Rose did not like school.
The homework, the tests, the teachers, and especially the other children. She hated it all. Now, you might think this can be normal, especially for a girl who was still adjusting to a new home. But, for Rose, this hatred was justified. Rose had only been going to school for about a month and still had not made any friends.
But she had made plenty of enemies.
Take Lina Brigham for example. She'd taken one look at Rose and decided that the girl was a piece of trash. It didn't help that her older brother was Oswald. He was constantly bullied by the older kids for the way he looked and dressed. Rose, on the other hand, was bullied mostly because she was new and unwelcome. It started with her pencils being stolen. Small things like that somehow led to her being pushed and teased by the other children.
She did try to tell the teachers, but Lina was one of the best students in their grade. They wouldn't believe her and even threatened to call her mother. She'd quickly backed down and the bullying continued. Oswald noticed some bruises on her arms, but didn't comment on them. Instead he would hug her tightly and promise her that they would all pay one day. How? He didn't know.
"They're starting to hurt me," she whispered across their room to him one night. They were still young and Oswald's mother had decided that they should share a room until Rose was older. Rose couldn't sleep alone anymore.
"I know," he whispered back, unsure of what else to say. "Did you tell the teacher?"
"She won't listen!" She exclaimed, no longer whispering. Oswald was quick to cover her mouth. He climbed into her bed and held her tightly. "What am I supposed to do, Ozzie?"
"This won't go on forever," he pointed out. "They have to stop eventually."
"How long has it been happening to you?"
He paused, he hadn't realized she'd noticed. Should he tell her the truth? He didn't want to lie to her. "Since I was your age."
Her eyes widened in the darkness.
"But you're nothing like me," he added quickly. "You're cute, smart, and… you can run really fast."
She forced out a giggle, knowing that was what he wanted her to do. "I just want them all to go away," she told her older brother tiredly. She wanted a little more than that, but she was too afraid to admit it. What she wanted was bad, she knew that. He didn't reply. He just held her tightly and hummed their song.
A little while later, nestled against his chest, she fell asleep to dream of rainbows and bluebirds. In this world, she flew hand in hand with Oswald, ignorant of the dark clouds on the horizon.
The next day at school, Oswald dropped her off as usual. And, as usual, the other children paid her no attention. Just then, she was grateful for that. If they paid her any attention, she was done for. She grabbed her math book from inside her desk, checking to make sure no one had stolen or damaged any of her books again. After the one time it had happened, Oswald had given her his old books. If it happened again, she didn't know what she would do. She didn't want to have to tell her mother.
After attendance was written down, and Math and English flew by without incident, Rose almost allowed herself a sigh of relief. She had to warn herself not to jinx it. She still had half a day left. It was in Music that it happened.
Mrs. Apott was a woman who insisted on being taken seriously despite her rather outrageous taste in scarves. Everyday she would wear a black outfit and throw the first scarf she could find around her neck. Today it was an odd leopard print. She never smiled and her face seemed incapable of blushing. She was as thin as a rod.
"Students," She said softly. Despite her soft voice, the room fell silent in seconds. "Today I am feeling rather generous. Does anyone have requests?"
Usually, she didn't take requests. Usually, she would slip some CD of classical music into her stereo and have her students suffer through the next thirty minutes after calling their names for attendance. Today would not be like any other day.
"I wanna hear that song from The Sound of Music," Lina yelled with her hand high in the air. "I think it's called "My Favorite Things." Can we sing along, too?"
"Yeah, can we?" exclaimed her best friend, Mary.
"Raise your hand!" snapped Mrs. Apott. She searched through her large book of CDs, many of them being from operas, famous composers, and popular musicals, before finally finally finding what she was looking for towards the back. She put it into her old stereo and skipped over the first few songs before finding what she was looking for. And as the brief dialogue before the beginning of the song ended, Rose bowed her head and tried to ignore the dread rising inside of her. She had to sing along with the other children.
