The schoolhouse could be a very boring and dry place to be, but it also could carry such interesting moments.
For instance, the day that not only the two Bishop boys walked down the north path out of the forest as everyone was either waiting at the schoolhouse or walking towards the schoolhouse.
Children started to run inside, yelling, and whispering that Charlotte Bishop in fact was not dead, not married, and was coming back to school.
I was nearly dragged inside the school house by Jeremy and Markus. They theorized about how and why she could be coming back to school.
Everyone had been speaking about her.
And it stopped very suddenly when the doors opened for the bishops.
No one spoke a word, but also didn't dare to look at Charlotte bishop or her brothers.
Amy, the girl who seemed to try and claim the front older girls bench that her friend, Beth, had been placing her books down on, nearly ran to the back of the room to hide.
Amy scrambled to leave that bench, but Charlotte stood there, waiting to speak to Amy.
Instead Amy ignored her and rushed to her old seat that Beth was waiting for her at.
Charlotte sat and did what I watched during that day's lesson. The girls would snicker and giggle about something Charlotte was wearing or how her hair was braided and held together by a very old piece of blue ribbon.
She never spoke a word the entire day.
She sat with her brothers during lunch outside, looking as if she didn't speak during that either.
I noticed the note passing on the second day. It started at the back on the girls side, then traveled up to Charlotte.
She unfolded the note on the very tiny sliver of paper then folded it back up and placed it on the top of her desk.
She was given many.
By noon, there were five sitting on her poor desk that she sat at all alone.
When I had been passed a note, saying that she must have been kicked out of her husband's house if she was coming back to school all the sudden.
I threw the note under my shoe and squashed it.
It was just ridiculous.
When I had looked up during our spelling session, making our school house silent, I had noticed how much Charlotte's hand was shaking as she wrote with chalk on my old slate.
I took the squashed paper and ripped it up to try and get her attention. I figured if I threw a piece at her, she would notice me and read my lips. All I wanted to tell her was that she shouldn't listen to the girls.
But she stiffened up everytime I threw one. She didn't look in my direction, just continued to write.
So I quietly crept over to her bench and crouched beside her. Our teacher wasn't looking, so I wouldn't be caught just yet.
She looked at her slate as she had a quickened heartbeat obviously by how her breathing picked up.
"Charlotte." I whispered
"Go," she whispered back.
"Just listen-"
She grabbed the wooden edge of her slate and slapped me across my cheek with it as she yelled at me while standing up since I had begun to stand. "I'm not talking to you!"
