Disclaimer - I own nothing.
"He's so tall and weird. I mean he can hardly even speak English, what an idiot." Adrian laughed and the group of children around him joined in. A few more petty insults were tossed around about the new exchange student in their school. Rose and Lissa walked over to the large group of older children laughing, Lissa's brother was in the middle of the group with his best friend Adrian.
"Andre, that's not very nice." Lissa put her hands on her hips as she addressed her brother and his bad behaviour. The group dispersed and went to do other activities.
"Come on Lissa, it doesn't matter. It's not like the new kid can understand us, he's Russian." Andre laughed as did Adrian. Rose wondered if she should, to impress Adrian who was two years older than her and, in her opinion, cute. But she didn't because she didn't like the way they bullied the new kid, it wasn't his fault he was so tall and that he was Russian and she was also pretty damn sure that she'd heard him speaking English to their combat teacher so none of what they said really made much sense.
"That doesn't matter! He still has feelings!" Lissa screamed at her annoying brother.
"Lissa calm down!" Andre shouted back, Rose noticed the teacher in charge of the lounge, Mrs Grange, look over but she didn't make to move thankfully. "Does somebody have a crush on the new boy?" Andre jokingly pushed his little sister, Adrian and Rose laughed and Lissa looked hurt.
"No, I don't!" She crossed her arms in defiance.
"Someone's defensive," Adrian sang, while the other two laughed. Rose soon stopped when she noticed how upset Lissa was getting.
"I just think you should stop being mean," She looked up at her brother and pouted, making him feel terrible, "come on Rose, I need to do some homework." Lissa reached out and grabbed Rose's arm before dragging her to an empty table.
Once Lissa had got her homework out Rose decided she hadn't brought any of her work with her, because she hadn't planned on doing it, but she was bored now. Mason and Eddie were playing some sort of game in the corner of the room but she didn't really feel like playing anything, "Lissa I'm gonna go and get my bag from my room," She didn't wait for an answer before she ran off towards the stairs.
She was on the last and third flight of stairs when she heard a slight sniffling sound. Rose had made enough people cry to know what it sounded like. She slowed down once she'd got to the top of the stairs and looked for the source of the crying, she didn't find the person straight away, they were hidden.
She knew where she would hide to cry, not that she ever cried, and so she went to the closet that held extra bedding and stuff that was at the end of the corridor, as she got closer the sniffles got louder and louder and she knew she was right.
Rose was never one for subtlety so when she got to the closet she pulled open the doors and spoke before she even realised who was in there, "What ya crying for?" She looked down and saw Dimitri and she knew why he was crying. "I mean, are you okay?" The boy was curled up into a ball, his long legs were somehow able to curl up to his chest and Rose really had no idea how he could fit in the closet because he was the tallest ten year old she had ever met, he was easily taller than Andre and Adrian who were twelve and he was even taller than some of the older novices.
Dimitri didn't answer, he was too busy trying to wipe his tears. Rose felt bad, so she carefully sat opposite Dimitri and copied his seating position, holding her legs to her chest, she took up a lot less room than him and they easily fit in the closet.
"It's okay," She tried to speak with kindness but that wasn't her forte, "What's wrong?"
He didn't answer and Rose was starting to wonder if he really didn't know English, "Dude, I'm not gonna laugh ya know, I wanna help. What's up?" She tried again.
Finally he spoke, his voice was heavily accented but she could understand him perfectly, "I don't belong here." Rose didn't really have an answer to that because it was kinda true and she didn't think saying that would be helpful. "Nobody likes me." That was also kinda true. "I miss my home, my family." Rose missed her mother sometimes, but she was a bitch in Rose's words, so those times were few and far between. Rose didn't really know what to say to the Russian, so they sat in silence.
"Why did you come here?" Rose blurted out after the silence got too much. Lissa would have shouted at her for having no tact, not that Rose really understood what tact was, but Rose really wanted to know the answer, she wasn't trying to be mean. Thankfully Dimitri didn't seem too upset by her question, but that could have been because he had been crying already.
"I don't know," Rose didn't believe him.
"You must know!" He gave her a hard stare but she was no pushover, "Don't glare at me Mister! I was just tryna make conversation!"
Dimitri took a deep breath, trying to remain calm before speaking, "There was a fire at my house. I was out playing with my friends and when I got back my house was gone, just ashes. My grandmother, mother and two older sisters died in the house." Rose felt bad for shouting at him now. "My twin sister, Viktoria, had been out playing with me, but she hurt her knee and went home. She died a day later in the hospital. And then they sent me here, and I don't know why." Rose didn't have a clue what to say, so she just held her knees closer and leant her head on them.
"I'm sorry," Rose spoke quieter than she ever had done in her life, but Dimitri heard her. "What about your dad? Maybe he's why you are here?" Rose knew she shouldn't have kept talking but it was all she knew to do, well she knew how to fight but she doubted that would help right now.
"My dad's a bastard." Rose's head shot up, she didn't think it sound right for someone like Dimitri to swear, not that she really knew Dimitri at all but she just couldn't see him as the swearing type.
"Well, I'm sorry about that too. I don't know my dad." She felt like she needed to tell him that so he knew he wasn't alone in the bastard dad situation. "I'm sorry about Andre and Adrian and everyone, it wasn't nice of them." Rose looked at her hands, ashamed that she had laughed earlier.
"It's okay," Rose knew that he was lying but she pretended she didn't.
"Do you wanna know what I do when I'm sad?" Rose didn't wait for him to acknowledge the question before she jumped up and dragged Dimitri up, which was hard, and lead him towards her room.
"I can't come in your room!" Dimitri sounded scandalised when Rose tried to pull him into her small room.
"Why not? I'm letting you so it's fine, come on. Please, it'll help, I promise." He let her drag him into the room. "Wait there for one second." He watched her scurry away into the bathroom and looked around the room to pass the time. He didn't have much time to look before Rose came back in the room with two water balloons.
"What are you doing with them?" He watched her as she passed him the water balloons and scampered over her bed to open the window.
"Come here, quick! I have our victims in sight!" Dimitri didn't like were this was going but he went to the window like she asked. Two adults were walking towards the building.
"No, we can't! They are teachers, we could get expelled!" Dimitri tried to pass the water balloons to Rose but she would only take one.
"Calm down, drama queen! I've done this loads of times, it's really fun and I'll take the blame. I'm always in trouble, it won't matter, I promise. We gotta be quick because they are gonna be here soon." She leant slightly out of the window and Dimitri joined her. He wasn't one for trouble but Rose made it sound fun.
"Okay, on three." Dimitri nodded at Rose's whisper, "One. Two. THREE!" They dropped the water balloons onto the two unsuspecting teachers and they both dropped to the floor in fits of laughter as they heard the teachers shouting.
"You were right that was fun!" Dimitri couldn't stop laughing and Rose was glad that he had stopped crying. "But we are so going to be in trouble!"
"Well, that is true." The two children stopped laughing as they noticed a soaking wet Alberta Petrov standing at the door.
They may have got detention for two weeks but neither cared too much. Rose already had detention anyway and Dimitri had finally made a friend and that was all that really mattered.