Girl on Fire

Chapter 1

"Hey, Ginger." Someone called. I turned to the left to glare at Megan Hunter. She was by far the prettiest girl in the school, unfortunately, she was also the meanest. "Blinded anyone with your carrot hair yet today?"

Her group of friends murmured to each other.

"Yeah... carrot hair," They said.

I clenched my teeth and carried on with my work: hopefully, they would get bored and leave me alone. I should really have been able to stand up for myself... now that I was a teenager. One of Megan's brainwashed friends stood up, her eyes squeezed tightly shut and her arms out in front of her like a zombie.

"My eyes, my eyes," She complained "everyone, look away, it hurts!" all the girls squealed and turned away from me, giggling in their little groups. The boys in the class just let us get on with our stuff and ignored us.

"Oh ha," I said sourly, my voice cracking. "Couldn't you think of any better insult today then?"

Megan made a sarcastic sympathetic face at me.

"Awww, is little baby Ashie gonna cry now? Is her fire finally going to be put out? I would love that."

I slammed my pen down on my desk, waking up our teacher and walked out of the classroom. I could hear Mr Benny talking quietly to the class about me from out there. I also heard Megan's annoying voice piping up, presumably telling Mr Benny horrible things about me. After about ten minutes, Megan came out of the room grinning spitefully at me.

"Tut tut, Ashie, you shouldn't have been so naughty. You should've known that an adult would find out sometime."

I looked at her with what I hoped looked like I didn't really care.

"Hmm, what was that?"

Megan laughed and dragged me into the room.

"Mr Benny, here she-OW!" she yanked her hand away from my arm and blew on it frantically. "Wow, Ashie, you are hot... wait... you're not... y'know... oh whatever!" and she stomped back to her seat. Mr Benny frowned at me.

"I'm sorry, Ashleigh, but I cannot allow bullying in my class," he said. I gaped at him in horror, glancing quickly at Megan's smug face.

"I apologise, sir but I think you have made a mistake. It wasn't me bullying, it was..." I stopped as I was interrupted by all of Megan's mates yelling at me in unison.

"It was you!"

"You said horrible things to Megan!"

"Yeah, and you pushed her!"

"Yeah, she pushed Megan!"

I sighed and looked down at my feet. No way would Mr Benny believe me over all of these 'witnesses'.

"Alright then, Ashleigh, anything else to say?"

I shook my head and shuffled my feet.

"Well then," he continued "I would like you to go and apologise to Megan, please!"

I closed my eyes, counted to ten and walked over to Megan. I stared at her in the eyes and very proudly said: "I am extremely sorry for all the horrible things that I have said or done to you. I will never EVER do anything like it again!"

Mr Benny looked stunned. He had probably heard my reputation for defying teachers' orders when I thought it was unfair.

"Anything else?" I said to Mr Benny.

"Erm, no... wait... yes. You have an hour with me tonight for bullying, lying and walking out of the class. See you then." I sighed angrily and went back to my seat.