"Raindrops on roses," Lina started singing loudly. Julie Andrews hadn't even started yet. Some of the other children laughed. She frowned before glancing at Rose. Rose flinched.
Mrs. Apott was surprisingly silent, sitting behind the piano. Then Julie Andrews did start singing. Rose forced herself to sing along, though she did notice the odd looks some of the other children kept throwing her. Did her voice sound weird? Was her distress obvious? She stopped singing. Just listening to the other children sing the song was enough for her to remember the way his cold hands had felt on her. Somehow, she'd managed to make herself forget, but now it was coming back to her. Even the kiss on the cheek he'd given her at the end. Then she was on her knees, yelling something to the effect of, "Turn it off!"
The room fell silent almost immediately.
"Ms. Cobblepot," Mrs. Appot started. "Is there a reason you're disrupting my class?"
Rose paused. Was there? What just happened? "I–I'm not feeling well."
"Well. then you should have said so. Lina go with her."
Lina groaned. "Can't you send someone else?"
"Go."
Lina pouted before grabbing Rose's arm and dragging her to the nurse's office down the hall. She was silent for most of the short walk but as soon as they got there, Lina pushed her up against the wall.
"What is wrong with you?"
Rose blinked up at her. "What?"
"You're a freak! You don't talk, all you do is read, and," she sneered, "no one dresses like that!"
Rose looked down at the latest outfit made for her by her new mother. She hadn't like anything in the department stores they'd looked through, so she'd insisted on giving Rose some of her old clothes from when she she'd been a child and making the rest. All of the other girls in her class wore jeans or skirts. Today, Rose wore an old blue sailor dress. She was just happy to have something to wear.
"Except maybe your freak brother," Lina continued. "And what was up with you during class? You weren't even trying to sing. You looked like you were constipated or something!" Lina didn't even know what the word meant, she'd just heard her mother use it the other day and thought it sounded funny.
Rose stayed silent. Lina had to go away eventually.
"Why weren't you singing?" Lina asked again, crossing her arms. "I'm not leaving till you tell me."
Rose knew she would regret this but if it would make Lina go away. . . "I hate that song," Lina muttered.
Satisfied with her answer, Lina smirked and walked left.
It wasn't long before Oswald showed up with a black eye.
"What happened to you?" She asked, kicking her legs out from the side of the bed.
"I tried to get back at one of the guys in my class for putting a dead rat in my locker," he sighed, sitting beside her on the bed. "How about you? You look fine."
"Music class. We were singing that song from The Sound of Music," she said. "Or at least they were singing it."
"And?"
"I couldn't do it. It's the song he made me sing before he hurt me," she answered. "My head started hurting and I almost blacked out."
Oswald stayed silent. He was never sure what to say at times like these. Being a brother was tougher than he'd thought. Both of them were in the same situation and she was traumatized. He did the only thing he could think of: he held her hand.
Brothers did that, right?
Her hand was so much smaller than his and her skin tone was quite a few shades darker. He noticed a small scar just above the knuckle on her index finger, a small birthmark on her wrist. Little things that made him smile and think that this was what a girl's hand felt and looked like: small, warm, and soft. He'd held his mother's hand of course, but this was different, so different.
Her hand tightened around his, he reciprocated. He wondered vaguely what this would feel like when he was older.
Just then, he felt powerful.
Rose made it back in time for recess after a short nap. The teacher, Ms. Brown, barely looked at her as she entered the playground. Lina and Mary, on the other hand, practically raced to join her on the swings. Mary made it there first and beamed up at Rose. She was the shortest girl in the class, something she resented, but she was also friends with Lina.
"We have a surprise for you," she announced.
"Mary, it's my job to say it!" Lina exclaimed.
"You said whoever wins gets to say it," Mary smirked.
"That was before you won!"
"What's the surprise!" asked Rose, refusing to sit through another one of their pointless arguments.
Still glaring at Mary, Lina said, "Your missed class, so we thought it'd be fun if you played with us."
