The Hill Scene

New girl

Alice's parents had found a church, it wasn't so bad but she still didn't like it, she was young and it bored her, she wanted to be out and about and not sat in a church listening to someone preach. She only saw one other person her age in the church, a girl with long brown hair that Alice was instantly jealous of. The girl looked nice but..also sad, Alice guessed that the girl wasn't such a big fan of church either. She didn't realise that she'd been staring until the girl locked eyes with hers, she had almost glowing blue eyes and she quickly flashed a small smile to which Alice returned before turning away slightly embarrassed that she'd be caught staring. "Who were you looking at?" Alice's mother asked her quietly. "Just a girl, maybe she goes to my school." She replied before continuing to listen to the service.
"Why was that girl staring at you Philly?"
"I don't know, probably just being nice? I think she's new."
"Hmm." Was all her mother replied with. Ophelia's mother could be quite judgmental at times, often judging people's appearance and personalities. Ophelia didn't like it but she knew not to disagree with her mother, she didn't want unnecessary arguments.
Soon the service ended and Ophelia and her mother started to head home. Alice tried to run after them but they were gone before she got a chance, she'd just have to hope that the girl went to her school, maybe they could be friends. Alice went home that night, the nerves suddenly setting in about school the next morning. She never really fit in anywhere so she was not expecting to have a good time there, which only made her nerves much worse. She didn't get much sleep that night and even when she did finally fall asleep, she found herself waking up too early. She decided to just get up and ready, continuing to panic as she did so. The uniform wasn't so bad, definitely better than her old school. It was a white shirt with a black blazer and a skirt, not bad but definitely could be better.

"Okay, do I look okay?" She asked her mother as her gaze flickered between her and her mirror. "You look perfectly fine sweetie, now c'mon you gotta go, you'll be late." Of course she couldn't be late, she never approved of being late. The school was walking distance from her house, the town was small so everything was pretty close. She took a deep breath and walked out the door, seeing all the other kids walking with their friends. Of course she didn't have any friends so she spent the walk looking around and observing who might be good to talk to, hoping maybe she would see the girl from the church, but she didn't. It took a while for her to find her class, whenever she asked someone they just ignored her and walked right last her, she was never a fan of the busy hallways. Of course she started halfway through the year so fitting into a friend group wasn't going to be an easy task, but she'd worry about that later, right now she had to find where she was supposed to be..English.
She finally found the class she was supposed to be at, of course running a few minutes late as she struggled to find it but she was new, she was sure they'd understand. The hope that the girl from church might be in this school and even this class still lingered, maybe she'd be easier to talk to if she was a familiar face, maybe starting the conversation wouldn't be so awkward. She stood outside of the classroom door for a moment before working up the courage to knock and enter, much to her dismay, the girl from church was not in the class but she couldn't say she was surprised. The teacher, Mr. Anderson made her introduce herself to the class and say a fun fact about herself, she didn't like to talk about herself much so she thought she'd keep it simple. "Hey, I'm Alice..I just moved here." She said before shyly taking her seat, god people were probably judging her already, no one likes a weird, shy girl.

Alice sat there for a moment, Mr.Anderson was really passionate about the book they were studying so he easily kept the attention of the class. Alice loved English, specifically writing. She wanted to be a great writer someday, not that she ever thought she was good enough to be noticed by anybody. Suddenly Alice was pulled from her thoughts as the classroom door swung open and a small girl appeared. "I'm sorry I'm late." She said trying to hide behind an innocent smile. It took a while for Alice to notice that it was the girl from church, but when she did notice she let out a sigh of relief. The girl seemed nice, and Alice would be a familiar to her, even if only because of a short moment of eye contact from the day before. Ophelia took her seat at the front right of the class, a row in front of Alice who was in the middle of the row behind her. Ophelia had also recognised Alice as the girl from church, her mother had told her to stay away as Alice was new and her mother's first impression was of Alice staring at Ophelia which must've looked a little strange from her point of view. But of course Ophelia was going to do the complete opposite of her mother's wishes. She had no intention of staying away from the new girl, Ophelia needed new friends and there she was and of course she could irritate her mother in the process.
The English class ended and they were onto their next, which mainly just consisted of awkward eye contact between the two, they just needed their break to arrive so they could finally talk to each other. Finally the bell rang and Ophelia was first out of the class, the queues for lunch always got really long so she liked to be the first one there. After getting her lunch she went outside to look for her hopefully new friend. She spotter her sitting on a bench alone, smiling to herself she started to walk over.

"Ophelia." She said holding out her hand, slightly startling Alice who was staring at the floor trying to avoid everyone. Alice looked up happy to see the girl from church, the girl who now finally had a name. "Alice." She replied shaking Ophelia's outstretched hand. "Haven't seen you here before, you new?"
"Yup, just moved."
"Bad choice, this town is boring and the people here are even worse." Ophelia joked before sitting down next to her new friend. The pair sat in silence for a few moments before Alice finally got her confidence back, Ophelia clearly wants to be her friend so why not he herself. "Look, my family moves around a lot so when I make friends I wanna spend a lot of time with them so-"
"Perfect! Let's hang out, after school."
"There's this place, behind my house. A field with a hill, it has this cool willow tree. We can sit there and talk if you want?"
"Sounds good Alice, see ya then. By the way, you left your timetable in class, here. I kinda read it and we don't have any other classes together today so I'll just meet you by the front gates." Alice grabbed her timetable back and nodded at Ophelia before the bell rang and they had to waved goodbye. It was only a small chat but both girls were hopeful, this could be the person that they've both been waiting for...an actual good friend.