The large analog clock mounted on the side of the school building read quarter of eight when the three girls had finally arrived at the entrance of the school yard. The school building itself sat on the corner of two busy streets. The shape of the building was not typical of the usual school building. Rather than being rectangular, the school took the shape of a 16 sided polygon, 2 stories high. A large auditorium sat in the center of the first floor, two stories high, the first and second floor hallways encircling it. Each classroom sat on the outside perimeter of the circular hallway, the outer wall encompassing one side of the polygonal shape. A large rectangular wing extended out of one side of the polygon, housing the schools gymnasium.
The school yard was quite large; the concrete-paved surface was around 200 sqft. Near the doors were an assortment of yellow tiles with room numbers on them, which served as points where the children would line up in single file at the sound of the bell to be escorted into the school. Two basketball courts were located at the far end of the yard, in addition to a couple of hop scotch markers. Near the entrance was a small section containing a slide, as well as a swing set.
The school was located on the other side of the street over which the elevated train ran. It was in a neighborhood known as Richmond Village which would be considered middle/upper class. The three sisters hailed from the section known as Harrowgate, which was plagued by high crime. Accordingly, the students within the school were a mixture from both socioeconomic backgrounds.
The schoolyard was filled with hundreds of children, some taking part in before school horseplay, while others stood with their parents awaiting the morning bell to ring. The girls walked into the large schoolyard, and promptly made their way over towards to swing set as they did every morning; an area devoid of all of the other students.
Annemarie took a seat on the middle swing, and began using her legs to gain momentum. Slowly but surely she was able to cause the swing to oscillate at a reasonable pace. Annalee lifted Annemarie onto the swing next to Annemarie, and began pushing her gently.
"Do you think Ms. Spiller is going to let us color today?" asked Annemarie.
"Maybe," said Annemarie, "We can make Mommy a card for her birthday."
"Ooh" yelled Annamae as she turned her head around to face her older sisters "I want to dwaw the flowers!"
"No!" yelled Annemarie, "I am drawing them this time, you always draw them!"
Annemarie turned towards Annalee.
"Annalee, tell her!" said Annemarie, "She got to draw last time, and you know I'm the best drawer!"
Annalee sighed, as she did not want to have to be the mediator of yet another sisterly quarrel. It was true, Annemarie did have an amazing talent for drawing; she often painted using a kiddy water color set, and produced paintings that could be confused with those that were done by an individual well beyond her years. Event though her talents could be considered a factor, Annalee had decided to side with Annemarie on this dispute, for the sake of teaching her youngest sister that she needed to share and be able to take turns. She decided to attempt to explain the concept in a way that Annamae would understand.
"Annamae," said Annalee, "You drew last week, it's time to give Annemarie a turn."
Annalee paused for a few seconds, hoping her words would get through to her little sister. She was soon met with a response, but not the one she was hoping for.
"NO!" yelled Annamae as she drove her shoes into the dirt below, stopping the swing, "I'm dwawing today!"
With the sound of those words, Annemarie's anger got the best of her. She grabbed the juice pouch she was drinking on the way to school, and aimed the straw towards Annamaes position. She proceeded to squeeze with all of her might, causing the red juice to shoot out like a cannon, directly onto Annamae's dress.
"Hey!" yelled Annamae.
"Serves you right." said Annemarie as she threw the empty juice box onto the ground.
Annamae slowly but surely broke out in tears.
"Baby," said Annemarie as she looked towards the ground with a scowl.
"Why would you do that!?" yelled Annalee as she put her arm around Annamae.
"She always cries when she doesn't get her way." yelled Annemarie.
"Listen," said Annalee, "Both of you."
Annamae had stopped crying and was currently sniffling as she sat on the swing. Annemarie sat with her arms crossed with an annoyed look on her face.
"We get called names all of the time by everyone else, we shouldn't be doing it to each other or fighting." said Annalee, "We're sisters, we need to stick together. We are all we got, so don't fight over silly stuff!"
For being a girl of only seven years old, the words flew rather eloquently out of her small mouth. Annalee was a natural born leader, even though she only had the voice of a small child.
Annemarie's face softened, as Annamae let out another sniffle.
"Now Annamae, apologize to Annemarie for yelling at her, and Annemarie, apologize to Annamae for spraying her with juice." said Annalee.
The two girls turned toward each other and apologized after which they shared a hug, bringing a smile to Annalee's face.
"Okay," said Annalee as she retrieved a few napkins from her pocket, "Let's try to dry you off, I hope it didn't stain."
At that moment, another voice of a small child chimed in from behind the girls; this particular one with a cackling inflection.
"Why should you even worry, they aren't the ones from the good store anyway."
Two female giggles filled the air as the girls turned around with a somewhat fearful look on their face.
Standing in front of them were two additional girls, around the age of six. One girl, relatively tall for her age, had brown wavy hair styled meticulously, hanging down to her shoulders. Her grey shirt, bought from a high end store, was secured in place by black buttons. Underneath, she wore nicely pressed blue jeans, with black winter boots.
The second girl appeared to be from an Asian American background, her black hair was tied up into a bun. She wore a nicely pressed red dress, hanging down to her knees, with red slip on shoes.
Annalee turned to the girl in the grey coat.
"What do you want, Rebecca?" asked Annalee.