"What are you playing?" Rose asked. They'd done this before. One time, they'd played dodgeball with her alone against all of them.
"American Idol," Mary said, excitedly. "And I get to be Paula! Lina's going to be Ryan Seacrest."
"What do I do?" Rose asked warily.
"You're the audience!" Lina said. "It'll be fun, c'mon!"
Rose had a feeling she knew what what going to happen.
Most of the kids in their class stood in a semicircle, waiting for them in the empty part of the playground behind the slide. Mary and three other children that Rose knew from the other classes sat down in front of the slide. Lina stood in the middle of the semicircle. Rose had no idea where she was supposed to be. Lina huffed and grabbed by the shoulders before pushing her into the center of the semicircle.
"We're doing the group performance first and they're all going to sing to you," Lina grinned. "That's the surprise."
And all at once, in perfect sync, they started: "Raindrops on roses. . . "
Rose covered her ears. It was the only thing she could do. It was easy at first to ignore them, but they just grew louder. And as they got more into the song, what had been a semicircle closed in around her, and she couldn't ignore it anymore. His hands were everywhere. He kept calling her Leila and touching her with cold, sticky hands. She kept trying to catch his eye, kept trying to plead with him because it didn't feel right. Then, everything stopped. It just stopped.
The little girl looked up and met Lina's eyes with her cold, green eyes. "Stop," she said. They didn't, and Lina kept looked on gleefully. "I said stop!"
And then, she grabbed a large rock from nearby and threw it at the large boy in front of her. She thought she heard a crack. He groaned and fell to the dirt. "Hey, what do you think you're doing?" A girl screamed, latching onto her arm. "Rose, are you crazy?"
The girl grimaced and pulled the other girl's hand off of her. She was sick of them. The way they'd been treating her, she'd deserved to do that. She deserved to do something else, too. She pushed through the crowd and tackled Lina. She went down easily enough, it was keeping her down that was the problem. She screamed, tried to push her away, and kicked from under her. But she didn't budge. Instead, she started hitting her. The hits were unskilled and didn't always meet their mark, but she managed to get her in the nose and eye. Eventually, she stopped, and Lina took the chance in the silence that followed to yell, "Someone get this freak off of me!"
That did it. The girl who no longer resembled Rose, wrapped her hands around the young girl's neck and squeezed like she'd seen someone do to her mother one time. The way Lina's face changed color made her want to laugh. And her choking was the only sound to fill the silence. That is, until she heard the teacher running over. She released Lina and stood with her head bowed, trying not to snicker.
Lina stood up and ran to the teacher, trying to explain what had happened. But ended up in a fit of coughing. "What happened?" The teacher asked, before noticing the boy on the ground. "What the hell happened?" she asked, grabbing her phone to call 911. "And what are you all doing over here?"
For a moment, no one answered. Finally, "Rose" spoke up. "We were playing a game and this scary guy just came and. . . " And she proceeded to tell some made up story. that Ms. Brown would just have to believe because no one denied it or said anything to the contrary.
As usual, Oswald came to pick her up after class. As soon as he saw her, he noticed something was wrong. "What happened?"
"They did something, I may have accidentally killed someone," the girl shrugged. "And I got to choke Lina."
"Rose?" he asked hesitantly.
"You can call me Quinn," she grinned. "Rose is such a scaredy cat."
"What?"
"I'm not Rose. I'm Quinn. If you want Rose, you have to sing the song. But all she wants to do is cry, why would you want to see her?"
"What song are you talking about?"
"'Somewhere Over the Rainbow,'" she smiled. "But it only works when you sing it. I could let Rose back out myself, but I don't want to."
Oswald considered her. Was she being serious? If she was, then what did she mean?
Instead of singing the song, he grasped her hand and led her home. And that marked the end of the bullying and the birth of Quinn.
Review! And I won't linger on what happens before the show. I'll skip to when their teenagers and then move onto the show. I tried to fix what I could but let me know if you see any big problems. I own nothing.