We prove a long time existence result for the solutions of a two-dimensional Boussinesq system modeling the propagation of long, weakly nonlinear water waves. This system is exceptional in the sense that it is the only linearly well-posed system in the (abcd) family of Boussinesq systems whose eigenvalues of the linearized system have nontrivial zeroes. This new difficulty is solved by the use of "good unknowns " and of normal form techniques. This is a joint work with J.-C. Saut.