The Unfortunate tale of Annika Bienfille

Annika Bienfille was nothing like her name. Her last name, BienFille, means good girl in French and Annika was certainly not a good girl, that's unless you think that a good girl pushes, punches and spits on all the other kids in her school. Her School, St. Antoinette's For Girls, did nothing about her common tantrums on teachers or her occasional bullying of everyone else, this was because her father paid them a great deal of money each month to keep them happy and not punish Annika. Annika's family were quite wealthy, they had two mansions and they went on holiday at least three times a year. Annika was short, quite chubby and usually had her hair in pigtails; she usually looked like a pig with her constant pink face. Her classmates couldn't decide what she looked like but they certainly knew what she acted like and the answer wasn't a human. Annika acted like a bull, she would charge at her peers with her fists and beat them up so she could take their things and eat their lunches, it was no surprise she had no friends.

Annika woke up on a usual Monday morning ready to begin her normal school day routine. Her day consisted of a morning of art, where she drew nasty pictures of her classmates and told the teacher that they had done them, and an afternoon of show and tell where she could practice her punching and kicking while her classmates were doing theirs. Her mother had made bacon, eggs, and cheese on toast for breakfast that Annika shoved down her large mouth. Annika was always late for school as her mam, a plump woman who was always checking the way she looked, took ages in the bathroom as she plastered her face with makeup everyday to cover up her terrible skin and features. So it was no surprise that Annika was late for school yet again today and that her mother went to work in layers of foundation. Annika went into her classroom to find that a small, thin girl with huge glasses and a cheap, torn hat and coat had taken up her seat.

Annika erupted and everyone turned to look at what was going to happen.

"Get out my seat you little weasel or I will send you back to the pathetic charity shop you came from!"

Annika pushed the chair with the girl on over so that the small youth was sprawled across the floor whimpering with her hands clasped round a hurt knee. Her teacher, Mrs Eccleston rushed to the aid of the poor girl, ignoring Annika as she passed.

"There, there" she whispered to the girl." its alright now, you can stop crying and we can send you to the nurse who will have a look at that knee" she looked across to the knee that the girl had her hands on, it was already going black and blue.

Annika was still raging, her nostrils were flaring and her eyes were red with anger. The teacher quickly sent the girl off to the school nurse and then turned to Annika.

"Who does she think she is" Annika screamed. "Sitting in my seat, she should know better than that even if she is a new girl. Who the heck is she anyway"

Annika waited for an answer and when she assumed she wasn't going to get one she picked up the chair, positioned it as it was before and sat down.

"That Girl you hurt and inappropriately pushed down was Abby Watkins who has just moved here with her family from America, her dad owns a large firm over here and she came today to start off her new school career here, so I suggest you apologise to her as it has been hard for her to move from school to school and I don't want her father getting the wrong impression of our school seeing as he is new to the neighbourhood" Mrs Eccleston looked at Annika hard. The class all looked at her to hoping that Annika would finally get told off.

"No I wont, I don't see why I have to apologise to snivelling toads it's not like you are going to do anything to me when I have the richest father in the school. I hope she hurt herself and broke that knee, its such a shame I didn't think of breaking them glasses while I was at it" Annika stood confidently and looked with laughter in to the her teacher's eyes knowing that she was powerless, but Mrs Eccleston for the first time, when in Annika's presence, gave Annika the same look of laughter then carried on her lesson. Annika thought nothing of this, the same way she didn't think why Abby Watkins, who's dad as Mrs Eccleston said had a large firm, would by wearing a cheap, torn hat and jacket on her first day of school. There were many things she didn't know and many things she had to learn.

At break Annika rushed into the yard, she was in a good mood as she was pleased with the "clever caricatures" and many nasty more embarrassing drawings and paintings of her classmates she did in art. She stood by a tree and thought of what she would do next; she couldn't decide whether to find Maria Atkins and laugh at her about the art, that she was very proud of, Annika had stamped on and ruined or to go and eavesdrop on teachers. She was just about to move and find Maria, her decided choice, when two great, muscular arms grabbed her round the chest and started to swing her round.

"What have you been doing to my sister you great big bully" said the girl who was swinging Annika round.

The swinging girl knew at once with dread who this was, The muscular girl was none other than Maria Atkins'(a victim of Annika's) sister. Maria had never Before said anything to anyone in her family about Annika's constant bullying, neither did anyone else in Annika's class, her sister must of seen her crying about her ruined art and asked her what was wrong and Maria must have told her everything.

