A bell chimed again to signal lunch and the end of their torture by poetry. Silas followed Billy and his friends, whom he now knew were Henry, Moody and Charlie. While they walked out the door to the yard, Silas glimpsed a group of girls talking to Cole.
"I . . . forgot my bag. I'll catch up," he said to the boys. However, they didn't seem to notice.
Silas approached the group slowly, seemingly invisible. "Uhm— could I sit here?"
They turned their heads to him, the red-haired girl most immediately.
"Oh, you're from the city! How magnificent! Please tell us everything. I'm Anne Shirley-Cuthbery, by the way. Is it true you have automobiles? And you have the most famous actresses just . . . walking around? Oh, how wonderful it would be to live in a real city. I do so love the countryside, but just imagine! Living next to poets and dancers! I'd like to dance, like Jane and Ruby, although I don't think any companies would want a red-haired ballerina. Who would pay—"
"Anne, I'm sure he will tell us about it soon enough. I'm Diana Barry. Nice to meet you. please sit with us," the girl in the blue dress told him.
"Silas Arroway. Thank you." The girls shifted to accommodate him. "The city isn't that much of a deal. It's just smellier, really."
The girls laughed lightly.
"Josie Pye says that when they visited Toronto, the streets got so dirty that in winter the snow turned black as coal! How could you manage to live in that?" a girl in sunflower yellow exclaimed suddenly, "And is it true the women wear pants?"
"I'm sure Josie's told you lots about her travels. You'd best not believe everything she says, Jane," warned Diana again.
Silas smiled softly. "I haven't seen them wear them in Vancouver myself, but maybe in Toronto they do. And, uh, yeah, it does get a bit muddy. The air's not half as fresh as here." He left out that that was the reason they had come here.
it's best not to trust anyone here. who knows how long I'll have to stay at this school?
"I'm Ruby Gillis," a fair-haired girl shook his hand with the delicacy of a lady, smiling wide with unsatisfied wonder.
"Tillie Boulter, pleased to meet you," a brunette in an olive dress said.
Silas's eyes met Cole's. His eyes were green. The kind of green that pushed its way through the piles of white snow to remind you that spring was coming. He opened his mouth to speak, but a harsh voice from behind him refrained his words.
"Arroway! What're you doing?" Billy Andrews walked towards them. "Are you sitting with the girls?"
"Sorry, I'm coming now."
"But you haven't answered my questions!" Anne called after him.
The lunch time was wasted throwing pebbles into the brook and at one another, with no words of interest about each other's life or wellbeing.
"Why were you sitting with them?" Billy asked eventually on the way back to class.
Silas thought of the warm welcome he received, for how he had just met the girls. Their eagerness to hear of his home. The colour of his eyes.
"Nothing. No reason."
YOU ARE READING
prince ♛ cole mackenzie
Romance❝your mouth's a constellation, the stars are in your eyes. i'll take a spaceship and try and go and find you ❞ ♛cole mackenzie x male oc ♚ ♚anne with an e♚ ♛spoilers!♛
