Panique dans le tunnel

**Extrait**

Cela faisait plus de deux heures que le train roulait.
Les enfants du fond du wagon s 'etaient reveilles de leur sieste et
commençaient a s'exciter. Les deux jeunes monitrices s'evertuaient a leur
proposer des jeux pour les occuper.
Ils exploiterent tout d'abord les mots gigognes : valise - liseron - rond de
chapeau - policier - scier du bois… jusqu'a ce que l'un d'eux pretende
completer oiseau par saucisse. On lui fit remarquer que le « seau » de oiseau
se prononçait « zeau » et celui de saucisse, « sau », il ne voulut rien
entendre et le jeu degenera en dispute. Les enfants disaient n'importe quoi et
s'excitaient sur les mots de leur invention ou sur des grossieretes. On jugea
qu'il fallait arreter les frais quand on en arriva a sudoku-cul de singe et
autre, et on passa a « Jacques a dit », qui lui-meme se termina avec des
propositions aussi interessantes que « Jacques a dit : grattez-vous les
fesses… ».
Les pauvres monitrices, depitees, finirent par les laisser se debrouiller
entre eux. Les gamins sortirent alors leurs Game Boys, magazines et jeux de
cartes.
La encore, le calme ne dura pas tres longtemps. Les plus creatifs inventerent
une distraction qui eut un succes immediat dans le groupe : il consistait a
lancer des projectiles faits avec les cartes a jouer pliees en fusees.

The train had been going for over two hours.
The children at the end of the compartment had woken up from their nap and
were starting to get excited. The two group leaders were doing their best to
keep them busy by suggesting some games for them to play.
They first of all had a go at doing a last-syllable word chain game: picnic -
nicotine - teenager - giraffe - after... until one of them reckoned he could
complete terrific with thicko. The others pointed out to him that the "fic" of
terrific was pronounced "f" and that of thicko "th" but he wasn't having any
of it and the game degenerated into an argument. The children were saying any
old thing and were getting carried away with phrases of their own invention or
with dirty words. It was decided to call it a day when they went fromadd-ict
to dick-head and other words in the same vein, so they passed on to "Simon
said" which, in turn, ended up with such interesting propositions as "Simon
said: scratch your bum... ".
Feeling weary, the poor group leaders gave up and left them to their own
devices. The boys and girls proceeded to get out their Game Boys, magazines
and packs of cards.
Even then, the peace didn't last very long. The more creative ones among them
came up with a form of entertainment that met with instant success within the
group, which consisted in throwing projectiles made with playing cards folded
into the shape of a rocket.