Rogue

Chapter 12 - Rogue

Chapter 12 - Rogue

“What happened to you?” Karen stared at her with wide eyes. “Did you get hit by a bus or something?”

Leto shook her head and smiled weakly.

“I got caught in a mugging,” she lied. “On my way home after the competition. It was dark, and they saw the Eastbrook uniform...I’m lucky it wasn’t worse.”

“You shouldn’t have come to school today then!” Karen hugged her, gently, and patted her shoulder. “Don’t just stand there, Morné. Carry her bag for her!”

Morné snapped out of his thoughts and took Leto’s schoolbag from her. They reached the assembly hall. He continued to stare at the livid bruises along her neck and the cuts on her hands. Leto grimaced at him, knowing that he could see through her lie.

 “Morné, where are you?” Anne’s call distracted him. “The Grade 8s are getting restless. Keep them in line.”

“Sorry,” he answered over his shoulder. He caught Leto’s eye, shook his head and walked away to take care of the Grade 8s. Guilt for lying weighed down in her stomach like a brick of lead as she stood in her class line and filed into the assembly hall.

The last thing Leto expected was for them to call her name in assembly. Morné, Fen and most of the other students from the Maths Committee were already on the stage, being congratulated by Ms Kruger. She slid down in her seat, hoping that the gloom would conceal her. She definitely didn’t want everyone staring at her. As a new girl, and because of her bruises, she would stand out like a sore thumb. Unfortunately for her, Karen grabbed her by her wrist and hauled her up to the stage with the others. She kept her head down and moved to the back of the group, but she could hear the whispers and see the glow of cellphones as people checked the latest gossip on her. The minutes it took for Ms Kruger and Miss Patel to announce their victory at the Maths Competition and congratulate them on behalf of the school were agony. Finally, they were allowed to leave the stage to make room for the rugby team that had won some important match. Karen and Fen both hugged Leto as they walked off, but Morné remained distant in favour of his prefect duties. She dropped back into her seat with relief as the assembly continued, but she still caught some of the murmured rumours at the edge of her attention.

Leto found herself walking to the tree alone. Karen and Fen ran off the tuck-shop at the beginning of break, and she hadn’t seen Morné since the morning. She wasn’t too bothered; the time alone gave her space to think. She hoped that no-one else saw through her “I got mugged” story. Before, she spent enough time with Aaron to know what a mugging was like to make it sound convincing, and she knew she was a good liar. She scanned through what she’d told everyone so far and checked the story for holes. Satisfied that she couldn’t find any, she increased her pace so that she would reach the tree quicker.

“Hey New Girl!”

She turned around, even though she knew it was Hailey calling out to her.

“What?” she sighed.

Hailey sauntered to her, followed by a posse of girls. Hailey put a hand on her hip, glancing disdainfully at her through eyelashes that were far too long to be real.

“I just came to give you a friendly warning,” she sweetened the words with a smile. “To keep you in your rightful place.”

Rolling her eyes, Leto crossed her arms in response. She picked out Lauren in the group of girls behind Hailey.

“Lauren! I had no idea you were friends with Hailey. How lovely for you. And here I thought you might actually have some form of intelligence. Looks like I was wrong. Oh well!”