Rose Amongst Thorns
Chapter Four
School
"This is school?" Rose stared up at the redbrick, ivy-covered building through the backseat window as Evan screeched to a halt in the senior parking-lot, throwing them all against their seatbelts.
"This is it. Baker High in all its glory," Finn said.
"Impressed?" Evan asked from the driver's seat.
"A touch," Rose said, indicating her finger and thumb a little way apart. Her school in North Carolina was one of those low, rambling constructions of stucco and chrome with covered walkways and courtyards with no benches. Baker High School was an enormous, redbrick structure with a clock-tower, and huge shady trees that were probably at least a hundred years old lining the pathways to the main entrance, and surrounding the grounds. Dozens of windows gleamed in the early-morning sunshine, overlooking the babbling brook that ran along the back of the football field and track. A huge banner was strung onto the football-field fence that read; Baker High: Home of the Wildcats.
But Rose was a Cougar!
Everywhere Rose looked, clusters of teenagers stood around, chatting and sipping expensive coffees or sharing a box of donuts or eating bagels with cream-cheese, girls squealing and hugging each other, gushing over summer memories and new haircuts, and several guys in maroon jackets loitered on the steps in front of the double-doors, guffawing and talking loudly, checking out the girls wearing short skirts and summer dresses and tight jeggings.
Shouldering her bag, Rose unfolded out of the car, and Miller climbed out behind her, closing the door without looking up from the tarmac. This place looked like it should have tutored George Washington and Benjamin Franklin or something. Certainly nothing compared to the historical buildings she had seen in Europe and India—the Taj Mahal, for instance, and Notre Dame cathedral, the Tower of London, and the palazzos of Venice—but for American standards, it was probably a very old building.
"Come on," Finn said, smiling across the car at her. "We'll show you where the office is."
"Thanks," Rose smiled bashfully, and followed Finn.
"You didn't think we were gonna desert you, did ya?" Evan teased, walking backward a few steps and flashing a beautiful grin at her. Rose shifted one shoulder and smiled bashfully.
She noticed the curious stares of more than a few girls as she walked up the front steps between Finn and Evan, feeling practically dwarfed by their height—and her best-friend was six-foot-eight! Evan slapped hands with a football-player type, promising to see him at lunch, and Finn got her chatting a little bit about the classes she had signed up for, and what clubs or sports she was going to try out for.
"Hey! Strickland!" Evan called the second they walked into the cosy, trophy-case-packed lobby. "Wait up!" Megan and Finn paused; Rose glanced over her shoulder as Evan darted away. "Sorry, guys, I gotta do a thing. I'll catch you later—good luck, Chibs."
Evan bounded down a few steps to catch up with his friends; Rose watched until he had reached them, and blushed when she noticed more than a few of the guys Evan slapped palms with were staring at her with the same puzzled curiosity as Sean. She glanced back at Finn, who was watching his brother; he caught her eye and rolled his, shaking his head slightly.
"Come on," he smiled easily, slinging an arm around her shoulders, and led her down the halls. Unlike her old school, Baker High halls were lined with lockers in maroon and gold, with school spirit banners hung everywhere, as well as flyers on the walls urging students to sign up from everything from AP classes to Photography to Show Choir to field-hockey to Book Club to Amnesty International. Book Club instantly picked Rose's interest, as well as the arts-and-crafts club.
"Well, this is it," Finn said, pausing outside a heavy glass door which stood open, the light-hearted chatter of counsellors and administrators adding to the sound of several fans and rustling paperwork, a printer and photocopier, and several students trying to settle their problems. "If you get Betsy, just remember, she's Doug's guidance counsellor; she has an excuse to be so bitter." Rose smiled and Finn winked, with a half-smile, and walked off. "Good luck!" Once Finn was gone, Rose stood in the hallway for a second, steeling herself. With a rush of sudden confidence, coming from a cheery voice that sounded very much like Pogue's that cheered her on, she squared her shoulders and entered the cool office.