"I'm sorry" Annika squealed and Maria's sister dropped her. She towered over Annika then gave her a hit on the cheek, it wasn't too hard and it wasn't too soft but all the same it made Annika cry. She ran off in search of a teacher only to be followed by the cheer of school kids happy at the bullying of their bully. Annika decided to try the staff room, she was snivelling and tears were streaming down her face. She ran down to the staff room and burst in.

The teachers were all set around a long table in the centre of the room and Annika was surprised to see Abby Watkins at the top of it. The teachers all turned to face Annika and Abby looked down.

"Help miss" Abby snivelled " I've been hit by Maria Atkins' sister and it really hurts" the teachers didn't look impressed and Annika could tell by their faces that they didn't believe her. This was most likely because Annika was always lying about something, whether it being about someone calling her names, when she was calling them, or about her lunch going missing when really she had already gobbled it up.

" Annika stop your lies, you should know better then to barge in on staff room meetings." Said her head mistress, Mrs Margins, who hardened her glance at Annika.

"Miss I'm not telling lies and how come Abby is allowed to stay in on your meetings, I'm much better than that charity case" Annika was distressed and was becoming more and more babyish.

"Well Annika there is actually a reason for that and that reason involves you" Mrs Margins gave Annika a long glance and saw her excitement at the announcement of herself being involved in the meeting.

"Yes I was going to leave it until I could speak to you and you parents but I might as well tell you first and then set up a meeting with your parents tonight." The headmistress took one short breath then began her story." Annika as you might of heard, St.Antoinettes has recently been given a large grant from the government to boost up our wages so that they are extremely high and get better facilities for the school. So now its seems that it would be silly for your father to be paying us monthly bits of money when we will be richer than him you see." She waited for a reaction from Annika.

"But why would you turn down money? and what does my dad not having to pay you every month have to do with Abby Charity Shop Watkins?" Said Annika getting more annoyed by the minute.

Mrs Margins Looked across at the top of the table and beckoned Abby forward.

"Well you see, Abby Watkins isn't really Abby Watkins at all" she said and the one thought of as Abby Watkins stood before Annika and took of her glasses, her torn hat and coat and then she grabbed the blonde hair on her head and tugged to reveal the real short brown hair that was hidden underneath, the hat had been used to cover most of the wig. The woman stood like an army officer with a straight, expressionless face. Under the jacket she had an army shirt which was clean and covered her muscles that Annika did not notice with the jacket on and you could just see her knee, from under the ridiculous school girl skirt she was wearing, which was black and blue. Annika gasped and looked at Mrs Margins with disbelief.

"Yes Annika this is not really Abby Watkins, She is more of a spy from a newly established school from across town. Her name is Sergeant Wycliffe and she came here today to see what you were really like but she had to come undercover so you didn't act all good in front of her. She was lucky enough to get hands on experience with your bullying tactics and she was even fortunate enough to talk to other children in the class who told her everything you did, which no one outside the classroom knew. Sergeant Wycliffe thinks you are the perfect Candidate to go to the newly established school that she runs, she thinks you could start there right away." She took a breath then carried on. "See now that we don't need your money we can send off you and your bad ways to another school and we think this one is perfect."

Annika didn't like the way this was going and she was looking at all the teachers round her, wondering if this was some funny joke but no one was laughing. They all had the same menacing look in their eyes that told Annika that they were glad to be getting rid of her.

"But what about the knee and the crying when I pushed her over, a seargent wouldn't do that" Annika said.

Seargent Wycliffe, who was formerly known as Abby Watkins, began to speak.

" It was all an act Miss Bienfille , I had to act like a small schoolgirl would or you might think I was someone else, and the bruise on my knee is real, the floor was quite hard and I fell over with some force. I run a school called St.Gabriels for the rich and troublesome that I believe by my research today you are. We believe in strict teaching and hope that by the end of your school career there that you can become the best of what you can be. We have Army training so that you can become the right size and our varied methods of teaching will improve your grades and hopefully stop this bullying and the other problems you have. We hope for you to start within the next week and we will send our uniform to you very soon." The Seargent finished and took a brochure out her pocket and handed it to Annika. Annika had tears in her eyes, she didn't realise how much people wanted her out the school and as she looked at the strict school brochure that lay in her hands she regretted the last years of her life here.

Later that day her parents were called and arrangements were made for Annika to start St Gabriels later that week and it was the first time in Annika's life that there was something she couldn't get out of bybulling. As I have said before and I will say again, there were many things she didn't know and there were many things she would have to learn. Now there was hope in the air that someday Annika would change so that she would finally become like her name, a good girl. Unfortunately the night before Annika was due to start St.Gabriels she ran away into the night. Her parents found her window open in the morning and if they had managed to follow the round imprints in the grass then they would have found Annika staying in Prufrock Preparatory school about to make friends with Carmelita Spats.