Harleen's POV (age seven)
I glance at the three girls in front of me. They slowly start walking forward, to which I walk further into the corner of the empty hallway.
"God, why are you so ugly?" Christie snarls in my face. I shrink away from her, closer into the wall. "Oh, I know!" She reaches into her pocket and pulls out some bright red lipstick. She takes off the lid and applies it onto my lips. At first I thought that she was actually going to put the lipstick on properly but then she smears it off my lips and up my cheek, stopping only about an inch from the top of my ear. "Perfect!" She squeals. Jane, Molly and Christie all laugh at me.
I lift my arm to wipe off the lipstick but my hand doesn't even reach my face before Christie grabs it and pins it to the wall. Molly giggles and whispers something in Christie's ear. She gasps and lets go of my hand wiping her hands on her pink skirt "eww! Harleen germs!" She screams. She touches Jane on the shoulder and says "H germs" Jane glares at her before reaching out to tag her back but both Molly and Christie were running away down the hallway. "Loser!" Jane sneers at me before chasing the girls down the hallway.
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I walk into class, already ten minutes late. I tried washing off the lipstick in the bathroom but it didn't work very well. there is still a very clear red smudge on each of my cheeks, in fact, it didn't even look like I had washed any of it off at all.The second I open the door everyone looks at me and laughs. I even spot the teacher trying to stifle a laugh. I feel the tears welling up in my eyes as I walk into the class and walk towards my desk.
Suddenly, someone sticks their foot and before I can stop myself, I fall to the ground.. That just increases the laughter. I get up and run out of class.I run out of school, down the road and into the forest. I walk for about half an hour until I see something that catches my eye. In the distance is a tree house. I run up to it. At the base of the tree is a wooden ladder that leads up to the tree house. I climb the ladder up to a small platform. From the platform, I climb another ladder to the second story of the tree house. As I climb the last step, the ladder wobbles a bit so I untie my shoe and take out the shoe lace, looping it around the ladder and tying it around a piece of wood that was sticking out of the floor.
When I turn around, a boy is sitting in the corner of the small room looking at me. The boy had a black eye and a busted lip. We stare at each other for a while before he finally breaks the silence. "Nice smile" He doesn't say it in a rude or mean way though. and walks up to me. He extends a hand "Jack" I shake it. "Harleen" He turns and goes to sit back in the corner. "So, what are you doing here?" He asks me. "I ran away from school" is all I say. "I ran away from home" he says. He pats the spot beside him, so I sit down next to him.
