Learn To: Exist

after one

ii.

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Edith first met Maculey in Year Five.

It had been a long day for her. After spending three hours in the library, Edith was finally done with the turbulent series of maths questions that had been set as homework. She placed the dog-eared textbook into her rucksack before replacing it with a rather heavy History textbook, which she had borrowed a week earlier from Sammy, on her empty wooden desk.

She made a promise to her mother – and to herself – that she was going to get on the honour roll. Her school had announced that they were starting an honour roll scheme and she was determined to be one of the lucky few students selected. She wasn’t gifted, nor was she smart; but Edith knew she had determination and she clutched dearly onto that – it was the only thing keeping her resolve from crumbling. She was sure she would make it if she worked hard enough.

All students with the best test scores in the upcoming exams would qualify, but only a select few from each year would be chosen for the scheme. If she wanted to get picked, Edith knew she would have to stay in school, stay awake during lesson times, and do some extra studying on top of the homework being given to her. There was a rumour going around in Ms Gilmore’s class that there was going to be a surprise test on Stallion the following week and Edith was determined to be prepared for it.

If only studying wasn’t this boring.

After only five minutes of staring at a page in her textbook, with nothing but a picture of a crowd hailing Hitler, Edith suppressed an exasperated sigh and proceeded to close the textbook. Who was she kidding? There was no chance whatsoever that she would be able to qualify for the honour roll scheme if she couldn’t even last a few minutes reading her book. Feeling dejected and somewhat a little hungry, Edith packed up her books and shoved them roughly into her brown rucksack, making her way towards the exit of the library with a scowl on her face and a swelling sense of disappointment in herself.

She barely managed to get about a metre away from the library’s exit when she’d heard someone sobbing and someone else laughing. She glanced up and noticed that, up ahead, there was a fairly small boy, jumping about in a vain attempt to catch a bag that was being thrown to and fro between two other relatively larger boys. The poor boy was running left and right like a headless chicken as he tried to get his belongings back, only to make the other two boys laugh more. Edith recognised them immediately. She sighed in annoyance.

Flinging her rucksack over her shoulders, Edith started rolling up the sleeves of her school’s navy blue blazer up. When her parents were going through a divorce, Edith wanted to let her mother know that she was stronger than she looked; so that no matter what life threw her way, she would always be prepared. And in an attempt to prove her new found courage for life, Edith had signed up for after-school self-defence lessons a few months back and boy, did they come in handy. She started marching up to the boys, adrenaline for the unexpected pumping through her veins.

“Hey,” she yelled sharply, her voice sounding less confident than she had hoped but it was loud enough for them to hear, that’s for sure.

Arden Connel was the first to turn at the sound of her voice. His sudden change of focus made him momentarily forget about the bag Fred Gregomore was throwing at him, and it ended up smacking Arden right in the face, causing him to stumble and to fall butt-first onto the concrete pavement. He let out a low grunt and decided to help himself off the ground, completely ignoring the outstretched hand Fred had offered him. By now, both boys were making their way towards Edith and she knew bloody well how much shorter she would be compared to them once she was standing close enough.