Kathy's Kelter

Chapter Five- Pass With Hying Dolour

"Hey! Kathy!" Tulip Sloan weaved through a crowd in her usual grace. Her hair, bouncing up and down, the vermilion ends followed by a sparking pink vivid to the naked eye. Kathy wasn't in the mood for her antics. Tulip was kind, but easy to talk too - not so much. She overthought; she was sensitive. Tulip emitted her usual radiant smile as she emerged at Kathy's side.

"Hello Tulip," Kathy acknowledged, giving off her own feigned little smile in return.

"Did you guys bring in that sheet about Julius Caesar?" Red was a dinky individual. His frizzy, café au lait hair nearly covered his brown eyes and ceased at half way down his neck.

Kathy's eyes dilated, with all that had happened she had forgotten the ever so important worksheet due for this lesson: English literature. To Kathy it didn't make sense; why was Julius Caesar so necessary to learn about in English? Wasn't he a roman emperor at some point? Or was it a general? Either way, he was dead. He couldn't command English class like her did the roman army, or empire.

"I brought it. Did you three delinquents forget? Again?" Geraldine Hooper, full time superstar, never ceased to remind Kingsbridge Community College as a whole who was the nobility of the playground. Red's time to give back one of his snarky comebacks was cut short by Mr Gatwick opening the door for students to file in.

• • •

That lesson seemed to drag on, and on, and on. Kathy couldn't concentrate.With her husband ashes, her unborn child fatherless, and Ol' Jimbob's café vandalised, what was there to care about? Frankly, she didn't know. Just making it through the lesson would be a significant attainment for her.

The monotonous tone of Mr Gatwick had blurred into a single, indistinct susurration. At least she was near her friends. To Kathy's right was Tulip, enrapt with studying Caesar's 'so very interesting' pact with Pompey and Crassus. Kathy doubted Tulip would ever need this knowledge either, but she was enticed in receiving satisfactory grades. It was a respectable moral, though it didn't fit Kathy.

Behind her sat Red, who sat with seeming consonance, though Kathy could never tell what exactly was going on in his mind. Perhaps she needed to learn better empathy adroitness. It would help with both friends and school.

Penetrating Kathy's cavernous bubble of thought, the loud tintinnabulation of the bell sounded. Lunch. Following the flurry of students, Kathy maundered out of the English Block and into the paved area outside. She wasn't in the disposition for lunch; her appetite was miniscule. On a regular day, she would potter down into town with her friends, and hang out there for a while. It was sublime to eat away from the worries of education and critique, instead resting in a more peaceful locale. Notwithstanding the pleasure, today was not a regular day for Kathy.

In a headlong dash, titian wrens soared collectively through the cerulean sky as Kathy furtively walked to her tutor room. She was attempting to elude her friends, as they might notice her offbeat mood and assay to cheer her up. Jokes and laughter would not help Kathy at this time - she just needed a period of space and torpidity.

Arriving at the room, Kathy sighed. She was hoping to be solitary, but instead, was greeted by the sight of Mrs Hanz, ageing and slightly deaf, though Kathy was relieved to have a tutor of her calibre. Her presence was more pleasant than that of, say, Geraldine's. Kathy shed her mauve backpack and sat herself at a square table, situated next to a window. She proceeded to withdraw three workbooks, and a few pages of Edmund Spencer poetry. Burying her head in the world of poetry and literature, Kathy used it as an escape. She wasn't actually as engrossed as she may have appeared, but she would be lying if she stated that poetry doesn't interest her.

Kathy's eyes whorled around the poem 'The Shepheardes Calendar: November Poem'. She was on verse three.

The Nightingale is souereigne of song,

Before him sits the Titmose silent bee:

And I vnfitte to thrust in [s]kilfull thronge,

Should Colin make iudge of my fooleree.

Nay, better learne of hem, that learned bee,

An han be watered at the Muses well:

The kindlye dewe drops from the higher tree,

And wets the little plants that lowly dwell.

She had undergone enough balladry tutelage to know that the poem was inspired by the despondencies of November, compared his lyrical 'laye' of April which honours the Queen. Coincidentally, the present month was also November. Kathy pictured herself in the role of the protagonist; struggling, but begrudgingly getting through life. It was relatively fitting, as Kathy felt much the same. She cognitively rewrote the verse:

The Dracula is sovereign of sentiments,

Before him sits the ebbing silent Kathy:

And she refuses to propel into the concourse,

Should life mock her,

Nay, she knows better.

She has been mocked before:

An han be watered at the Muses shell,

The kind, saccharine drops from the hand of thee

And wets the girl stood by the well.

The wording came naturally to her, which is partly why she aspired to be a playwright. The other part was due to the thrill of it, and she savoured the warmth of the audience.

Piercing her mind once more, the alarm chimed throughout the school.