And I Love Her (Paul McCartney/Beatles fanfiction)

Wish You Were Here

"How I wish you were here, we're just two lost souls swimming in a fishbowl, year after year" ~Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd

Minnesota, February 1960

Charli sat staring out the window. It was snowing, the big fluffy snowflakes she loved as long as she could remember. However, she couldn't find any happiness in the fresh snow, her mind as it often did wandered back to her life in Liverpool. Thoughts of her school days with Jenny, thoughts of shows at The Casbah, thoughts of her times with Paul.

"Miss McLeod!" an adult voice said, "Can you tell me the difference between a Homogeneous mixture and a Heterogeneous mixture?"

Charli jumped as the sound of her surname broke through her thoughts, she looked at her teacher a moment.

"No..." she said finally as she stared back out the window as her fellow students stifled laughs at her expense.

"I'm not sure what those schools are like over in England, but here we pay attention," the teacher said, "Can anyone else tell me the difference?"

"Oh! I can Mr. Larson!" a pretty blonde girl said raising her hand. She looked over her shoulder and gave a cold grin to Charli before answering.

"Homogeneous mixtures appear uniform to the eye, Heterogeneous mixtures are not uniform" she chirped happily.

The bell rang excusing students to their next class.

Charli stood at her locker, sorting her books and art supplies for her final class.

"God, she's so weird," the blonde from her chemistry class said to her friends.

"Yeah, she's in my math class," another girl said "She doesn't talk to anyone"

"I know yer talkin' about me," Charli said angrily as she slammed her locker door shut "I'm not stupid"

"Yeah?" the blonde said "You couldn't even answer Mr. Larson on a simple question in chemistry"

"I could have," Charli said "I just didn't want to"

She turned on her heel and walked away from the snobby American girls.

"Maybe you should just go back to England!" the leader of the group called.

"Planning on it!" Charli said flipping her middle finger to the group (an American move she'd picked up on quite quickly).

"Very nice work Charli," an older woman said passing by her desk, Charli looked up from the piece she was working on. She smiled a weak half smile, she liked Mrs. Johanson, she was the only teacher to call her by her preferred name and the only teacher who seemed to understand her homesickness.

"It's been quite amazing to see the art you've done since you got out of that sling" Mrs. Johansson smiled. She was very pretty, Charli thought. Her salt and peppered hair was pulled into a loose bun with a floral patterned scarf. Her eyes were a sharp blue, but calming.

"Ta Mrs. Johanson" Charli said appreciatively, it was true, with her shoulder returning to normal her artwork was improving far more than she ever expected. "I've had a lot of time to come up with ideas"

"Tell me about this piece Charli," Mrs. Johanson said sitting in a chair across Charli's desk. She'd felt sorry for Charli, she came to school a mere 6 weeks earlier, her arm in a sling and clearly healing from multiple injuries her parents claimed were from her falling down the wooden stairs in their old home in Liverpool. Mrs. Johanson had been working as a teacher far too long to believe that excuse.