The Singer and the Bookworm | J.P.M

Chapter Six

All Violet could see for a few seconds when she woke up the following morning was light. She blinked a few times, and the image of her bare white ceiling came into focus.

She suddenly became very aware of how bright it was in the room. The curtains were open slightly, letting a stream of sunlight into the room. It was snowing outside.

Violet checked the time on the alarm clock beside her bed. It was half past seven. She had to start walking to school at eight, or she would be late for the last day of term. She scrambled out of bed after shoving on her glasses and changed out of her nightshirt into a cream woolly jumper and jeans, and laced up her Doc Martens on her feet. They were going to hurt like hell, but they were all she could see in the wardrobe at the moment.

Then she moved to the bathroom where she fixed her black hair into a bun, brushed her teeth and applied some mascara and lipgloss. It was as good as her appearance was going to get; she had to admit, she looked okay. She raced down the stairs and grabbed her satchel, knowing her parents would have left for work at the local sweet shop they owned by now. On her way out, she took an apple from the fruit bowl.

The walk to school lasted fifteen minutes as usual. The thick soles of the shoes she was wearing helped to avoid any incidents involving slipping on the ice covering the pavements. Rock salt had been laid out the night before on the roads, but it wasn't helping an awful lot.

The teachers weren't making them so much work at all in class; they mostly just played stupid games and doodled on their exercise books. At lunch, Violet and Irene headed over to her parents' sweet shop to buy some treats to eat in the cafeteria.

Just as they were about to enter the shop, the door opened in their direction and Violet almost collided with the person exiting. She looked up to see a familiar face.

"Uhh, Paul," she uttered, putting her most intimidating expression on her face and not for a second doubting that she probably looked stupid. She cleared her throat. "What?"

"Hello, Violet," he responded, blinking at her and clutching a paper bag in his right hand. "Caught me off guard."

"I noticed," she said. There was a pause. Grinning at Violet, Irene had gone into the shop to buy confectionary, so it was just Paul and Violet, standing in the snow.

There was a moment of silence.

"Your band were pretty good last night," she offered.

"Thanks." Paul smiled at her. "I'm sorry about being an idiot yesterday. Did I hurt you?"

"No, I'm fine, I suppose," she assured him with a sigh. She wanted to tell herself she was sighing out of frustration, but in reality it had much more to do with those gorgeous eyes of his. "Thank you."

"Well, I better be going," he said, lifting his paper bag slightly. "See you later, beautiful."

How very dare he? Violet thought, blushing a deep red and turning away from him to walk into the shop.

Irene had bought Violet a bag of chocolate buttons and a bar of Cadbury's. She thanked her, knowing her best friend knew her too well.

"Soooo, what was that with Paul McCartney?" Irene beamed at her. "You were blushing so much when he spoke to you. You obviously have a thing for him."

"Ew, no!" Violet exclaimed hurriedly, hitting her friend playfully with the bag of chocolate buttons. "I met him yesterday, he tried to catch me when I fell over but he fell too. It was kind of awkward. I think he did it on purpose. His band were pretty good, though – they played the Cavern last night."

"But do you like him?" Irene raised an eyebrow, smirking.

"No!" she gasped. "He seems like a proper idiot."

"Sure thing, sister," she replied sarcastically. Violet sighed.

Little did she know, she was going to end up liking Paul far more than she had signed up for.

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