[ four ]
2nd December, 2005.
It was the last day of school for the year. The kids were buzzing around in the classroom. The Christmas mood had gotten to them.
In spite of the fact that everyone was labouring around the classroom, cleaning cupboards, they all sung Christmas carols. Their voices clashed, and they were all out of tune.
"Rudolph, the red nosed reindeer had a very shiny nose, and if you ever saw him, you would even say it glows," the students chorused together.
Miss Skelton smiled, delightfully, as she watched the children interact with each other. They pranced around, and playfully nudged at each other.
"Ashleigh, why don't you put all the scissors away?" she asked.
The young girl nodded and gathered the scissors that had been scattered across the table. Just as she was about to place them in the special stationery box, Deborah came up to her.
"You're holding the scissors the wrong way," she sassed, "You are meant to hold it like this." Her delicate fingers curled around the blades of the scissors, as she held them towards the ground.
"I did hold it like that!" Ashleigh protested.
"No, you didn't."
"Yes, I did."
Deborah flipped her red hair over her shoulder, and brought the scissors up. "You held them like this." Grabbing a strand of Ashleigh's blonde hair, she cut three inches of it off.
"My hair!" she exclaimed in horror, as Deborah giggled, in a light hearted manner, and skipped her way back to her friends.
James went up to her, holding a red pair of scissors. "Here." He tossed them at her hands, carelessly.
The scissor blades scraped her skin ever so slightly, and she yelped at the sudden contact. She bit her bottom lip, and finished what the teacher had asked her to do.
The bell rang only seconds later, and the kids swarmed out of the classroom, eager to get out of school.
Ashleigh grabbed her bag and walked out, nonchalantly. She was finally able to get away from school for two months.
She hated what the other kids did to her. She hated how she was tripped over every day, and how she had to be sent to the sick bay because of that. She hated going home with some part of her body being patched by a band aid, or wrapped by a bandage. She hated how she was teased and constantly called bad names.
A boy from another class came slamming into Ashleigh, as he sprinted across the playground. She was knocked into the wall beside her, and she choked back on a sob as her head hit the hard bricks.
He regained his footing and left, leaving the girl alone in her misery.
