Charlie stood up as the bell rang. She put her notebook and textbook back in her backpack before she started to leave the room, pretending not to notice Mr. Samuel's glare as she passed by him.
He wasn't happy with her that she'd gotten a perfect on his surprise test that day. Charlie considered it a pop quiz, but Mr. Samuels always referred to it as a surprise test. He'd given them the test at the start of the class, then went over with all of them to grade it. Charlie doubted it would have affected her grade anyway, but she knew Mr. Samuels did not like when anyone got a perfect score.
As Charlie entered her next class, she was surprised to find that Alex Williams was to be her partner again for another project, as his best friend sprained his ankle climbing the stairs just before school started.
Charlie picked a workstation and started getting what she'd need for the project out so they'd be ready when she'd need them while others steadily flowed in the room from their previous classes. Charlie was almost done when Alex Williams approached the workstation she was working at. Before Charlie could say anything, Alex spoke.
"I know, the irony, huh? Jeff sprains his ankle just walking up some stairs when he has ample opportunity each time we're at the practice field," he said, acting like he's oblivious about the attention most of the other girls in the class was giving him and Charlie.
"Right," Charlie replies, not sure what else to say.
"Don't worry about them," Alex told Charlie as he started working with her to get started on the project for the day.
Charlie didn't say anything. She knew who he was talking about and she didn't plan on giving them much mind, if this was all that she had to deal with.
They worked quietly for a few minutes, when Charlie suddenly remembered that Alex had told her yesterday that he owed her a favor. Picking his brain in what qualifies as a friend would certainly be helpful. Especially since she didn't really have any other sources that she knew would be impartial.
"By the way," Charlie said while mixing the batter, "you said that you owed me a favor yesterday, right?"
"Yeah," he replied, getting the pan ready for when Charlie was done mixing it.
"Well, I was wondering how to tell if someone is a friend or not," Charlie asked, her voice quieter than she intended.
"I guess you don't have many friends, right?" Alex asked, which Charlie knew he was well aware of.
"No, I don't," Charlie replied, more to keep the conversation going than to provide any actual information.
"It's not something that can easily be explained. I guess it would be that if you consider someone to be willing to do things to help you, even if you don't really consider it helping," Alex answered.
"Why would I not consider their help as 'helping?'" Charlie asked, not sure if this was going to go the way she had hoped.
"That's part of where it gets complicated. No one likes being told on, but sometimes that's the only way to help them and naturally they wouldn't like it when that happens. But the thing is, if you told on them to get them in trouble to stop them from going down a bad road or to get them to stop what you feel was hurting them is where it means to be a friend or not," Alex answered casually.
Charlie looked at Alex, a little confused at his logic. "That's more than a little complicated," Charlie said.
"Well, my dad is a bit of a philosopher, so maybe some of that has rubbed off on me," Alex replied. "but yeah, being a friend is more complicated than most people think. Most think of a friend being someone you hang out with and have a good time, but a real friend is there with you when things aren't so good. They are there to stop you from doing something that you know is wrong, such as by turning them into the police if necessary."
Charlie shook her head. "Maybe that's just something that I'm not going to understand," she stated. "It's just too complicated for me."
Alex chuckled. "Actually, it's less about understanding and more about trusting others as well as yourself."
"Yeah, you're definitely a bit of a philosopher yourself," Charlie answered, deciding it was a mistake to ask Alex. It was just more than her mind was able to wrap itself around.
"Well, several shows for kids focus around the topic of friendship. A couple notable ones are My Little Pony and Care Bears. Maybe if you watch those you might be able to know what I was getting at," Alex said.
Charlie was done with this topic. At least he gave her something she could reference and maybe understand better than what he'd said to her. "I guess," was all she could think of to say in response.
The rest of the class went by with them working without saying anything more than necessary for the project. Charlie felt relief when the bell rang signaling the end of the class. She wanted to run out of the room, but instead forced herself to be calm as she left. She may not have really understood what Alex was saying about friendship, but she didn't feel like it was a reason to react like that, especially how it could affect his feelings. Aside from the fact that she knew it likely would haunt her later, but regardless of who it was, she didn't like to hurt others. She always felt bad when someone got hurt, even when she was a small child.
