Kindred Spirits

Chapter One. Carrots.

The whole class gasped and all eyes were on Anne Shirley-Cuthbert and Gilbert Blythe as the brown haired boy's hand shot up to his face where Anne had just whacked him with her slate. The red headed girl's face grew hot as she slowly looked down, refusing to meet anyone's eyes, especially Gilbert's, to see her cracked board.

Embarrassment doesn't even to begin to cover the feeling that comes over Anne. The indignity, the discomfiture, the opprobrium. She had always tried to hold herself to a higher standard, but this was an ultimate low. It wasn't her fault, she couldn't help but get frustrated when the boy antagonized her so. While she'd only known him for less than a morning, he was already the most insufferable young man she'd ever had the displeasure of encountering.

Anne couldn't imagine why everyone spoke so highly of Gilbert Blythe. He'd been out of school traveling with his father, so all she knew about him came from the other students. Ruby Gillis, a small and dainty girl with a heart of gold, never seemed to stop talking about Gilbert and the life she dreamed of with him. At times, she would completely convince herself that they were soulmates destined to be together, but Diana always pulled Anne aside to mention that Gilbert never gave any sort of inclination he felt the same. It was a pity really, hearing so much about someone until you meet them and they destroy all preconceived notions.

Gilbert and Anne had first run into each other that morning as she made her way to school. Dancing among the dew covered flowers, Anne imagined she was a much more elegant version of herself named Princess Cordelia in her royal gardens. The sun had just begun to rise, casting friendly shadows onto tree trunks and coating the meadows of wild flowers in a warm, incandescent morning glow, but Anne's imagination was interrupted by the mischievous Billy Andrews. He muttered something about how homely Anne was, calling her a miserable orphan before Gilbert Blythe appeared from among the trees. Anne had never met him before, but something about him was already rather off-putting. Perhaps it was the way that he coaxed Billy into leaving her alone when she clearly was in no need of assistance from anyone, or the way that he followed her all the way to school practically begging to know her name. It could've been the way he insisted on holding the door open for her as they entered the schoolhouse, but one may never know.

And now, there they stood, Gilbert's eyes trained on Anne as she sheepishly averted his gaze, her cheeks as red as her hair.

"Anne Shirley!" Mr. Phillips bellowed and she froze, unable to move and completely mortified at her uncalled-for outburst. While she was known for her fiery temper, Anne had never physically attacked someone like this, especially not the Gilbert Blythe. She couldn't help it, though. What was the appropriate way to respond to his constant badgering for her attention when she had promised she wouldn't give it (out of respect for Ruby's dibs on Gilbert, of course)? How should she have reacted when he pulled on one of her braids and called her 'Carrots'?

"Cuthbert," she muttered, correcting him with her eyes still trained on her cracked slate.

"What was that?" the sniveling teacher spat, stepping around the front of his desk.

Without another word, the humiliation became too much for Anne and she turned towards the back of the quaint classroom, rushed to the coatroom to gather her things, then ran out the door. She could hear Diana calling after her, along with a boy's voice, but ignored both of them as she makes her way through the spring meadow towards her home at Green Gables.

She was barely in control now, her feet involuntarily propelling forward one after the other, carrying her down the familiar path. Her mind blank as she ran, void of all emotion as if her brain pitied her, avoiding any further embarrassment.

"Miss! Miss!" Gilbert's voice echoed behind her as he chased after her.

Anne's lungs burned from the cool air and overexertion, but she dared not stop out of fear of facing the stem of her mortification.