It was quite a long process; by the time she had her schedule all sorted out, with a map highlighted by one of the administrators—thankfully not Betsy the grumpy guidance counsellor—where all her classes were and the quickest routes to get to and from each of her classes detailed in pen, with her new locker location and combination, having had her yearbook and I.D. photograph taken, a temporary I.D. card sorted out, paying for a yearbook and some school spirit stuff—a sweatshirt and blanket she could put in her truck—and a parking permit for the junior parking-lot, with fliers for all sorts of clubs and sports she had told her counsellor, a friendly guy from New Zealand who was surprised she knew of the little town he had lived in there, she was interested in looking into, it was halfway through first period.
Her schedule wasn't horrible; actually, her first two classes went really well; she arrived late in European History and was embarrassed and flush-faced, but a few of the people at the table she was sat at by the teacher Mr Sears were friends with Finn, and he had asked them to look out for her if she was in their class, so they introduced themselves while Mr Sears had them decorate name-cards for their tables. It was just a lot of admin stuff, being the first day of school; the handing out of textbooks and outlining the year's course material; a bit of Henry VIII, the French Revolution, a glance at Napoleon, Women's Suffrage, the Russian Revolution, Lenin, Stalin, the World Wars, Boom and Bust, Khrushchev and the Cuban Missile Crisis, and some modern politics.
Rose's next class was French. The teacher quickly decided Rose was too advanced for the class and decided to use her as the sacrificial lamb for the class, calling on her for all the difficult questions and never choosing her otherwise. Monsieur Gilliard did not like Rose one bit.
Morning break came and went; Rose sat by herself, listening to her iPod for a little while, sitting outside in the sun at the entrance of the large gym, reading The Blue Lagoon. When the bell rang for the end of break, she tossed her apple-core into the trashcan and followed the crowd of kids into the large gym, following them into the bleachers.
Miss Smith, a gorgeous blonde woman in her late-twenties, was her teacher, and Rose jumped when someone sat down beside her, close enough that their legs touched, and Finn grinned that easy grin of his.
"We're lucky, we got Miss Smith," Finn grinned, glancing down the bleachers at the bombshell of a teacher.
"Three guesses why you'd be lucky to get her," Rose smiled, and Finn laughed. While Miss Smith sorted some paperwork out on her clipboard, everyone around them was chatting loudly, laughing, the noises echoing off the walls of the cavernous gym. It was nothing to the basketball gym she had at her old school, but she guessed basketball wasn't really as popular in Boston as it was in North Carolina.
"So how were your first classes?" Finn asked.
"Good. History and French. Well, French wasn't so good," Rose said quietly. "I don't think Monsieur Gilliard likes me very much."
"Oh, don't worry about him; he hates everyone because he's stuck here teaching," Finn shrugged.
"Oh. Thanks for asking your friends to look out for me," Rose said quietly, her cheeks flushing; Finn cast her a sidelong glance and his lips quirked into that lazy, endearing half-smile.
"You're quite welcome. I thought you'd probably be a little nervous being at a new school and everything," he shrugged. "What class did you have, anyway?"
"European History, with Mr Sears," Rose said, and Finn grinned.
"Mr Sears is awesome. I'll show you the photos of him in last year's yearbook, from one of the pep-rallies," Finn smiled. "You heard of tarred and feathered? Yeah, well he was painted and feathered! He's insane."
Miss Smith had finished organising her paperwork, and called their attention; a TA brought in two cardboard boxes full of gym-kits, and Miss Smith collected the cheques parents had been advised to write for them; Rose handed her forty dollars in cash and took two sets of clothes, two white t-shirts with Wildcats written on the front, with a panel for their names, and two pairs of maroon mesh shorts printed with white. They were advised to go and change into their kits, as Miss Smith just handed them the year's sports units on a list and gave them their P.E. locker assignments; Rose changed into her kit, pulled on her running shoes and met Finn out in the locker-room lobby, then crossed the little courtyard to the gym.
A big cage of basketballs had been produced, and while Finn went to grab a ball for them to toss around with his friends, Rose went up to Miss Smith, who was the cross-country coach, and nervously asked when try-outs were.
"Just head out to the field outside here after school," Miss Smith smiled; she was a friendly, extroverted kind of woman, and pointed out the slightly unkempt field beyond which was the sunken football field and the swimming-pool where the next three weeks' worth of lessons would be held, because of the fine weather. Rose would have to find her swim-suits when she got home. "You can wear your gym-kit, and we'll see what you've got." Rose nodded, smiled, and scuttled off to Finn, who grinned and tossed her the ball.
