The World Beyond Me

Chapter Four: First impressions

  Strawberry girl went in first, and as soon as she did, I heard a booming voice yelling something, and decided to hide behind the door. “MABELLE ALEXANDRA FLEUR WHAT ON EARTH TOOK YOU SO LONG?! YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE BACK 40 MINUTES AGO!” The voice was saying.

“I was just showing the new girl around,” Mabelle said excitedly, only turning around to find that I wasn’t there. The teacher who’d been shouting before now looked at Mabelle skeptically. “She was just here! I swear,” Mabelle proclaimed. I felt extremely guilty for throwing Mabelle under the bus like that. “I don’t see anyone,” said the teacher, “and you get detention for skipping my class,” the teacher said. “But-” Mabelle started. “I don't want to hear it.” The teacher said I couldn’t just let Mabelle get in trouble for that, so I came out from my hiding spot and said “h-hi.” Mabelle looked relieved and said “See Mrs.Cranberry? I wasn’t lying.” Ms.Cranberries' expression softened as soon as she saw me and pretended as if nothing had ever happened a few seconds ago, “Emma, how wonderful of you to join us.” I gave her a bit of a forced smile, only to be polite. How’d she know my name? I wondered. “Class this is our new student, Emma. Now I’d like you to be extra nice and make her feel welcome. You. Take a seat in the back sweetheart.” I took the window seat in the far back. While I was walking to my seat, I could feel the pressure of everyone's eyes on me. I pretended not to notice, but through the corner of my eye, I knew they were all silently judging me, even though there were only a few students, it felt as though a hundred beady eyes were staring at me. I hated that feeling and was grateful she hadn’t asked me to introduce myself or anything like that. As soon as I took my seat, the teacher proceeded to teach the lesson. She was explaining how to do simple operations with decimals. 

However, I wasn’t interested because I had already covered 

that unit at home, so instead of attentively listening to the lesson like I should’ve been, I decided to attentively observe the students. Sitting across from me was a girl in a maroon hoodie. She had her head down on her desk and was very quiet. I got a very sad vibe from her and I caught myself wondering ‘Is she okay? Is she crying? Is she depressed?’. Just then... 

The teacher said, “Vanessa, please pay attention and go to bed on time today. You come to school to learn, you can sleep at home.'' The girl lifted her head and I could see her face properly. She did look tired, she had dark circles under her eyes and her long, dark hair draped in front of her face. “Yes, miss”, she said. Next to the girl was a brunette-haired boy. This boy looked very mad, he looked like every inch of his body hated being there, he looked like the type of boy who wanted to burn the school and chuckle at the burning ashes. He looked dangerous, very dangerous. I felt a chill go down my spine. 

“Psst,” said a voice from somewhere behind me,

I spun around to find Mabelle on the seat behind me.

“Remember me?’’ she asked. I nodded in response. 

“I didn’t catch your name before. Mines Mabelle. If you didn’t hear Ms. Cranberry yelling it a few minutes ago”. She smiled then looked at me eagerly like she was waiting for me to do something. It took me a moment to realize she was waiting for me to tell her my name. 

“You don’t talk much, huh?” she said just as I whispered 

“E-Emma”. 

“Huh, what was that? I couldn’t hear you” she said.

“Emma,” I said quietly,

“it sounds like you're saying, Emma-” she said. I nodded and then it finally occurred to her what I meant,

“Oh! That's your name! You have such a pretty name, let's be friends-”                                    

She was then interrupted by Mrs.Cranberry who was saying,

“Girls, I know you are excited-'', 

She glanced at Mabelle, then continued talking. 

“But the recess is in ten minutes. You can talk all you want then”. 

“What’s a recess?”

I wondered out loud. Suddenly, before I knew what I had said, the entire class's heads turned to stare at me like I was a suspect in the middle of a crime scene. 

I turned to look at Mabelle and found her doing the same, with her mouth hanging open and her eyes as wide as saucers. (I was genuinely afraid that one of them would pop right out of her sockets.) I gave a final glance at Mrs.Cranberry, who looked quite amused, then slumped into my seat barely letting my head peek, over my desk.