Summary

Part of "The Silent Series"

Rose Spencer's past is a map, riddles with sharp turns and unexpected dead ends. Read about how the confident, clever young woman came to be who she is today.

A Silent Past

Her First Life Lesson

A small child sat at the desk in the primary school class room. Her big blue eyes scanning the room with an innocent curiosity, wondering why things were the way they were.

Rose Spencer brushed her shoulder length brown hair out of her face as she looked around her classmates. It was the beginning of the second week of school and she was looking forward to learning something new. Her mum had already taught her how to tell the time, as well as her two times table up to ten. Rose loved to learn, being quick to understand things.

She loved her maths lessons, she was good with numbers. English was a little harder, but she worked even more at it, trying to join her handwriting to make it pretty. Even Welsh was not too bad, though it was one of her worst subjects; it was a challenge and she loved to have something to work at.

But there were a few lessons that she excelled in, but understood very little; like PE. She didn't understand why people would rather run around being loud than read a book, or draw a picture. She could run fast, was very coordinated and understood how to win the games; it was the only reason she was any good. The other children didn't pick her for their teams though, she wasn't very popular, preferring to spend her time alone at break and lunch.

At lunch that Monday, she sat in the corner of the playground, drawing a flower on a scrap piece of paper she had found. It was what you would expect from a small child; five curly petals around an asymmetrical circle, the flower sitting on top of a fat stalk. It was colourless as she only had a basic pencil, but she didn't mind. She took care in her lines, starting to draw some lines at the bottom of the page for grass, when a group of children came over to her.

"Hey stupid." Said the tallest of the girls, dragging out the insult. "What you drawing?"

"A flower." Said Rose quietly. She was shy by nature, keeping to herself. She had found she didn't make friends easily.

"That's a stupid thing to draw." Said a nasty voice from the small group. One of the new things that Rose had learned was that she had trouble remembering names; it hadn't helped her make friends.

"Then don't do it." Retorted Rose just as quietly. Her mum had told her on her first day that if anyone was mean to her, she should stick up for herself. Her uncle also taught her how to throw a punch, but her mum didn't know that. It was their little secret.

"What?" Was the undignified response to her comment.

Rose looked up, blue eyes looking at the group for the first time. She saw they were all girls, but not the nice ones in her class. They were the mean ones. "If you don't want to draw, then don't." It was obvious to the small child on the floor, bullies towering over her.

The tallest girl just pulled a face and walked up to the girl on the floor, snatching her pencil off her. This got a reaction, as Rose got up off the floor and tried to take it back. The girl was taller than her though, and she just held it above her head.

"Give it back!" Rose said loudly, but the teachers were no where near them. The crowd looked on with vicious smiles.

"Make me!" Replied the taller girl, pushing Rose with her other hand. Rose fell on the ground, and she remembered what her mum had said, as well as what her uncle had said.

She pushed herself up, ignoring the stinging in her hands from the fall as she clenched her right fist, swinging towards the face of the taller girl.

Ten minutes later, Rose was outside the headmistresses office, hair in disarray, ice pack on her hand that was slowly swelling. Her mum had been called in, having been told that Rose had given another student a black eye and that she didn't have a good excuse to do so.

As Rose and her mum walked home, Rose having been excluded for the week, her mum turned to her.

"It was Uncle Roy, wasn't it?" Rose just nodded, leading her mum to sigh. Time to talk with the little brother, I think, she thought. "There are better ways to go about things, Rose."

"She took my pencil, I didn't even start it." Insisted the small child quietly.

"I know, sweetheart." Said her mum, stopping and crouching down to get on the same level as Rose. She put a hand on her daughters shoulder. "You know what I said about sticking up for yourself, and I stand by it." The woman gave a small smile. "But that doesn't mean you have to hit people."

"Yes, mum." Came the shamed reply from the little girl.

"Come on, I'll tell you about when the lady at work was mean to me." Her mum told the small girl about a few times that workmates or other people had done something mean or nasty to the woman and Rose listened to every word, taking it all in.

A week later, Rose sat in her corner of the playground again, when the same group of bullies came up to her again, but they kept their distance. Then they proceeded to throw paper balls at her; she just sat there, not moving, letting them run out of ammunition.

She had been ready for it though, as her mum had taught her to be. She watched them that morning, learning which trays were their - and learning their names as well. The next day, they all found that their trays had been emptied into the pond on the other side of the school. No one knew how it happened, but the girls had their suspicions, even though the teachers had said that Rose had no reason to do so - unless they admitted their ways - and that there was no proof that it was Rose at all.

It was safe to say that Rose didn't get bullied at break anymore though.