Letting Go - by grey-eyed-semicolon

Part 1

Not Quite Perfect

She staggered up the road, trying to get used to the weight of five heavy hardbacks, which she certainly shouldn't be carrying, and one paperback textbook, which she should.

"Your schoolbag's too heavy!" her mother had scolded. "Can't you take something out?"

"No," she'd replied, not quite honestly.

So now she was carrying the 9 kg bag up the road, with the shoulder straps groaning in protest and one hand behind her, supporting the bag from underneath. And she had a mile to walk. What fun.

She reached the school steps around quarter to nine, already panting as though the world would end, and just stopped, glaring at the steps in the hope that they would flatten themselves in submission, or at least become a little less steep. It didn't work. She scowled, and started to climb.

…48…49…50!

She couldn't help grinning triumphantly as she stumbled towards the school gates. Never mind the fact that she did this every day; she had survived this time, which was something to be proud of. She leaned on a gatepost to catch her breath. As her breathing returned to normal, she renewed her hold on her violin case and walked to the school library.

Her first subject was French, which she was pleased about. French was a soaring language, she thought, a language that sang, and she loved it. It was also quite easy, which she was glad of, since she had read throughout the whole night and she was already tired enough. Copying grammar notes, she saw as not only an answer to her prayers, but a blessing, too.

And then she had English.

It was a reading period, so she opened the book she had placed on her desk and began to read.

Thirty-five minutes later, she was searching her schoolbag for another book.

At interval, she sat on a small wall that jutted out from the rest of the school and read some more, taking absent-minded bites of her apple every so often. She wasn't looking forward to her next subject: PE.

She was surprisingly fit, due to her long and heavy walks to school. She was also quite strong, thanks to carrying several kilograms of book on her back every day. However, she was a bookworm, and bookworms do not, as a rule, enjoy doing anything remotely physical.

After PE, where she had been doing cross-country running, she had Science, then lunch. At lunchtime, the library was open again, so her time had been fully occupied.

Maths was her next subject, and she loved Maths. It was so logical, which appealed to her. Lastly, Music. Her violin had to be dug out from under the many other instruments in the music cupboard, but she didn't mind that at all.

The school bell rang at half past three, and she hurriedly stuffed as many books as she could fit into her bag. Hoping fervently that she wouldn't be late, she ran to her philosophy tuition. Her laces were undone, her bushy brown hair flying everywhere, most of her books in her arms and her bag swinging off one shoulder.

Well, she was not quite perfect, but nobody was.