Chapter 5- The Gardening Club

Lauren wrapped her arms around Alice and pulled her into a hug. 

"It's going to fine, nobody will judge you..." She whispered, feebly trying to comfort Alice. "Look, we're only about five paces away from the building. You can't turn back now..." 

Lauren's hand closed around Alice's wrist once more, and she started dragging her into the school. Alice realized that Lauren was being realistic and quelled her emotions. 

She followed Lauren into the school holding her breath. Once she was inside, she saw students with new, unfamiliar faces rushing off to classrooms. She saw teachers armed with mugs of coffee and bags of school books heading in all directions. Everybody looked like they belonged somewhere, everybody looked important, everybody looked accepted... 

Lauren dragged her down a maze of unfamiliar corridors. They passed hallways, classrooms, staircases... In only mere minutes, Alice had no idea where she was. She clung to Lauren like a frightened kitten and prayed that she knew where she was going. 

They stopped, eventually, outside of a brightly painted classroom. 

"This our form room, A8," Lauren declared, throwing open the door, "I'll see you later." 

"Wait, you aren't coming in with me?" Alice asked, panicked. Lauren shook her head. 

"I need to return some science work to Mrs Walters, but I'll be back as soon as possible," said Lauren apologetically, "Sorry." 

She started rushing down the corridor and disappeared around the corner. Alice took in a deep breath and stepped into the form room, keeping her head held high. As soon as she stepped into the classroom, she was almost blinded by the vast variety of colours that were displayed on all of the display boards. 

"That's... bright..." She stammered, shielding her eyes. Her ears picked up a weak chuckle coming from the corner. 

"What did I say, Gwen? I told you it was blinding," a voice spoke. It was high-pitched and squealy, "Shouldn't we make it look a little more sensible?"

"It's more interesting to have bright colours," A more mature, quiet voice replied, "At least our form room stands out more." 

"Yeah, but for not the right reasons," The squeaky voice retaliated, "Our form room stands out as the one everybody loses their vision in." 

Alice took another step into the room and closed the door politely behind her. When she glanced back around the room, her eyes had adjusted to the dazzling lights and she found that she could see. 

Her eyes scanned the room and she could see about fifteen or so teenagers sprawled over the tables and chairs, chatting. A few of them were eyeing her with interest while she noticed others pretended to ignore her. 

Then a small giggle attracted her attention and she eyes lingered over two girls, who were perched on the windowsill. One of them gave her an amicable wave and beckoned Alice over. Alice didn't know what to do, so she haltingly walked over to both of them, aware that people's eyes were still upon her. 

"Hey there, are you new?" One of the girl's asked. Alice nodded. 

"So do you have a name? Or did your parents forget to give you one?" said the other girl, cracking her face into a cheeky smile. 

"Alice Smith," Alice responded, turning her eyes shyly up to look at both of them. 

"I'm Gwen," Gwen smiled, holding out her hand for Alice to shake it, "And this here is Juliet." 

"Hey!" Juliet greeted enthusiastically, "By the way, you sound American." 

"That's because I am," replied Alice, shaking Gwen's hand, "I just moved here recently." 

"You'll love London," Juliet exclaimed, letting out a high pitched squeal, "And that's so cool! I've never met anybody American before in my life!" 

Alice didn't know what else to say. She gave Juliet a half-grateful, half-embarrassed grin.

"J, calm down," Gwen said in a quieter voice, "She's literally just arrived and she's probably feeling really overwhelmed." 

Juliet looked at Alice for a hard second. She unexpectedly sat down and tried to look as calm and sophisticated as possible. Gwen rolled her eyes and patted the vacant space next to her.

"Hey, do you want to hop up here?" She asked kindly, holding out her hand to help Alice up. Alice nodded and clutched Gwen's arm, kicking her legs up onto the window sill. She pulled herself up in a fluid movement and sat happily beside Gwen. 

The three of them started a conversation about what West Bridge was like. Juliet and Gwen told Alice all about the lessons and all about the special events that went on at the school. Alice listened, spellbound how different it sounded compared to America. Then when they all had discussed every topic that they had felt like talking about, Alice looked around the room and saw how a lot more students were now in the room. She presumed that they all had come in while she was talking to Gwen and Juliet. 

Gwen pulled out a badge from her pocket and she pinned it to the front of the apple green blazer. Her nimble fingers stroked the shiny surface, brushing aside any bits of dust that clung to it. 

"Are you seriously going to wear that now?" Juliet asked her, looking disgruntled. Gwen nodded.

"Now that term has begun and we've got our first session once again at lunch, I am," She responded determinedly. "After all, we're part of the club." 

