𝕃𝕖𝕥 𝕀𝕥 𝔹𝕖 | 𝕁𝕠𝕙𝕟 𝕃𝕖𝕟𝕟𝕠𝕟 ✅

4

27th September, 1960

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"Oh!" She fell flat on her face, and immediately tears began to fall from her eyes, and not because she had banged her knee on the hard wooden floor which smelled disgustingly of polish, a scent which she recognised from the time that the school hall in her primary school had been waxed.

Everybody around her was laughing, and Ruby's stomach was flipping around inside of her at the thought of getting up and facing them. How could she? Now she would forever be the girl who had been extremely late to her first class on her first day, and fallen over in her haste to get through the door. There were hands on Ruby's arm, and somebody was helping her up. She sat up and looked into the kind eyes of a girl who was so characteristically scouse that it hurt to look at; she had the typically shaped eyes for Liverpool girls, high cheekbones and shiny, smooth looking skin.

"Are you okay?" The girl asked in an accent which, surprisingly, was nowhere near as high pitched as she had always imagined the Scouse accent to be. "You're not hurt?" Ruby swallowed. This girl looked so familiar, and yet she couldn't put her finger on exactly why. Everyone was still laughing, though it seemed to have died down a bit. Before Ruby had a chance to reply, the girl had turned to somebody else in the class and was gesturing for them to quieten everybody down.

"A'right, you lot!"

Quick as a whippet, Ruby's head turned to the side and her jaw dropped.

She had recognised the voice but had hardly dared to briefly believe it... but there he was in front of her, a young man who was as familiar to Ruby as her own face.

John Lennon.

She suddenly felt very hot, and could feel the blood rushing to her head.

"I-I need some air..." somehow, Ruby managed to get to her feet, but she swayed. The girl was at her side once again, this time with an arm wrapped around Ruby's waist as she led them out of the classroom and over to a chair in the hallway, which was definitely not the one that Ruby had walked through just moments before. They sat down and the girl smiled.

"I'm Cynthia." She paused, "you're younger than us, right? Professor Munns did mention something about it, but he wasn't completely clear. He just said that you were awfully good, and that we had a lot to learn from somebody of your standard -"

That didn't sound like something that anybody would say about Ruby's art, which she thought was mediocre at best, despite the fact that she had previously won awards for her work and had received numerous compliments over the years about her art.

"I, um, oh -"

"I've seen some of your work, and I think that it's really good. It's quite abstract, but I love it." Cynthia smiled.

Ruby took the opportunity to introduce herself, "I'm Ruby, it's nice to meet you."

Ruby had now deduced that the young woman sitting in front of her was noneother than Cynthia Powell, soon-to-be Lennon, though she didn't know it... she was currently the girlfriend of John Lennon, and would be the mother to Julian Lennon in just a few years.

"And you, Ruby." Cynthia replied warmly. Ruby decided that she liked Cynthia quite a lot, and wanted to be her friend. She wasn't sure how long this dream would last; she had had some in the past where she had met her grandfather, or had been at George Harrison's house for dinner (where he always ended up eating his own dinner and hers because of his insatiable appetite), but this dream was different. Everything about it felt so real and lifelike. Ruby could feel the hardwood through her shoes, the cold biting wood of the chair beneath her and she could smell Cynthia's vanilla perfume from where the girl was sitting beside her, just a few inches away... but Ruby always woke up eventually, and that was the hardest part for her.

Ruby sighed, "I don't think I belong here, Cynthia."

"But you're like, really good." Cynthia paused, "and if you think you've got the wrong class, then that's okay too, because everybody transfers around a bit at the beginning of the year -"

"No," Ruby sighed, "I don't think I belong here -"

"In Liverpool? Where're you from? You don't have the accent. If you're missing your mum and dad then I'm sure they would -"

Ruby tuned her out, because she knew that there was no way that she could explain it to her new friend. Instead, she tried to act normal, "no, you're right. I mean, nobody thinks that their art is good, right?"

Cynthia nodded. "Right."

"Hey!" John hissed suddenly as he stuck his head out of the classroom and saw them sitting just a few metres away. He went over to sit with them, pushing Ruby closer to Cynthia so he could squeeze onto the two-seater bench with them. "I'm off to meet the lads for a practise."

He had his guitar strung over his shoulder, just as Ruby had always imagined a teenaged John Lennon would.

"You coming, Cyn?" He looked at Ruby briefly and then smirked, his eyes sweeping over her once more, this time a lot slower than they had the first time, "you can bring your friend, if you want."

Cynthia frowned, crossing her arms against her chest. "No, John, I'm not coming." Cynthia turned to Ruby, "I'm sorry you have to be here for this." She sighed.

For what? Ruby wondered, but then her silent question was very quickly answered.

"You never want to come."

"I don't want to skip classes, and especially not on the first day of a new year!"

"You hardly ever come to our shows, and when you do, you're always with Dot or whatever bird Paul's with that time!"

Paul.

There was only one Paul that John could mean.

Ruby's heart leapt into her throat as she jumped into their argument, "I'll come with you?" She suggested to John, ignoring Cynthia, which Ruby did feel quite bad for as Cynthia had been really nice to her since they had met. "I mean, if that's okay?"

John looked at Ruby and smirked, and then looked at his girlfriend and smirked again, but the one that he gave to Cynthia was different. It was almost malicious. Ruby didn't particularly want to be between them, but she wanted to meet her grandfather, and also George Harrison who, she assumed, would also be in the group at whatever point in time they were in... it couldn't be any later than 1961, could it?

"See, Cyn?" John sneered, "some women want to watch me -"

"She's a child, John!" Cynthia exclaimed, in tears. She stood up and dashed down the corridor, and Ruby felt awful for being the cause of her tears.

"You still up for it?" John asked, turning to Ruby, who was staring after Cynthia, "she can be a bit emotional at times, just ignore her. You know how girls can be." He shrugged away his girlfriend's emotions, and it made Ruby feel quite unhappy because she remembered that it was the norm for women in the 1960s to be treated like that - John wasn't even doing anything wrong for the time that they were in, and that was the worst part. Whilst his behaviour was considered disgusting in the twenty-first century, to him and others of the time, it was normal and even expected. Ruby didn't like that, but there was nothing that she could do about it.

She nodded. "Yeah, sure... I don't have my sketchbook, anyway - it's lost - it's not like I could do much art without it, is it?"

John laughed and stood up. "Onwards then, my lady."

He was a terrible flirt, and if Ruby hadn't already known that, then she would have been able to tell it from what he had just said.

Nevertheless, she found herself playing along to his game. She stood up and curtsied, giggling as she went ahead of him and heard him following behind.