Just Me, Him, and Ten Others - (Ruth Harris Series)

Chapter 15

'Ruth Harris, are you daydreaming again?' my teacher calls from her desk. The sudden shattering of the silence sends 50 eyes in my direction, and makes mine shift into focus.
'Sorry? Oh, oh, no, Mrs Wilson. I'm listening.' I quickly stammer.
'Listening to what? This is a written test. I hope you are not listening to anyone!'
'Er, I-I, no, I, I wasn't, I...'
               Angered, Mrs Wilson stands up and walks over to my table. I share it with another girl: Katie, I think her name is. I share everything. I hate sharing. I want something - just one thing - of my own.
'It's been twenty minutes, Ruth, and you've written nothing! Why is your test sheet blank?'
'Sorry. I-I was...um...'
'Listening to the voices in your head ramble on? Pff, good luck explaining that one to this old bat.'
'You were what?'
'Sorry?'
'You were doing what, exactly?' Mrs Wilson crosses her arms, astounded by me. I blush even harder.
'Nothing. It's nothing.'
'I can see that. This is the third time today you've gone away with the fairies.'
               A few kids around the class start giggling amongst themselves. Mrs Wilson's eyes soften, as if she is trying to understand me, but then she shakes her head and says, 'Pick up your things and go to the headteacher. If you can't concentrate in my class, maybe you'll concentrate better in his office. Go on, then! Take your bag and test. Go.'
               Shamefaced, I stand up. I don't want to go to the head's office. He is cold. He will call me lazy or idiotic again, and call Mama to come and sort me out because 'he doesn't have time to waste on year sevens' who don't want to learn.'
                'I'm sorry, Mrs Wilson.' I say desperately. 'Please don't make me -'
'It's too late for apologies, Ruth. Go to the head's office, now.' Her words prick at my eyes as I try to keep my head up. The girls I called 'friends' are whispering and laughing, while all the boys have dismissed me as a human being entirely.
               Unable to say another word, I slink out of the classroom and across the school to the headteacher's office, which very quickly feels like too short of a walk. The door is decorated with a beautiful painting of an oak tree: it's the school's symbol. Hunter painted it. He always was good at art, and yet, for all his skill he had never been more embarrassed than the day his tree got put up there on that menacing door.

Right now, I want to be a tree. I want to be old, massive, majestic, sitting centrally in a field of grass as its prized possession. I want to be useful; oh to provide food and shelter for the lost, unhoused animals of the wild, and beauty for searching eyes! I want somebody to see me as a relic, a treasure: something worthy of being printed on 1000 teenager's school blazers and painted by a talented artist like Hunter.

I gulp and rap my quivering fist on the head's door just as it flies open, forcing a yelp out of my lips. Two wild-eyed, grinning boys come tumbling out of it.
               'Oh, Ruth!' one of them says. He's blond, tanned, with some freckles and an unkempt uniform. It's my brother, and beside him is Hunter: darker haired than him but lighter haired than me, with a strong jaw, beautifully green eyes and very white teeth. The sight of the unruly pair makes me smile. Hunter blushes, but not because of me. He's embarrassed to be caught leaving the head's office.
'Hey.' he says to me.
'Hey guys. What are you doing?'
'Look, we'll pretend we didn't see you here if you pretend you didn't see us. Deal?' Hunter sticks out his hand.
'Deal.' I say, giggling when I shake it and hear him wish me luck.
'He's in a bad mood.' Andy warns, pointing over his shoulder at the office.
'Get back to your classroom before I tan your hide, Andrew Harris!' the head bellows out of it. He pats my arm and the two flee.

From then on I didn't care if the girls in my class thought I was mad, or if the boys thought I was dim. Hunter and Andy always treated me like a person - a valued member of our little trio. They laughed with me, joked with me, even when we were all in the process of an arse-whooping by the tyrannical head teacher. Those kinds of friends are hard to come by, especially when you're twelve years old.