No, to give her a roof, a family, embarks on a large-scale experiment led against fate. Against all odds.
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