_
Charlie wanted to go to lunch during her lunch hour, but she also didn't want another confrontation with the cheerleaders, even if it was a minor interrogation. She paused before entering the cafeteria, trying to determine if she really needed to get her lunch.
In the end, she made a turn towards the restroom and sat in a stall, determined to wait out the lunch hour there. She didn't like not getting lunch, but preferred going hungry than being the center of attention, even if it was just with the occupants at her table. She wasn't sure what to do about her problem, nor was she sure that there was anything that she could do about it.
She might have pulled out her homework and started to work on some of it there, but she didn't think that she could get very comfortable doing her homework while sitting on a toilet. Even if she wasn't going, it just didn't feel like it'd be very comfortable.
In the end, she merely dozed. She really only knew that's what she did when the bell signaling the end of her lunch period was over and startled her awake. She quickly got her things in hand, left the stall and washed her hands, just in case anyone came out of a stall or otherwise knew that she was in there. Not that she considered any of that a very high chance of occurring.
On her way out of the restroom, she almost ran right into Allison. Allison was surprised as much as Charlie, but was quicker to recover.
"Where were you?" she asked, in a softer tone than Charlie had expected.
"I was in here," Charlie replied, her gaze traveling towards the ground.
"Why? Isn't our agreement still in effect?"
"I wasn't sure how welcome I'd be," Charlie murmured, not able to bring her voice to a higher volume.
Allison sighed. "Look, I'm sorry if I made you feel unwelcome the past few times, but there were a few things I needed to know about you that could impact us, since you sit at the same table as us," she informed Charlie.
"In what way?" Charlie asked.
Allison appeared to be embarrassed by the question, which surprised Charlie. She was also starting to wonder if Allison was going to answer, when she spoke. "I can't go into details, there's just points that we needed to clear up. It wasn't personal."
As soon as she finished speaking, she pushed past Charlie, clearly needing to go. Charlie didn't think much of it, she just continued on to her next class.
_
Charlie was about to leave her locker to head home when the principal, Mrs. Garfield, approached her.
"Miss Rivers, I told you yesterday that I wanted to speak with you and you didn't show up."
Confusion turned to embarrassment. "Sorry, I forgot," she replied, unsure what else to say.
"Well, come with me to my office and we'll talk about what I wanted to speak with you about."
Charlie desperately wanted to come up with an excuse of why she couldn't, but nothing came to mind. The office was a place Charlie typically sought ways to avoid when possible. Even when it wasn't for a negative reason, she tried to avoid going to there. She never felt that anything good happened to her in and around the office. It was a place where things just never seemed to go her way, regardless of what she hoped for at that time.
She noticed Beth looking at her as she continued to walk with the Principal. She couldn't interpret what Beth thought about it from the expression on her face. As far as Charlie knew, Beth might already know all about it, given how good at knowing what's going on in the school she is.
Charlie started toying with the idea of trying to escape Mrs. Garfield by hiding around a corner or just inside a room that had an open door, but she decided against it. There were too many possible ways the plan could go wrong. Aside from how it probably would look to anyone who saw, given how many people were still milling through the halls.
Finally, when they reached the office, Charlie moved to sit in one of the chairs but was stopped by Mrs. Garfield. "Follow me into my office."
Charlie did as she was told and sat in the chair in front of Mrs. Garfield's desk, setting her backpack on the floor next to her, while Mrs. Garfield made her way to sit at her desk. As she got settled, Charlie waited patiently. While she'd like to get out of here as fast as possible, she still didn't think it would be good to say anything before Mrs. Garfield did. Especially when she still didn't know what this was about.
Once she was settled, she looked Charlie in the eye. "First, are you having problems in any of your classes?" she asked, her gaze feeling like it could see Charlie's very thoughts.
Charlie shook her head. "They're fine," she replied, not sure what else to say.
"Well, there have been several new rumors going around about you. I wanted to be sure that they weren't affecting you. That being said, is there any truth to any of the rumors?"
Charlie took a moment to collect her thoughts, given she couldn't be sure which rumors Mrs. Garfield was talking about. "I can't really say if you don't tell me which rumors you're talking about. I mean, sometimes I've heard a rumor that had at least three different versions of it."
