The Colour of Words

5.

When I first started school, I liked it. Scratch that, I loved it. Take the mick if you like, but at five years old, school is fun.

At five years old, you can spend the whole day playing in the sandpit, or making random stuff out of glitter and cardboard, or dressing up as a princess. At five years old, you don't have to do proper work, teachers don't tell you off; only scold, (and everyone knows scolding is only ever half hearted). You don't even have to behave properly. Basically, when you are five years old, school is fun.

I had fun at school until my third year of primary. Until then, I was at the top. Literally I am not kidding. I don't know what it was, but every one seemed to like me and want to be my friend. I was living it; getting invited to everyone's party (although, I must admit, even at the age of five, balloons and party frocks never really appealed to me, though I still went along).

So yeah, until my third year, I was enjoying school.

Until Hilda came along.

Hilda came into our class half way through the Christmas term in Year 3. But she didn't just come into our class, oh no. She bombed it.

I remember we had just started making cardboard headresses ('cause, even at seven, the initial excitement of glitter and Pritt Stick still hadn't worn off). A cold wind was blowing outside, which occassionally decided to rattle through the vents, just to make sure we realised it was still there, but it created a cosy feeling inside our brightly lit classroom. There was an excited air to the room, and the first flecks of snow were starting to fall outside the window. We were all chattering excitedly away- people literally fighting to sit next to me- when Hilda entered the room.

Now, we'd had our fair share of newcomers in the past three years, but none quite like her.

She came through the door with the secretary and the whole class fell silent. I was mid way through a sentence, when everyone stopped talking. Now this never happened. I cannot remember any other time when the whole class has been completely silent like that. A snowflake could have dropped, and shattered the silence.

Her gaze passed swiflty over the members of the class, most of whom were looking at her in wonder, but when she came to me, her gaze steadied, and a smirk played on her lips, one that now I have seen countless numbers of times. It was a smirk of unkindness.

And in that moment, I took an immediate disliking to her, and apparently her to me. Competition, I suppose.

Then, she spoke.

"What are you all staring at?" She demanded after a few moments, in that icy voice of hers, but it was the first time that any of us had heard it at that point. It caused an immediate stir, and an awed murmur was passed around the classroom, like ripples in water.

To be fair, she did look quite a sight. Our normal school uniform, which seemed to hang off all of us light washing on a line, fitted her to a tee. She looked right. She had decorated her arms with bangles and bracelets, and on her neck hung a long, silver chain. In her wavy blonde hair, which could ever be called frizzy, was a faint purple streak, that you could only tell was there when she twisted her angel-featured face towards the light.

But, as I soon learned, Hilda Stokington was far from angel-like.

The teacher was the next person to speak. She spoke, a bit too lightly for my liking, but managed to get everyone's attention.

"Right. This is Hilda everybody. Now were is she going to sit?"

The last part was more of a murmur; a quiet musing, but immediately, there was a rush of cold air as everyone flourished their hand in the air, stretching up in their seat to reach higher than anyone else.

The momentarily silent classroom was now filled with cries of, "Me! Me!" and "Ooh!"

I stayed silent, but as the teacher's gaze slowly crept around the excited class, her eyes stopped on me, just like Hilda's had done seconds before.

"Ah! Yes. Yes. Hilda? Can you go and sit there for me please?"

The hanger-on who had succeeded in claiming this seat as their own after the intial scramble for it, groaned in disappointment, and slid out to sit on the opposite side of the classroom, the equivalent of Coventry in our heirarchy.

The smirk played again, and soon enough the place next to me was filled with the devilish frame of my soon-to-be worst enemy.