In the Woods When First We Met

44. Hardship

As they approached the school building, Anne's stomach dropped. She wanted to turn around and run home.

She knew school had begun already because they had heard the bell being ringing as they were approaching the end of the woods, and none of the students were still outside.

Glorious, she thought. Now everyone will turn around in their seats and stare at me when I come in.

No, she realized with dismay. They'll stare at us. Gilbert and I will walk in late together... That certainly doesn't look good.

She worried about her status with the other girls, but then she had the depressing thought that it may not even matter anymore- they had already seemed to reach a group consensus that she was to be firmly excluded.

They reached the steps. Gilbert looked at her. "You ready?"

"I feel like a lamb being led to the slaughter," she said. "Hitting you with a slate was not my finest moment"- she took a breath- "but now I'll have to face the consequences."

Gilbert's hand was on the doorknob, but before he opened the door, he whispered, "Mr. Phillips can't do anything that matters. Don't let him get to you. He's not worth it."

Anne took a shaky breath.

Gilbert opened the door for her and they walked in.

Everyone turned and looked at them coming in. Anne was slower than necessary in the cloak room taking her shawl and hat off and hanging them up, and when she finally turned back to the class again she avoided looking at Ruby.

Gilbert took his seat. He felt eyes on him, but didn't let it worry him.

As Anne started to walk up the aisle to her seat, Mr. Phillips said, "How kind of you to join us, Miss Shirley. Did you enjoy having the afternoon off yesterday?"

Anne just looked down. "I apologize for flying out of the room and leaving school like that-" she began, but Mr. Phillips interrupted her: "You may take a seat on the other side of the room today, I think."

Anne looked up, startled.

The entire class looked surprised. Sending a girl over to sit with the boys?

"What?" Anne said.

"Go," Mr. Philips said firmly.

"But...I'd be sitting on the boy's side..." Anne tried to protest.

"You're as wild and unmanageable as the worst of any boy, so you should fit right in," Mr. Philips said, his expression smug.

He went on, "And when you decide to conduct yourself with the grace and decorum of a young lady, then you can go sit with the girls again."

Anne didn't move.

"Anne Shirley, after your shocking display with your slate yesterday, making you sit with the boys is truly the least of all I could do to you, so you'd best take it."

Gilbert watched Anne walk slowly across the aisle to the boy's side. He had a worried look on his face. What he could do to help her?

He quickly moved over on his bench and touched the empty space next to him. Gratefully, Anne moved to take it.

"Not there," Mr. Philips said coolly. "Sit in the last row. I want you to be in the back; I don't need you detracting anyone's attention with your foolish antics."

Billy always sat in the back row. He smiled at her.

Why couldn't he be absent today?

"For those of you who arrived late," Mr. Phillips said, looking pointedly at Anne, "We are working on math, the beginning of chapter five. I've assigned everyone to work with a partner on the equations of set three."

Gilbert wished he sat in the row right in front of Billy so he'd be closer, but there was one row between them.

"Well, well," Billy said, smirking at Anne as she reluctantly took the seat beside him. "Here we are, together again."

Anne didn't look at him. She clutched her math book tightly, her knuckles white.

She swallowed hard and tried to speak, her voice wavering. "We- we need to work on- on chapter-"

Billy leaned forward, invading her personal space. "You think you're so smart, don't you?"

Gilbert turned around and stared hard at Billy.

"What's wrong, man?" Billy said, challenging him, a smirk on his face.

Gilbert didn't say anything. He just continued looking coldly into Billy's eyes.

"What's your problem, Blythe?" Billy said again, harder this time, almost challenging Gilbert.

"I'm watching you." Gilbert said evenly. "Just giving you fair warning. You're being watched."

The two boys in the row between Gilbert and Billy looked at each other. What was going on?

Gilbert gave Anne a moment of reassuring eye contact, then turned back to his own book, keeping his head tilted slightly so that Billy was still in his vision.

As soon as Gilbert's head was just slightly turned, Billy roughly grabbed Anne's book out of her arms. He opened up the book and rifled through it, his fingers all over it, shuffling through the pages very roughly on purpose- as if to show her that he could handle her things however he wanted.

Then, with a mean smile, he dropped the book in front of her with a small thud.

At the sound of the thud, Gilbert turned around again.

Gilbert looked at the book, then Anne's expression. Gilbert asked, "Hey, Anne. I'm not feeling well. I think I'll go see the doctor after school. You want to come with me?"

Billy looked at him.

Anne looked back and forth between the two boys, sensing an unspoken conversation happening through their eye contact.

Billy looked like he was considering something. He had a moment of defiance on his face, but finally his face relaxed and he turned away. "Whatever," he said, shrugging.

Ignoring Anne, Billy opened his own book and leaned over it, working on the math problems by himself.

Anne stared at him. Then she looked at Gilbert. She didn't know what to think. She didn't understand what he had done.

Gilbert leaned between the row that was in the middle of himself and Billy, stretching his arm to reach Anne's book.

He took Anne's math book from her- still laying exactly where Billy had dropped it, since Anne hadn't wanted to touch it.

He would use her book today.

He gave her a small smile as he handed her his own book to use instead.

Author note:

I'm sorry if it seems like I'm being unnecessarily cruel to Anne by making her sit with Billy, but I am writing based on my own actual experience.