Rachel starts questioning her current predicament and decides to be more active in ensuring she does what she wants to do. The devil may care attitude is bound to have consequences.

Rachel was in the women’s loo at Warblington train station franticly unbraiding and getting the ribbons out of her hair before school this Monday morning. Hopefully she wouldn’t be late. Glenda would probably rat her out, but hopefully that would make her Mother realize how badly she didn’t want to go to school with a girly hair style. It’s not like her Mother could add any more punishment on her. With luck Mother won’t bother trying with this tomorrow.

She’d already been informed she would be forced into a dress after getting home from school every day and even worse have to wear dresses all of the day during the weekends and none school days for a month. Where previously she could after school change into jeans and tee after removing her uniform she would now be wearing a dress. At least the girls wore the same blue shirt with tie the boys did. In primary the girls’ uniform included a thin blouse and ribbon. It was depressing that her school uniform was now the least girly she could dress in. Especially upsetting as said least girlish outfit included tights and a knee length black skirt. Summer half term started on Friday and for the first time Rachel was not looking forward to the break from school and being able to not wear her school uniform.

She would have undone her hair on the train ride but Dad caught the same train and so was with them this morning. Since he started working at the M.O.D. in Whitehall, Dad spent the week living in the town house he rented in Chelsea, London. Unfortunately, this Monday was one of those rare Mondays that he caught the same train as them and thus the frantic trip to the train station’s loo once off the train and away from her Father. Quickly brushing her hair as best she could she then left to run for school. The hour or so of it being braided caused it to have more volume than she liked.

Rachel was late to her first class, but thankfully the teacher, Misses Paul, was later. “Did you miss the train Rach?” John asked. Uh, she hated the nick name he’d saddled her with. Of course it was quickly twisted by the petty girls to ‘Roach’ and worse too.

“Nope my Mother did some crazy Heidi braiding thing with my hair with flipping ribbons. It took ages to get the bloody thing out.”

“Oh, you should have kept it in Rach, I bet you’d have looked real pretty.” John annoyingly offered.

“Okay class, I was running late but you could have got started. You know we are working on King Lear.” Misses Paul arrived to stop Rachel from telling John to sod off. The teacher was obviously not happy at the noise the class made while everyone discussed their weekends rather than working on English lit.

It had been odd arriving at secondary and finding she had two classes of English right away. She’d thought it wasn’t until third year in her last life that English got doubled with ‘lang’ and ‘lit’ classes and two teachers.

“Let’s see, I gave you an assignment to read over the weekend. Mister Harris what did Goneril say when asked by King Lear how much she loved him?”

The class began and the initial interest Rachel gave was slowly sapped due to hearing her classmates stumble over one of the easier Shakespeare tragedies. She didn’t mean to be condescending, but really it’s not rocket science. It’s a pretty simple tale of spoilt king having a fatal flaw of pride and arrogance giving everything to his two serpent tongued sycophant daughters that stroked his ego while casting out his previously favorite good daughter that refused to play ball, but actually loved him.

“Are we boring you Miss Stillman?” Rachel was suddenly brought back to the class by the teacher’s question and stifled titters.

“I’m sorry Misses Paul?”

“What do you think?”

“The play is a lesson on how you can’t describe or buy love. If you give everything for flattery you will then find what the person really thinks of you when you have nothing left to give. Most likely you will find out things you don’t want to know. Someone who truly loves you is more likely to be honest and not pander to pumping up your pride and enabling your arrogance. Arrogance is King Lear’s fatal flaw, and blinds him to his third daughter’s true love. It’s a tragedy as the lesson is learnt at the cost of his own life after madness and grief, caused by being imprisoned and his good daughter being murdered. Well actually all his daughters die but no one really cares for the two evil daughters, it’s more to emphasize that he left nothing of himself, even the evil daughters are gone when he dies.” Rachel replied.

