The girl who would wear green

Chapter One

Essie Martin decided she hated school. At first it was fun, making friends and learning new things, although she wasn't sure she would ever learn to love maths, especially fractions.
Since Essie had moved up into grade five, everything changed. First of all there was her teacher, Mrs Fields. Essie understood that she was a trial for Mrs Fields when it came to maths, but Essie was pretty good at English she thought.
She could read before she started school and somehow, everything just fell into place once they started learning words, and how they fit together and made sentences. Essie loved to read, and she loved writing stories about anything she could. Admittedly she occasionally spelled a word wrongly, but that was just because she was in a hurry to finish her story, surely Mrs Fields realised that?
But Mrs Fields did not seem to understand this at all and Essie was rarely called on to read her stories to the class, and her work always came back with red lines and corrections.
Then there was Hallie Donald, and her friends. Hallie was always called out to read her stories to the class, and her friends were too. Essie thought their stories were pretty lame, but everyone always clapped when they finished and Mrs Fields always said "well done, Hallie, or Tara, or Dee."
Never "Well done, Essie."
Hallie and her friends were the real reason that Essie had decided she hated school. For the whole of this year, since she had been in the same class as Hallie and her friends, they had picked on her. They called her names, made fun of the colour of her hair and called her "carrot top", among other things.
Hallie was everything a ten year old going on eleven should be Essie thought sadly, and everything she was not. Just the right height, and although she had sort of brown hair, it was thick and straight, it fell perfectly to frame her face and her big blue eyes, and she was popular.
Hallie's dad was a very important person in Essie's village, head of the King's advisory council, and head of the School board. They had pots of money, and they endowed several buildings at the school and sponsored sporting events, and Hallie's mum was head of the Parent and Teachers association as well.
Hallie's mum was bossy and opinionated and most of the other PTA Members just agreed with her. She intimidated most of them, and the money Bryce and Miranda Donald spread around was something no one could ignore.
Hallie's father was a rather frightening person who came and made speeches at the school about how they should all behave, always with an impatient scowl on his face. He was a busy man, who didn't need to be nice to anyone, especially when he was giving orders... as he did every day. He was a solid man with a grey streaked beard, and a build some might have called "pleasantly plump" but there wasn't anything much pleasant about Bryce Donald.
The only soft spot either of them had seemed to be for Hallie, who could do no wrong in their eyes. Hallie had anything she wanted, she only had to ask.
Hallie was an important person indeed Essie admitted, important and thoroughly spoiled.
Essie was tall for her age, she was almost eleven now. Her red curly hair always looked as if it needed brushing, and admittedly, she had a freckle or two. Her dad always told her that her hair was like the sunset, all gold and fiery, but to Essie, the term "carrot top" applied to her more.
It's just that she hated it when others called her this, and they did.
As well as her problem hair, Essie had unusual eyes. She had one green eye and one brown eye. It didn't make any difference that the brown eye was a sort of golden brown, and the green eye a deep emerald green, what mattered was that they were different.
Hallie was the one who asked first.
"Why are your eyes so weird?" because as far as Hallie was concerned two different coloured eyes were definitely weird.
"They aren't weird, they're just different." Essie really did not have any other explanation.
"You've got crazy eyes, that's why," replied Hallie, and it didn't seem to matter that Essie kept saying they were just different.
Soon Hallie and her friends were calling her "crazy eyes" along with "carrot top". Essie had started to think that school was a trial.
Then Hallie and her friends started on her name.
"What sort of a name is Essie?" Hallie asked, her friends snickering in the background.
"It's my name?" replied Essie. She was confused, it was what she'd always been called. No one had ever called her anything but Essie.
Hallie's real name was Hillary, but no one ever called her anything but Hallie. They learned this very quickly, because Hallie made it very clear that using her full name meant trouble.
"Is your name just a letter, then? Your parents couldn't think of a name for something like you, so they just used a letter, right?"
"It's just the letter "S", what sort of a name is just a letter? Your name should be "Messie" because you are always a mess!
The girls all laughed as they walked away, leaving Essie feeling hurt and embarrassed, and angry. Hallie really knew how to hurt.