Gym was one of her favourite classes; her mom used to say it was unnatural for a girl to actually like P.E., but Rose had grown up around a lot of boys, on boys' sports teams, and had always been outside, sometimes just reading, but most of the time running around and acting like a loon. She had been on a lot of sports teams at her last school, particularly first-string girls' basketball, even though she was a "short-stack," as Pogue liked to call her, but she was good at basketball; she was even better at cross-country. There was just something about running that she loved. The freedom, the escape. When she ran, she was in her own little world, where she wasn't even herself. The class was going great, until one of Finn's friends—Tim, she thought his name was, a sweet-eyed guy with longish unkempt blonde hair and pretty hazel eyes and sweet lips and a tiny nose—didn't realise she wasn't looking in the right direction to grab the ball before it smashed into her face—more particularly, her nose.
She fell to the floor, stunned, and knew instantly her nose was bloodied; Rose didn't do well with injuries. She tended to lose a lot of blood in a very short time, which made her dizzy and nauseated. She clasped a hand over her nose and struggled to sit up, as most of the guys laughed, thinking everything was good. Blood started seeping through her fingers and onto her brand-new white t-shirt, and the telltale feeling of light-headedness made her feel dizzy as she slowly sat up, hands clasped over her nose. The boys were all in hysterics, laughing because they couldn't help it, and Finn dropped to his knees beside her, trying and failing to fight a grin, and helped lift her off the floor.
"Jeez, you're pale, Chibs," Finn winced in sympathy, linking his arm around her waist when she swayed. "Come on, let's go see Miss Smith. It's not broken, is it?"
"I don't think so," Rose mumbled, tasting the coppery tang of her own blood when she licked her lips, and the world started spinning, slowly at first, but by the time they reached Miss Smith, and blood was dripping down her arm, Finn was practically carrying her, the world zooming past.
Rose woke up in the nurse's office. Finn, his half-smile worried and teasing at the same time, breathed a laugh of relief, and Rose blinked.
"What happened?"
"You passed out."
"Man," Rose moaned, cringing with humiliation. Finn's laugh was soft and warm—and deeper than she expected. It was a little while until she realised the ceiling was no longer high, but close, and illuminated by strip-lighting that was too harsh on her eyes. That, and the only sounds she heard were the whirring of a fan close by enough to play with her hair occasionally, and the rustle of paperwork and the tapping of keypads and the whirr of a photocopier. "Where am I?"
"Nurse's office," Finn smiled. "I wouldn't have taken you for a fainter."
"I don't do well with blood-loss," Rose mumbled. Finn smiled crookedly.
"Yeah, I noticed."
"How'd I get here?"
"I had to carry you," Finn smiled teasingly. "You got out of the gym alright, but we got to the lawn and you just kinda…" He mimed keeling over. "I didn't think you'd appreciate it if I got the whole class to come and look while someone got a gurney, so I carried you."
"Oh." Rose blinked and flicked her eyes over Finn. Yes, there was evidence of her head having been near his shoulder; blood was drying on his t-shirt, splattered across the maroon Wildcats lettering. She flicked her eyes over his arms; they were long and leanly muscled like a big cat, but she wouldn't have thought of him as able to carry her. "You must be very strong." He laughed.
"You weigh hardly any more than Caleb," he chuckled. "Anyway, the nurse is just checking your records to make sure you're not a haemophiliac or anything, to see if we should rush you to hospital."
"I'm not a haemophiliac," Rose smiled slightly. Finn smiled.
"Yeah, I figured; you'd probably be dead by now if you were," his lips tweaked playfully. He had very pretty lips, when she really looked at them. "So, this probably has to be your worst first day of school ever, huh. What with the tampons and the bra and Doug and Ian in the climbing tree."
"You know about that?"
"Of course—Doug asked if I wanted in," Finn shrugged; his eyes were teasing, as he smiled. "I didn't feel like being castrated while I slept."
"I wouldn't castrate you," Rose laughed, and the world went fuzzy from dizziness. She closed her eyes. Finn chuckled softly.