“Well, Miss Stillman seems to have completed the whole play verses the first half that was assigned for mid-terms. Though she provides a succinct and correct summary of the entire play to the class she couldn’t be bothered to pay attention to, it would be nicer if she had answered the question I asked. Miss Stillman, I had asked you about salt’s relevance as a comparison based on its use and availability at the time the play is written.”

Thankfully the end of class bell rang allowing Rachel’s escape from being caught daydreaming. “I am sure you can expect a question about the salt among other things on your midterm, which I believe is first thing Wednesday. So either read the play to be ready for the exam, or annoy Miss Stillman for the answers.” Was Misses Paul’s method of punishing Rachel even though the class was over.

“Watch it pancakes!” The words and the backs of two second form girls swiftly leaving were all Rachel got looking up from the hall floor she’d been tripped onto. She quickly grabbed her books that had spilled out and held in a sigh of frustration. Why did kids have to be so …childish! Straightening her skirt she carried onto Maths.

Rachel didn’t have any friends in this class. Well though she treated John as a friend it was obvious he was playing the long game of hoping to get a girlfriend as opposed to a friend that was a girl, but she didn’t really have the choice to be picky. She ignored the group of girls obviously nattering on about her fall earlier by thinking how empty their lives must be to find interest in her bullying. Was oblivion better than re-living secondary school?

It wasn’t this bad last time was it? She thought it was boys that got bullied and it wasn’t the physical that was the worst of it. So perhaps girls actually had it worse suffering both physical and emotional abuse. Even now there was the constant whispering, and sudden silences and jeers that as a girl she now suffered. With Maths over she headed onto history.

“It probably deliberately fell over to look up Maria’s skirt.” The muffled giggles wafted to her from the following four girls. “Well it is a lesbo.” “Pancakes probably jealous of her boobs.” The comments deliberately made loud enough for her to hear were followed by false shushing as they brushed past her into the class.

A sudden epiphany had Rachel realize that it wasn’t just because she was younger and due to a prior life, or whatever the weird memories were, smarter that caused jealousy to fuel the bullying, but last life or dream she was a boy acting as a boy. Now she was a girl avoiding the female stereotypes, and it caused the bullying to try to force her to conform. To act like the girl she now was. Society enabled bullies to vent on those that tried to not conform. What was the Japanese saying again? That was it, something like, ‘a nail that stood up must be pounded flat’. Well she was getting fed up of the pounding.

Mister Black had a tenuous control of his class and it showed as they were far behind the syllabus that needed covering in the first form. They hadn’t even started on the Romans which they should have already finished to allow beginning to teach about the Anglo Saxons and Vikings after half term. As her classmates turned to discuss the latest tv drama or new song and Mister Black droned on about typical village life during the Iron Age, Rachel read the text book. He had barely covered a third of the material. Heck he hadn’t even given the timeline overview how the Bronze age slipped into this new age around 800 BC and to hint how the Iron Age was considered over with the Roman invasion of 43 AD to help the students grasp the big picture. Mid-terms started tomorrow afternoon and if the exam in December was any indication to the one before summer half term. Then the questions would be on several topics not covered. December’s exam had been on the Stone and Bronze Ages, but he hadn’t started teaching about the Bronze Age until February.

“Any question on last weekend’s reading assignment and homework?” When no one replied Mister Black tried again. “Class I have asked multiple times every Monday, and no one has raised an issue with the reading. So I take it you’re all comfortable with everything assigned.” Though a few fools adamantly ignored the teacher, most had woken to the concern that something critical was about to or had been said.

“Leave your home on my desk as you leave, and as I don’t have you this week ‘till your History mid-term on Thursday before lunch this is our last lesson before the break. The questions in the exam will be from class, the homework and reading assignments that you had no questions on.” Mister Black just confirmed Rachel’s guess. As the fools started to leave as soon as he said ‘…as you leave’ it was questionable how many heard him or realized the exam would be heavily on material not taught. He’d used the same excuse in the fall term exam when the class complained about the questions. Well she wasn’t going to sit around and wait for the bell. It meant a bully free trip to her next class too, she slowly got packed up, and placed her homework on the pile after everyone else had left and thus ensured it wasn’t removed from the pile.

