Le gamin au vélo
The story begins with Cyril, a 11-year-old boy in a children's home in the working class town of Seraing near Liege, attempting to reach his father by phone. His single father, no mother is ever mentioned, promised him that he would only live there for 30 days. The children's home staff tells him to hang up the phone since once again his father is not going to answer and go outside to play with the other children. Cyril refuses and when the phone is disconnected he bites a carer then runs from the director's office, attempting to abscond by climbing over a fence with two carers on his heels. He is pulled from the fence and restrained before being returned to the children's home, where he is later seen sleeping in a dormitory as forlorn music plays. Soon after Cyril absconds again successfully by lying to a carer that he needs the toilet one day after school, when he is supposed to be outside playing with the other kids. Instead he flees through a side door and takes a city bus alone in search of his father.
To get inside the building he uses the intercom to buzz the medical clinic and lies saying he fell off his bike. He goes directly to his father's apartment though and bangs on the door until a neighbor tells him to go away because no one is there. When the caretakers find him, Cyril flees to a doctor’s office that buzzed him into the building, where he grabs onto a woman in the waiting room. She says she doesn't mind if he holds her, only don't squeeze so tight. Trying to alleviate the situation, the caretakers take Cyril to the empty apartment, confirming that his father has really abandoned him.
The next morning, the woman from the doctor's office, Samantha, shows up with Cyril’s bike. She says she bought it from someone in the projects, but Cyril thinks it was stolen from his dad. He likes Samantha though, and asks if she would take him in on weekends. She agrees and Cyril begins to spend much time at home and in her beauty salon. Samantha and her partner Gilles are very good to Cyril providing for a carefree typical childhood experience. In the local neighborhood he enjoys playing with other children, running errands, and most of all riding his beloved bike for hours on end. Still his refusal to accept his father's abandonment continues to haunt him and prevent him from thriving in this healthy newfound environment even after discovering through an old personal ad that his father actually sold his bike. One night in Samantha's home, where Cyril has his own bedroom, he gets up and goes to Samantha's bedroom, only to run back to his own room when he sees Samantha and Gilles undressed in bed with implied sex. Samantha follows him back to his bedroom to find out what is his problem and he tells her that he is okay but just really wants his father.
In response to this, without permission from neither the children's home director nor Cyril's psychologist, who has advised against doing so to protect his emotional stability, Samantha soon tracks down Cyril's father by contacting the police department and drives Cyril to see him in another town.
When Cyril's father does not come to meet with them at the agreed location and time, they go looking for him at Cyril's insistence. At his new address, they encounter a woman who is hostile and suspicious, but tells them Cyril's father is at her restaurant preparing for the day. At the restaurant, after much knocking and shouting, they finally come face to face with his father, who reluctantly invites Cyril inside while Samantha elects to remain outside to give them privacy. Inside the restaurant, Cyril follows his deliberately aloof father around the kitchen asking why he still has to stay at the children's home to which his father non-chalantly responds "What? They are not nice to you?" giving Cyril no indication of when he will live with him again. Finally, after giving him a snack and writing down his cellphone number to call later, he tells Cyril he has to leave and let him work. He walks Cyril to the door and asks him to wait outside while he speaks privately with Samantha inside. Cyril's father admits to Samantha that he has no intentions of ever raising Cyril alone now that his grandmother is dead, has started a new life which has no place for Cyril, and tells her Cyril is her problem now asking that she tell Cyril this. Back outside Samantha asks Cyril what his father said to him about future contact then marches him straight back to the restaurant door demanding that Cyril's father be honest with his son. His father tells him he must stay either at the children's home or with Samantha, because he doesn't care to see him again. On the way back home, Cyril has such a severe nervous breakdown that Samantha has to stop the car and hold him until he calms down.
Cyril, heartbroken by his father's rejection, turns to Samantha for comfort. But despite Samantha's care, Cyril is soon taken under the wing of Wesker, - an adopted pseudonym from the Resident Evil character - a local gang leader known as "The Dealer". When Cyril stays out late one evening and does not even bother to use his cellphone to call to check in, Samantha and her partner go looking for him and are none too pleased that he's keeping company with ne'er do wells when they happen upon him. Cyril's fresh mouth doesn't help matters and this leads to an argument between the couple with Gilles demanding that Cyril apologize and telling Samantha she must choose between the two of them. Samantha chooses Cyril and Gilles gets out of the car furious. Samantha crying and upset then gets into the driver's seat to drive them home. Cyril still fails to understand how much Samantha cares for him however as he has no concept of unconditional love and continues to run wild with Wesker almost ruining his chance at a good life completely soon after.
One night rather than go out to a movie with his new friend and the boy's parents as he has been invited to do, Cyril throws a temper tantrum and demands to be allowed to go off out to roam the streets alone instead. He doesn't tell Samantha that he's supposed to meet Wesker to commit a crime of assault and theft, but she figures out that something is going on, refuses him permission, and tries her hardest to keep him indoors by blocking the doors. In frustration and uncontrolled anger, Cyril screams he does not want to be with Samantha anymore to try to manipulate her, but she tells him to go right ahead and call the orphanage's director to come pick him up if that's what he wants, but he won't be leaving the house to run the streets like a hooligan regardless. His anger boils over and in a last ditch effort to get his way, Cyril stabs Samantha on the arm with a pair of scissors and bolts out the door while she's crying and in shock. At The Dealer’s prompting, Cyril robs a newsstand owner and his son, knocking them down with a baseball bat. The Dealer, fearing Cyril had been identified, forces him to keep quiet and keep the money. Cyril tries giving it to his father only to be rejected and chased away as his father does not want to get caught by the law. Dejected, Cyril returns to Samantha and finally accepts her care for him. He apologizes for hurting her arm. The robbery is settled through mediation, where Cyril with Samantha by his side apologizes personally to the owner, who accepts, but his son does not and, in a chance encounter, tries to get his revenge. Shortly after the case is sorted out, the shop owner's son against his father's wishes confronts Cyril as he is riding on his bike to buy charcoal for a cookout. In the ensuing chase, Cyril climbs a tree and falls when struck by a rock the son throws. While he lies unconscious, the owner and son discuss what lies to tell the police and dispose of possible evidence that could be used against them, because they figure Cyril is either dead or dying. While they're talking however, Cyril regains consciousness and declines the suggestion that an ambulance be called although he has been knocked senseless. The shop owner and son watch aghast as Cyril picks up the charcoal, gets on his bike, and pedals away as if nothing happened clearly no longer the disturbed and violent child they first encountered.
revenge