A rather tall girl, who appeared to be between the ages of 16 or 18, was sitting back with her left leg slung over her right knee and rested her long left arm on the back of the bench she was resting on. She'd been waiting outside of King's Cross Station for a little over an hour and would probably remain waiting close to another, not that the girl would complain, waiting had never bothered her, however running late did. Despite everything, she was always punctual, no that's not the right word for it, I highly doubt there is a word for someone so bothered by being late to a destination that they insist on arriving at least 2 hours ahead of schedule to avoid even the possibility of having to rush oneself.
Most people would say that this would be a wonderful quirk for anyone to have and would probably have no issue getting a job or have issue with attendance at school. Yes, one would assume that if one were to describe the girl with only that one quality, the one describing her might even slip in a statement regarding her IQ and they would assume she was the model student and have very proud parents. However if she were to tell someone she just met about these factual qualities, they would most likely believe she was lying or over agsaderating. Not that she blamed them, if she were them, and were told by a tall, heavily tattooed teenage girl with snake bites, that she could match wits with Albert Einstein, she wouldn't believe her either. But seeing as she was the tattooed girl with a high IQ, she would never not be able to believe it.
The girl pulled a cheap, pre-paid flip phone from her pants pocket that could have been closed with a zipper at one time, but sadly the zipper had been ripped from the pocket before she bought them at a sleazy resale shop in down town London. She flipped the phone open to check the time, the large analog clock on the tiny screen red 9:30, her train arrived at 10:00 sharp, she would go inside the train station at about 9:45 and wait for the train at the platform, she didn't really care about the fact that her train wouldn't depart from the station for two solid hours after its arrival.
The girl breathed in deeply, she really wasn't looking forward to the ride, well not the ride itself, but where it ended. She'd been expelled from her school back home for reasons she didn't care to recount. This led her mother to seek out another school, far away. Well she had found one on the other side of the ocean. The headmaster agreed to let her attend, but she would have special rules and conditions imposed on her. One was she wouldn't be able to travel beyond the small town next to the school till she graduated.
She glanced down at her phone once again, it was time to enter the station. She slowly rose from the bench and stretched her arms and popped her neck. She stared at the cart parked next to the bench that contained everything she would need for the next year. "Well, here we go." She muttered under her breathe as she began to push the cart inside.
The station wasn't crowed yet, it was still much too early for crowds of people all in a rush to catch their trains as quickly as possible. This was another reason the girl enjoyed being painfully early, as some might put it. She hated large, noisy crowds, though she honestly hated people in general.
As she wheeled the cart in the direction of the platform her train would be arriving at, a mother and her young daughter walked past her. She couldn't help but notice the woman moved to put another few inches between them and pulled her daughter to the other side of her, as if she expected the tattooed girl would try to harm her in some way. In the woman's carless haste of pulling her daughter along, the little girl dropped a stuffed animal she'd been carrying. The child tried to tell her mother that she had dropped her toy, but the woman would shush her, assuming she had a comment about the girl covered in pretty pictures.
The girl knelt down and picked up the toy, it was a white stuffed animal that looked like a cross between a hippo and a cow. The girl recognized the character, it was from a series of children's books titled the Moomins. She looked back up to see the woman at the front desk and the little girl sitting on a bench, waiting for her mother to finish her business. A smirk grew across her face and began to casually stroll over towards the child, she considered pushing her cart over to, but opted to just leave it, as she would only be gone for an for a couple of minutes. The walked over to where the child was and promptly sat down next to her. The little girl looked at her, there was no sign of fear or disgust in her eyes like there was in her mothers.
"I believe this little fellow belongs to you." The girl stated and handed the younger girl the stuffed Moomin.
The child's face lit up as her favorite toy was returned to her, she hugged it tightly for a second or two before looking back at the girl covered in pretty pictures. "Thank you" she said in a small voice.
"I just did what anyone with a conscience would do" the other responded.
The girl looked towards the front desk to see the girl's mother looking in their direction, and not really in the mood to cause a scene and possibly get in thrown out of the station, that was the last thing she needed right now. The girl got to her feet and turned to the child. "See ya kid, your momma's bound to start some drama if I give the chance" with that said she promptly strolled back to her cart.
She knew she shouldn't look back, but something inside was squirming around, urging her to. She began to push the cart again and as she wheeled it away she turned her head back slightly to satisfy the squirming feeling inside her gut. The woman was talking to a guard, she was out of ear shot but she could tell by the woman's expression and fierce pointing motions in her direction, that she was royally pissed off. This didn't really worry the girl, she didn't even get worried when the guard began to move quickly in her direction. She annoyed that she was being rushed, she hated to be rushed. She wondered how fast she needed to move, running would surely attract more of the guards' attentions, but not knowing what this one guard intended to do if he were to catch up with were equally troubling. The girl glanced up and saw the sign for platform 2, then she looked back to the guard who was quickly closing the distance between the two. She thought for a moment before she began walking faster than usual, she kept glancing up to read the platform numbers. Platform 3….4…..5….6….7….8. As soon as she saw Platform 8 she broke out in a sprint, well as fast as one can while pushing a large heavy cart in front of them can. She heard several other pairs of running feet and shouting voices a bit too close for comfort.
The girl looked up and saw platform 9 and a bit further down platform 10. She counted down to the third stone support structure between the 9 and 10 boarding platforms and stoped for a minute. She looked back, she couldn't see the gaurds but she could hear them approaching quickly. She breathed in and out heavily as she rolled her behind the second structure and faced the third structure head on. She to a deep breathe, she closed her eyes and ran once more, this time she ran straight ahead the stone structure, and prayed to herself she had picked the right one, for if she hadn't she would be screwed all over again before she even started this new school. Much to her relief instead of crashing into concrete she felt herself pass through safe and sound.
When she opened her eyes, she saw she was on a platform inside a tunnel, illuminated by overhead lamps. The train hadn't yet arrived, so she was the only living soul around. The girl looked up and saw the platform number, she sighed with a mixture of relief and sadness as she stared at the platform number. It read Platform 9 ¾.