"Oh nothing," said Rebecca in a sarcastic voice, "I just wanted to stop by and see if the Kanker Sores were able to find the swing set today."
The two girls giggled, before Rebecca continued.
"Look Brittany" said Rebecca, addressing the second girl, "Tangled curls on metal mouth, and pigtails on the Bucky baby."
The two girls laughed while the Kankers remained in silence.
"At least Lazy Eye has the sense to try to find a style that fits her!" yelled Brittany, making fun of Annemarie's decision to cover her eye with some of her hair.
The two girls laughed, as Annemarie began to tear up.
"Don't you two have anything better to do than to tease us?" said Annalee, scowling slightly at the two girls.
"I do," said Rebecca, "As a matter of fact, I was just coming over to show off my brand new top! I got it for my birthday on Saturday. My mom paid a lot of money for it. I figured I'd at least give you three Fishtown girls the chance to see it up close, cause you know, your parents will never be able to buy something like this."
Annalee stared at the two girls angrily. Just as she was about to retort with a sarcastic remark, Annamae's child-like innocence, and love for new fashion accessories as is the case many little girls, got the the best of her.
"Wow," said Annamae, "I want to see."
Annamae proceeded to step down off of the swing excitedly, to get a closer look at the new coat, completely ignorant of Rebecca's intentions. Unfortunately, her foot came down directly on top of the juice box that Annemarie had used to spray her moments ago. To make matters worse, there was still residual juice within the package and the pressure of Annamae's foot was enough to cause it to squirt. The direction the straw was facing just so happened to line up with the center of Rebecca's new coat, which was promptly covered with bright red juice.
"Oops" said Annamae, fearfully, "I...I..I'm sowwy, I didn't mean it..."
Rebecca's face turned bright red, as she began to walk towards Annamae.
"You little baby talking, Buck-toothed brat. You ruined my brand new outfit!" yelled Rebecca.
Annalee quickly stepped in front of Annamae.
"Rebecca, please it was an accident, she didn't mean it." said Annalee, "Please don't take it out on her."
"Oh I'm not going to take it out on her," said Lindsey, "I'm going to take it out on all three of you."
Rebecca turned towards Brittany.
"C'mon Britt, let's put these trashy Harrow Gate's in their place." said Rebecca.
"Sounds good to me," said Brittany with a smirk on her face as she began following Rebecca towards the girls.
The girls began walking towards the swings where the Kanker girls stood. The Kanker sisters have been harassed in the past by this particular girl, and have been forced to endure anything from physical assault such as hair pulling, to ruthless name calling at the hands of Rebecca. Annemarie and Annamae sat on their swings with fearful gazes, as Annalee, although just as fearful, stood her ground to protect her sisters, although she knew she could not hold out against the two of them.
As fate would have it, before Rebecca and Brittany were able to lay a finger on the girls, the Kindergarten teacher had made her way over to the area of the swings to check on the group, and to escort them into the school building for the start of class. Rebecca sensed the teachers presence, and rapidly turned around to face her. The teacher asked the girls if everything was alright, at which point Rebecca responded.
"Ms. Spiller," said Rebecca in a sweet gentle sounding voice, "Me and Brittany were just coming over to play with Annalee, Annemarie, and Annamae. We were trying to be nice, but look what they did to me. They squirted juice all over my new shirt."
Rebecca started to whimper and attempted to produce false tears. At this point Annemarie's anger got the best of her, and she decided to retort.
"We didn't do it on purpose! It was an accident, the jui..."
Annemarie was quickly cut of by Annalee, who placed her hand over her mouth. She gestured her head from side to side, signaling Annemarie to stand down, as she knew that by retorting they were only going to have to worry about retaliation at a later time.
Ms. Spiller placed her hand on Rebecca's shoulder as if she was consoling her, and gently told "Little Ms. Volak" to follow her into the building to clean up the mess.
Before following Ms. Spiller, Rebecca quickly walked over towards Annalee. She was slightly taller than the oldest Kanker sister, and was forced to lean down to place her face directly in front of Annalee's.
"This isn't over," said Rebecca in a menacing whisper, "You're going to get it for this."
Rebecca quickly turned around, stuck her nose in the air rather arrogantly, and proceeded to follow Ms. Spiller into the school building. Brittany followed close behind.
The girls remained motionless for a few seconds before Annemarie spoke up.
"That was close." said Annemarie, "I thought she was going to rip our clothes again."
Annalee turned back towards the swing set and took notice of Annamae. She was shaking, and was attempting to hold back fearful tears.
"Are you okay Annamae?" asked Annalee.
"I..I..Didn't..m..mean it." said Annamae, "It was an accident."
Annalee walked towards her little sister and placed her arms around her in a hug.
"Everyone knows that," said Annalee, "Even Rebecca, she is just a mean person."
Annalee pulled away from Annamae and looked into her eyes.
"You did nothing wrong," said Annalee, "An accident happened, and you said sorry for what happened. That's what you are supposed to do."
Annalee helped Annamae down from the swing and onto her feet.
"C'mon," said Annalee, "We need to go inside, school is starting soon."
The three girls proceeded to make their way towards the school building, all three with feelings of melancholy knowing that the confrontation that occurred at the swing set was only the tip of the iceberg.