"I'll bet you would, though," he said quietly, placing a wad of tissues in her hand so she could change the ones he was holding under her nose. "If we got you angry enough. Otherwise, why would people call you Chibs?"
"My scar," Rose said, thinking she'd already told him that. He just laughed.
"Come on, be a little more bad-ass," he chuckled. "I know you can. So how'd you get it, anyway?"
"Get what?"
"Your scar," Finn said.
"Oh…My friend Pogue was riding his motorcycle, and I was on the back, and someone tapped us at the lights, but it was enough; I was sliced through almost to the bone; Pogue broke his arm and ruptured his collarbone," Rose explained with a sigh, adjusting the tissues so she could speak easier. Finn hissed in sympathy.
"Ouch. How long were you in hospital?"
"A few days. I had a ton of stitches, though," Rose sighed. "I couldn't go to school for ages in case they opened. That was about this time last year."
"September's not your month, huh," Finn smiled softly.
"No," Rose said decidedly. She took a deep breath and sat up slowly, groaning.
"How d'you feel?" Finn asked, wincing.
"Like I lost about a quart of blood," Rose said. She had always been a quick bleeder; the cuts and scrapes would bleed like fountains; as a kid she used to have nosebleeds during the night, and her mom used to say it was like someone had been murdered in her bedroom in the mornings when she had to clean it up.
"Well, you probably have most of it on your shirt," Finn remarked, and Rose laughed softly. She glanced down and shuddered; most of the top half of her shirt was covered in blood. "You're kinda green."
"Yeah. I know," Rose sighed. She would be fine as soon as she got some sugar in her; that always put some colour in her.
"Hang on, I'll go get the nurse," Finn said, leaving her alone for a second. Rose sat up so she could see into the mirror above the sink in the corner, and removed the tissues from under her nose.
"Wow. You look like you could be an extra in a zombie horror movie," Finn's soft, deep voice said, and Rose glanced at the doorway, where he and a small little old lady in a cardigan over scrubs stood.
"How do you feel, dear?" the nurse asked. "You don't need to visit the hospital, do you?"
"No, I'm okay. It's not broken," Rose smiled. It probably made her resemble even more a flesh-frenzied zombie.
"Are you sure? You don't need to be sent home, do you? You lost a lot of blood," the nurse said.
"I always do; it's fine," Rose said quietly. "I just need something sweet and my colour will come back."
"Are you quite certain? I can call your mother and have her come and collect you," the nurse said tenderly. Rose stared at her, and then blinked very fast, something hot working its way into her throat and eyes, and it wasn't the blood that was now quickly ebbing its flow. The way she said it…like Rose could just call her mother and have her come and get her… Of course, the nurse didn't know, but that wasn't her fault. Finn's expression went stark, and he watched Rose carefully.
"No, thank you," Rose said softly. "I… I'll be fine, just as soon as I have something sugary. It always brings my colour back. And the bleeding's stopped now."
"Hm," the nurse said, unconvinced, narrowing her eyes at Rose. She came over and started to examine her, and Rose just sat there and allowed her to, like a little kid, with her legs dangling over the side of the cot, assuring the woman that it was quite normal for her to bleed so heavily, and that she would be fine, as soon as the bleeding stopped. Finn disappeared for a little bit, and while he was gone, Rose washed her face and throat of all reside of blood. The nurse wouldn't allow her to leave until Finn had returned, in case Rose fainted during the journey back to the gym. Finn returned with a Baby Ruth candy-bar and one of his endearing smiles.
"Split it with me?" Rose said softly, when he offered the candy-bar to her. Finn smiled, opened the wrapper, and split it in half, and seeing that Rose was still very pale and tinged with green, he insisted on linking an arm loosely around her waist, echoing the nurse's fears of her collapsing again.
By the time they reached the gym, Miss Smith was standing in the courtyard, and the lobby of the locker-rooms echoed with the chatter of their classmates changing back into their street-clothes.
"Oh, I'm glad you're okay," Miss Smith smiled. "You didn't need the hospital, then?"
"No ma'am," Rose said quietly. "It wasn't broken, just bloody."
"Well, good. Listen, if you're not up for it, you can try out for the team tomorrow if you'd like," Miss Smith said, smiling comfortably. "I wouldn't want you to start another nose-bleed later from running."
