Five young boys in pre-puberty are collectively attracted by a beautiful, young woman, Bernadette Jouve. She awakes in them the springs of luminous sensuality. As they are too young to love her, they decide to hate and torment her instead. Wherever Bernadette and her sweetheart Gerard turn up, the five boys are there, disturbing them. They also start drawing arrow-pierced hearts with the names of the two lovers everywhere, but Gerard and Bernadette hardly notice it. The boys' failures make them more aggressive. A day in August Gerard says farewell to Bernadette. He'll be away for three months. When he comes back he hopes the wedding bells will toll for them. When the five boys' vacation is near the end, they resort to a very shabby method. They buy a postcard showing two scantily-dressed lovers sprawled on a bed. On the postcard they write wanton words about Gerard and Bernadette, and undersign it The Brats, before sending it to Bernadette. Some days later they read in the newspaper that Bernadette's fiancé had died in a mountain-climbing accident.