O'Malloy's School for the Horticulturally Advanced

Chapter 9 - Mimosa

Mimosa made it through her first week at O'Malloys without much happening. She hadn't found any close friends, and she got the feeling Birdie thought she was annoying. Although she was essentially drowning in a sea of homework, she felt like she should get a plant to keep in her room. She had heard lots of the girls in her small friend circle talking about their plants. Nicole had them all over once, and her dormitory looked like a mini jungle. Mae had a couple plants that she had named, although Mimosa could never remember their names. It was hard enough to remember the girls' names: Nicole, Cecilia, Birdie, and Mae.

The tip of Mimosa's pencil snapped off. She sighed and grabbed a fistful of blunt and broken pencils, then started down the spiral staircase to the pencil sharpeners. They only had two, which seemed a little skimpy, but Mimosa knew the school probably needed to save as much money as possible since there was no tuition. She methodically cranked the sharpener until all her pencils were pointy enough to be used as daggers.

Back at her desk, Mimosa couldn't focus. Classes were out for the day and she had been sitting inside, working on homework for about half an hour.

Maybe I need some fresh air, She thought.

Slipping into a coat, Mimosa grabbed a few papers and pencils and headed down the stairs. A few students were out in the main room and going up and down the stairs. She shoved herself into the door to push it open and slipped into the gardens. 

Mimosa sat down on a stone bench with some lichen creeping up its side. It was getting a bit warmer out, but the cold stone seemed to bite through her skirt and straight to her bones. She weighed her papers down with a rock after pulling out a half finished piece of homework and beginning to work on it. 

Halfway through her homework, a strong gust of wind blew Mimosa's curls in her face. She heard the rock she'd used as a paperweight fall to the ground.

Uh-oh.

Mimosa lunged for her papers a second too late. They floated to the ground near the bench. She scrambled to pick them all up. She had most of them tucked under her arm when another gust of wind picked up the few remaining papers and scattered them all through the gardens. 

Mimosa sighed and ran after her homework. Once she'd found them all, she returned to the bench and weighed them down with a few larger rocks. She flipped through them to find her Marine homework, but she couldn't find it. She scanned the gardens for it, and saw it near a tree. With another sigh, she got up and walked over to it.

As Mimosa bent down to pick up her paper, she saw something move behind the tree. She walked around the tree to see a boy sitting beneath it. To her delight, it was someone she knew.

"Ash!"

she said. He jumped, as if startled, then smiled and waved at her.

"I didn't mean to startle you. Sorry," 

Mimosa said. Ash made a motion she took to mean "it's ok."

"How have your classes been going?" she asked.

Ash smiled and gave her a thumbs up. He motioned at her, which Mimosa took to mean, "and you?"

"Me?" she asked. 

Ash nodded. 

"Pretty good so far. The homework's pretty hard, though." Mimosa said.

Ash nodded slowly, thoughtfully. 

"Well, I should get going. That homework's not going to do itself," Mimosa said, trying to sound playful but instead sounding depressed.

She headed back to to the bench to work on here homework. When she glanced up at the tree where Ash had been, he was gone. Huh, she thought. That's weird. A few minutes into her Marine homework, she found herself getting stuck again. What are the effects of algal blooms? Why would I know that!

About 10 minutes had passed when she heard someone walking nearby. Mimosa looked up to see Ash again, this time holding a small chalkboard and a broken piece of chalk.

"Hello again," Mimosa said, a bit unsettled.

Ash wrote something on the chalk board and flipped it around so Mimosa could see.

"Would you like some help with your homework?"

"Sure!" Mimosa said. 

Ash sat down and started reading through Mimosa's homework. He wrote out tips and explanations of anything and everything Mimosa didn't understand. 

"Wow," Mimosa said after Ash had helped her through the rest of her homework. 

"You're really good with plants. You could probably work here!"

Ash blushed a bit. The chalk screeched against his chalkboard, which looked secondhand.

"Thank you." he wrote.

"Anytime," Mimosa said. 

Mimosa and Ash continued to meet up and work on homework together. Ash had an uncanny knowledge of plants, but Mimosa was better at writing essays. Occasionally, Mimosa would remember something from class that Ash didn't. 

One day, they were working on Freshwater homework. Mimosa was pretending to proofread Ash's short answer, but she kept getting lost in thought. 

Where was that hidden greenhouse? It was between a couple of the greenhouses... Should I ask Ash about it? Probably. Maybe he would know something about it. We could try to find it!

"Uh, Ash, so I wanted to tell you about this thing I saw..."

Ash looked up attentively.

At the last moment, Mimosa chickened out.

"There's a couple grammatical errors I saw, but other than that you're good."

She handed him his paper back, smiling.