"I wish I could drop out," Juliet groaned, resting her head dejectedly against Gwen's shoulder. She reluctantly stuck a hand into her blazer and withdraw the same badge. She threw it a dirty look and roughly pinned it lopsidedly to her shirt. 

"You know we both can't," Gwen sternly told her, "I sometimes wish I could, but yet again I'm glad I can't. It's fun to be apart of sometimes." 

"What's that?" Alice asked Gwen, pointing towards her badge. Gwen let out a humourless chuckle. 

"Oh, it's just a badge. Juliet and I are part of the school's gardening club," She explained, unpinning the badge. She handed it to Alice for her to look at it, "I've been a member since Year 7 and we're required to wear these badges." 

Alice looked at it with supreme interest. She ran the badge over with both of her fingers, feeling the smooth and glossy metal surface beneath her fingertips. It was shaped like a rose with the words: The Gardening Club in a fancy font. She handed it back to Gwen, who pinned it back to her uniform once again. 

"So what do you do in the Gardening Club?" Alice asked curiously. Juliet opened her mouth to respond but Gwen cut across her.

"We do what you would expect us to do," She said smoothly, "We pull out weeds and plant gorgeous flowers." 

"I liked gardening back in America," replied Alice quietly, "It was always a nice hobby I did in my spare time..." Her voice trailed off and she looked dreamily up at the ceiling. 

She remembered the large acre of garden that her family used to own. Every day after school, she would head outside and water the garden, digging out weeds and planting new bulbs. There was always such an awful lot to do and she never got tired of it. It was hard work that Alice enjoyed doing immensely. 

"I don't think you would enjoy gardening here," Juliet told her, bringing her back to Earth with a bump, "It's very tedious- OW!"

Gwen hastily pinched Juliet hard on the arm. She turned to face Alice, showing her a pained smile. 

"I think you would love to a part of the gardening club here," Gwen gabbled, "I mean, we're always really busy doing-" 

"Dull work," Juliet interrupted, grumpily. 

"-Lovely work," Gwen continued onwards, acting as if Juliet had never said anything, "You should go check it out sometime!"

"No, you shouldn't- OW!" Juliet yelled just as Gwen crushed her fingers with her elbow. Alice stared at both of them, open-mouthed. 

"You should! We would have so much fun doing it together!" Gwen finished, giving Alice a forced, sickly smile. Juliet opened her mouth to interrupt once more but Gwen gave her such a murderous stare, she closed it again.

"That would be great, thank you," Alice smiled gratefully at Gwen. 

The three of them were interrupted by an ear-splitting bell ringing to signal the start of tutor time. Juliet and Gwen automatically slid off the window and into a vacant seat. Alice noticed the rest of the class were following suit, sliding into the first chair that they could see. She decided to copy them all and slip into a chair that was in the very front row. 

To her tremendous relief, Lauren appeared in the door frame and took the chair next to her. 

"Gosh, Mrs Walters kept me ages," She huffed indignantly, "She almost made me late to registration!" 

"Thank gosh that she didn't," Alice responded cheerfully, "I'm glad that you're back. I was wondering where you got to." 

"So did you chat with any new people?" Asked Lauren keenly. Alice nodded. 

"I chatted with two girls called Gwen and Juliet," She grinned, "They seem really nice." 

"Oh yeah, they're really nice," Lauren replied, bringing out a small badge from her pocket. Alice recognised it immediately as the 'Gardening Club' badge. "We're all part of the School Gardening Club." 

Alice was going to respond but suddenly she was interrupted by a teacher standing in the door frame. Her arms were folded and her mouth was set in a scowl. When everybody fell silent, she closed the door firmly behind her and she glided over to her desk. 

The teacher had dirty blonde curly hair that almost seemed to cling to her head like a bird's nest. She wore a dress that fell to her knees, with a dull grey embroidered pattern slashed across the side of it. She wore ebony black heeled shoes that drummed against the floor whenever she walked. 

"Welcome back to another year at West Bridge school for Girls," The teacher said rather stiffly in a posh British accent. "This year is your GCSE's so we all expect you to work hard." 

Lauren let out a grimace under her breath that nobody but Alice could hear. 

"Before I take the register, first may I introduce a new addition to Year 11," The teacher was saying, giving Alice a thin-lipped smile. "Alice Smith!" 

Alice remembered glowing bright red as everybody started applauding. She looked down at her feet and avoided everybody's gaze. Just when she thought things couldn't get any more embarrassing, she heard the form room door fly open. 

Alice looked upwards and her eyes widened with shook. 

Somebody who she did not expect to see was standing there, with both of her arms folded. 

Emilia Campbell.