Rachel and the several students still with her from History class stood outside the Geography class waiting for the bell to ring and the current class to leave. She and another stood alone while the rest bunched in a girl and two smaller boy groups. Glancing at the other alone figure she stopped herself from trying to talk to him realizing it was a worthless idea. She’d actually tried to talk to him before. However, Mike definitely believed that he should use anything offered to spring board himself into the cool kids group. Unfortunately, for both that meant he rudely shot her down on her prior overtures of friendship. She wasn’t going to invite being called an ugly loser, or a baby toddler again. It took weeks for the other girls to drop using those names all the time.

She was thus surprised when Amanda L. addressed her. “So what is going to be on the exam that Black hasn’t taught us?”

“The exam’s scope is the history from about 2500BC to 700AD. The Roman Invasion, about three hundred years of initial Anglo Saxon civilization and everything else about the Iron Age are what hasn’t been taught. You don’t have to worry about the Vikings as that starts around 800 AD.”

“Would you be interested in coming to my house any evening to help me with studying?”

“I can’t. I just got grounded for a month.”

“But half term starts…

Michelle cut Amanda off. “What did you do?”

“Come on this is ‘Little Miss Genius’. You really think she has ever got grounded for a week, and we’re supposed to think she gets grounded for a month? You can tell she’s never got punished, as she states such obvious lies.” Sarah opined.

“I cycled beyond a known boundary I had previously agreed upon, and initially lied by obfuscation when questioned last weekend.” Rachel decided to nip the comments before they became more hostile. She had been about to make a friend maybe. Well it was more likely she was about to be used but it could have started a friendship.

“What the hell is obfuscation?” Sarah asked.

“It’s like muddying the water. I twisted the question in my reply so I could be truthful in what I said while not actually answering it. The idea is to tell the truth and still avoid getting in trouble. The other person thinks you said ‘A’. If they find out later it is actually ‘B’ and challenge you for lying you repeat what you actually said and show you actually never said ‘A’, they inferred that.

“Well with a month’s grounding, I think I’ll stick with plain old lying and a spanked backside.” Sarah’s comment caused a few laughs until the end of period bell rang. After the class emptied they were allowed in.

Rachel was extremely surprised when Sarah stopped Cathy and Maria from knocking her lunch tray from her. “It’s so pathetic when the only thing stupid thirteen year olds can do to a ten year old that is smarter than them is act like dumb beasts.”

“The girl that was held back a year calls us dumb…

“Yeah, just think how dumb you must be if even stupid me thinks you lack a brain between the both of you.” Sarah riposte and cut them off. Rachel was still trying to work out what happened as Sarah led her to her usual table. “Ally scoot down Rachel’s sitting here.”

Lunch and her two afternoon classes she shared with Sarah were surreal. She wanted to hope she had a friend but really Sarah Parker was likely the last person she ever thought could become her friend so she kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. Sarah was actually in seven of her eight classes so was actually a good candidate for a friend if she wasn’t being set up.

She did note that Sarah leaned heavily on her knowledge in the General Science class after lunch, which though not Rachel’s strength, having memories, or dreams of memories covering over twenty years working for a medical company that dealt heavily in microbiology and organic chemistry made only the physics parts be a weak spot for Rachel in the General Science class. Rachel had to be leery of the information as it not only was wrong at times but had got her a demerit with report sent to her parents when she once leaned on it exclusively.

That class over meant there was only the last class prior to exams and half term. Just when she thought the friendship from Sarah might be for using her prior to the mid-terms she found in their last lesson that Sarah was fluent in French and actually liked helping her with a prior tough subject. She decided to be careful. The last thing she wanted was to find herself relaxed in a believed friendship when the other shoe finally fell. Hopefully she would be invited to sit with Sarah for lunch tomorrow, and hopefully her paranoia was for once undeserved, and she was finally getting the chance at friendship?