Firebug | Fireman Sam

Mona Rosser

   I walked home with my father that day. I pushed the interaction with Mona to the back of my mind.
   When I returned home, I re-opened my sketch book and continued my drawing. I had everything planned out. I would have a few different butterflies flying about, and a deer in the middle, some pretty trees and hills - the first thing you'd think of when you hear of a national park, I would imagine.
   My father came over and ruffled my hair. "You're really in the zone, aren't you, Bronnie?" He chuckled. "But in all seriousness, that's looking brilliant so far! I'm so proud of you."
   I went to bed, content and excited.

   I went to school the next day, again with my father, still buzzing with excitement. I can't put my eagerness to complete this piece into words - other than those, of course. Mostly because I imagine I was that excited but also because I can't remember the whole thing.
   We got our normal morning routine done, before Miss Saunders got us back to handing out the art stuff and continuing to do our artwork. Miss Saunders saw that I had been working on it at home, and complimented me for my hard work and dedication.
   Mona, who sat next to me, looked over at my work. She scowled at me.
   "That looks rubbish," She spat, "There's no way you're making that an entry."
   "It's only a draft," I told her, "I'm going to add to it in our next lessons."
   "You'll only make it worse," She snorted. She snatched my sketchbook and showed it to her friend, Claudia. "That's horrid, isn't it, Claudia?"
   "Complete and utter rubbish," Claudia agreed. I looked at Claudia and Mona's work, and both had quite poor drawings. Didn't make me feel any less bad about mine though. I wanted to say something about their drawings but decided against it. After all, you don't fight fire with fire, now do you?
   I took my sketchbook back, frowning at her.
   "Ooh, I'm so scared," She said mockingly. I wasn't even trying to intimidate her.
   I carried on with my drawing. I ripped it out of my book (gently, of course) and set it above my book. I looked over every detail and copied it. I couldn't hear any of the chatter from my classmates, nor see the dirty looks Mona was shooting at me. My world revolved around perfecting this drawing.
   During the afternoon lesson, I had realised that I forgot to go to the loo during lunch time. I was desperate. Some teachers are fine with going to the toilet during the lesson, others are not. Miss Saunders is fine as long as it's an "emergency", so really all you needed to do was claim you were about to burst every once in a while.
   I sheepishly raised my hand and waited for her to come over to me. When she did, I said quieter than usual that I was desperate for the loo. She let me go, and I hurried off to the ladies' room. It was a huge relief.
   When I came back to my seat, I noticed that my draft drawing was gone. I sat down, and looked under my desk. Nothing.
   I turned to Mona with an angry expression. "Where have you put it?" I questioned her,
   "What's it? You have to be more clear, you little mouse, that's what our teachers always tell you," Mona snickered.
   "You know what it is!" I snapped, still internally irritated by her sudden hostility towards me, "My draft drawing, where is it?"
   The other people on our table started to look at us. The heat began to rush to my face again.
   "Give it back!" I exclaimed, reaching over to her.
   Mona laughed. "I haven't got it!"
   "Yes you do!" I reached over again.
   She took out the paper. It was all scrunched up, but I knew I could have still made some use out of it.
   "Look what you've done to it!" I exclaimed, "Give it back!"
   By that point, Miss Saunders had heard the commotion. She came over to us.
   "What is going on over here?" She asked me and Mona in particular. She took a look at my crumpled up drawing. "Oh, Mona! Why have you done that to Bronwyn's drawing? It was beautiful!"
   "I didn't mean to!" Mona lied, "It was an accident! I was only trying to look at it, Miss!"
   "You must have been very aggressive with it to do that!" Miss Saunders said. I don't think she was buying it, "And you mustn't take things from people without asking, especially when they aren't even in the room. Now Bronwyn is going to have to start over again! She can't hand that in."
   "No, it's okay, Miss Saunders, that was the plan," I spoke up, "It was a draft."
   She raised an eyebrow. "Oh? What a good idea! Clever girl!" She addressed me and Mona once more. "Now, no more silliness like this, girls."
   "Yes, Miss Saunders," We said in unison. Miss Saunders walked away, happy that the situation had been diffused. 
   Mona turned to me and scowled again. "I'll get my own back on you, you blonde little goodie-two-shoes!" She hissed.
   She did, even though it wasn't like I told on her or anything. In my seven year old mind, I would have been able to somewhat understand why she was so angry at me, but that wasn't the case. She simply got called out by Miss Saunders' own observations, and that is what made me so confused. In the next couple lessons, she would kick my legs under the table. She was the tallest kid in our class, and it was easy for her to just swipe her legs to the side and strike me. She didn't kick hard nor often enough to bruise me, but she did it enough to hurt.
   There was one day where the library was closed because Mrs Ryan was off ill. I went outside to the playground. When we lined up to go outside or to come back in, Mona would stand behind me deliberately. I had my hair in two little plaits a lot when I was little. She would tug on one of them and say something along the lines of, "Your hair is so babyish! You need to grow up." She did that a lot in general, actually. 
   She tripped me up a lot in Physical Education and called it an accident. Either that she "accidentally" knocked into me, or that I was just being clumsy.
   She broke some of my pencils during the art lessons which made me lag behind my work more than I would have liked to. But I managed it. I was very happy with my end result. Now I just had to hope that Mona wouldn't scrunch that one up too - or worse.