"I'll be okay," Rose smiled. "I'll be there."
"Okay, well…" Miss Smith smiled, and Finn guided Rose to the locker-rooms.
"You know," Finn said, looking down at his ruined t-shirt, "I think we should keep these just as they are."
"But they're gross."
"No they're not. We should make a time-capsule of you living with us. We can put these in it. We can write a journal for it too, and bury it in the backyard for our grandkids to dig up," Finn laughed. "They'll think we were war heroes or something. There's enough blood for the King Arthur set to be jealous." Rose laughed, finished her half of the candy-bar, and left for the girls' locker-rooms. Several of the girls who had introduced themselves earlier during the lesson asked how she was when she walked into her aisle of the lockers, and Rose went to Miss Smith's office for a plastic-bag to put her blood-soaked t-shirt into after she'd rinsed it in one of the bathroom sinks, to take home and wash properly. Finn met her outside the locker-room when she had changed into her clothes and touched up her face with some more 'Georgia' powder to mask her paleness, carrying a matching plastic-bag with his own t-shirt in it.
"Apparently it would be a health risk to keep my t-shirt the way it was," Finn sighed. "So I guess we'll just have to write about you getting your nose bloodied by my best-friend." Rose laughed, and Finn asked what her next class was; art. They both had Miss Willow, a kind of free-spirited young woman with billows of wavy, frizzy brown hair and a lot of bangles, a penchant for herbal teas, and sitting at her desk with her ankles crossed, listening to headphones while she sketched. She greeted Rose warmly, as if they were the best of friends separated for a long time, and stood Rose at the front of the classroom to introduce her to the class, who had all been together last year. Rose handed her twenty dollars for a complete set of art supplies for the year, including high-quality sketchbooks, a set of acrylic paints, fine coloured pencils and drawing pencils, a portfolio, a little packet of photography paper for a future project, a wooden calligraphy dip-pen, a bottle of glue, and colouring pens, with a stack of papers about the course syllabus and future field-trips Miss Willow planned to take the class on to Boston art-galleries.
Rose scuttled off to one of the only empty seats, at a table empty save a round-faced blonde girl who sat jigging her leg and threading tiny seed-beads onto elastic thread, a bright-orange iPod Nano on the desk beside the little bead case, and blaring something fast-placed that was probably hip-hop or pop. A sketchbook was open in front of her, and Rose noticed the beads she was threading onto the elastic thread matched the colour spectrum of what appeared to be a fashion sketch, rich dark teals and shimmering old gold colours, with several swatches of flimsy, diaphanous printed fabrics. The colours reminded her of the traditional Turkish garments Medha's mother wore.
"Okay, darlings, you know what you have to do; just cover a page in your sketchbook. Can be anything. Show it to me at the end of the lesson; homework; finish it as best you can," Miss Willow said, over her headphones, reaching for a glass cup of steaming tea—which Rose could smell from here was a berry tea.
Miss Willow's class was completely anarchic. The teacher seemed more interested in her own sketchbook than the students, who took advantage of this by having loud conversations and laughing loudly; some sat eating while they sketched or painted, or used the Macs at the back of the classroom; some people were making collages from the stack of old magazines in the corner, and others were sitting on tables and just laughing and chatting about their summer. It was the most atmospheric art class Rose had ever been in, and the noise and the warmth of the sunshine streaming through the windows at her back made her feel warm and cosy and strangely a part of something. She quickly selected a pencil and opened the 11x17" sketchbook, skipped the first page and started sketching anything that came into her head; mostly, the McGowan boys.
Halfway through the lesson, Finn dropped down into a squat at the side of Rose's table, smiling; he offered her some of his Goldfish and tilted his head to look at what she had been working on. "Is that Caleb?" he laughed, turning the sketchbook so he could have a better view of her work.
"Uh…yeah. Well, it's supposed to be," Rose said. She had worked on Regina, the most familiar of the McGowans, in the centre of the page. Around her, in her billows of light-blonde hair, Rose had tried to draw her sons. Sean's ruggedness was easy to translate; it was the knowing expression in Evan's eyes that she had had trouble with, and the arrogance of Doug's smirk. She hadn't started on Finn yet.
"Interesting way you've drawn Miller," Finn said, his eyes skating over the drawing. Rose had drawn Miller as she had seen him earlier, at breakfast, when he had looked directly into her face, with those clear, sharp, pale-blue eyes, and the slightly bashful warmth in his cheeks, the tension in his facial muscles, and the prettiness of his lips, which were like Finn's. He had Finn's gorgeous eyelashes, too.
"Yup… This is going in the time-capsule," Finn said. "You should show it to Mom." Rose smiled, her cheeks heating up; Finn smiled and turned to the round-faced blonde, who was working on something else with her hands now; the colours were rich ruby-fuchsia and gold, instead of teal.
"Hey Pearl. How was your summer?" Finn asked, and the girl plucked her earbuds out with a smile.
"It was good," she smiled. "Not as good as yours, though." She glanced at Rose with a tweaked eyebrow, and Finn laughed.
"Um, yeah, Rose, this is Pearl. Pearl, this is Rosalie, the girl who's just moved in with us," Finn said. Pearl gave Rose a friendly smile.
"Pearl was my grandmother's name," she declared, and Rose blinked, and nodded.
"Rosalie was my grandma's," Rose smiled, and Pearl's eyes glittered.
"How cool! Hardly anybody ever gets named for their grandparents any more," Pearl declared. "I think Rosalie is prettier than Pearl though."
"They're both pretty," Rose said. "I just go by Rose though."
"Hm. Do you want a bracelet?" Pearl asked, and Rose blinked.
"Pardon?" Pearl lifted her wrists, which Rose just realised were packed about three inches deep each with seed-bead bracelets of all colours and styles.
"I can make you a bracelet," Pearl enunciated. "I make them for everyone." Finn raised his arms, and Rose noticed his wrists, though not as decorated as Pearl's cuffs, bore several beaded and braided bracelets. "I came up with a few new styles over the summer."
"Pearl can't sit still," Finn said, with an affectionate glance at the girl. Rose wondered whether he didn't like her, like that.
"I'm the same way," Rose assured her. Pearl's whole face lit up.
"See, Finn! I told you all I don't need Ritalin!" Pearl said. "Rose and I are perfectly normal." Finn might have scoffed and snorted at the same time; in any case, he could barely keep his expression composed. Considering Pearl had spoken with elastic thread clenched between her teeth, her lips puckered, and her eyes crossed from concentrating on the thread, her declaration didn't have much weight.
"Anyway, I'd better go back to my sketchbook," Finn sighed, flashed Rose a grin, and walked back to the table he shared with some people who were easily identified as his friends.
"What colours do you want?" Pearl asked, pushing the box of tiny seed-beads to Rose. "Pick some out." So Rose had a little bit of fun picking out colours for a braided bead bracelet; she chose rich, deep turquoises, emerald-greens, dark teals and gold colours, and Pearl spent the remainder of the class making an intricate bracelet of seed-beads, which she braided together to form a solid, strong and beautiful bracelet, with a little knot at one end and an even smaller loop at the other to clasp it snugly around Rose's wrist.
"I heard you're going to try out for the cross-country team," Pearl said, her tongue sticking out as she grabbed a pencil and opened her pristine sketchbook.
"Um… Yeah…"
"Good. We need new legs. And Finn didn't seem to be able to stop looking at yours during gym. I hope your nose is okay, by the way," Pearl said, and Rose flushed, and mumbled a "Thanks," and wondered if Pearl was teasing her about Finn.
With ten minutes left of the class, Pearl hastily sketched what Rose feared was her face—considering Pearl didn't look away from her for a second until almost the bell. Their art supplies were returned in big plastic folders with their names on sticky-labels, into a cupboard under the dry-erase board, and everyone packed up their things, sliding off desks and throwing away trash, showing Miss Willow their half-completed sketchbook pages. Rose caught a glimpse of Miss Willow's sketchbook; there were studies of several of the students, including Finn, and herself, Pearl's big-eyed round face and her short bob, and another elegant ballerina of a girl.
Considering how the morning had begun, and how she had spent most of her favourite class (gym) in the nurse's office unconscious, she would have thought nothing could make her feel anxious about lunchtime. But when it came to it, exiting the art classroom, dread settled in her stomach.
A.N.: Please review!