Mrs. Garfield waited a minute before continuing her questions, which told Charlie that she was waiting for Charlie to have spilled something. What she had been looking for, Charlie wasn't sure, but didn't think that it would be beneficial to know exactly what it was.
"What is your connection with Heathcliff Roberts?" the next question came at Charlie.
"Heathcliff?" Charlie asked. Wasn't he the one who had her family for dinner to discuss business with her father? "My dad was bidding for a contract with his business and Heathcliff's," Charlie said, assuming the Heathcliff Mrs. Garfield was referring to was the same that she knew.
"Well, he called yesterday and asked about your grades," Mrs. Garfield said.
Charlie was surprised. Why the interest in her? Was this part of his background check on her father's business? A little extensive if so, but another thought occurred to Charlie that made her wonder if there was something else going on that she couldn't explain to others. Especially since she couldn't figure out what business this person had that would make him ask about a high school student's grades.
What if it has to do with the Heart of the Forest? Charlie asked herself, wondering what she could respond with.
Mrs. Garfield, however, didn't seem to think Charlie needed to say anything as after a minute of silence, she continued. "He seems to be looking into a variety of high school students to be counselors in his 'math camp' that he plans on holding this summer."
"Did you tell him what my grades were?" Charlie couldn't help but ask.
"Of course not, Charlie," Mrs. Garfield seemed offended that Charlie would suggest that she might do something like that. "He has no reason that I could give him your grades. For me to give him your grades legally, I would need to have your permission or a legal document telling me that I have to give them to him called a subpoena." Charlie didn't bother letting Mrs. Garfield know that she knew what a subpoena was. She'd heard that word often enough when her parents talked with each other. Although, she wasn't sure that Heathcliff would actually need a subpoena, just a better reason than the one he'd given.
"Anyway, he said that he would be interested in having you as one of his junior counselors at his math camp, if you're interested," Mrs. Garfield continued. "If you'd like to do that, I can help get that underway for you and I would highly recommend you do that, so you could at least have something extracurricular on your record for when you apply to colleges."
Charlie nearly groaned in annoyance. Charlie was sure she'd be able to get in a college when it was time, as she really didn't care to try for one of the 'prestigious' ones. As far as Charlie was concerned, the ones with a big name weren't really all that they seemed cracked up to be. She would be fine if it was merely a local one, if she actually decided to go. She wasn't sure that she would want to either. However, on the other hand, this might be something that would help get her on her parent's good side, given she hadn't been able to ask about the internship that her parents had wanted her to.
"Would you print up the documents so I could show my parents? I just want to be sure they didn't have any other plans for me this summer during the time of that 'math camp.' They might also like to be aware of it too," Charlie answered, hoping that Mrs. Garfield wouldn't press for more details.
"Alright," Mrs. Garfield replied. "Your parents would probably be the better ones to work with you on this and I'm sure they'd like to know about it as well." Mrs. Garfield picked up some papers from her desk and held them out to Charlie, which she took quickly. She briefly glanced at them, to see what exactly they were, which was more of an application form. "Good luck, miss Rivers."
"Thanks, Mrs. Garfield," she said, putting the papers in her backpack. She wanted to ask why she wanted to be the one to tell Charlie about this as well as if this was the usual way of going about it, which she was pretty sure it wasn't, but she didn't want to stay in the office any longer than she absolutely had to. Any further questions would merely prolong her stay, and she wanted to get going.
She moved so quickly out of the office, she almost ran. As Charlie stepped out of the office, she was partly surprised to see Beth waiting for her.
"I had a feeling you might like a friendly ear when you were done in there," Beth told her before she could say anything.
"I guess," Charlie replied, not sure what else to say.
"So, what was that about?" Beth asked as they started to head for the front exit of the school building.
"Apparently it had to do with Heathcliff wanting me to be a junior counselor at his 'math camp' that will be sometime this summer," Charlie answered. "And yes, he was THAT Heathcliff."
"What do you think it's about?" Beth asked.
"I'm not sure, but it could be something regarding the Heart of the Forest," Charlie replied.
"Are you thinking of accepting?" Beth asked, as they walked to Charlie's usual route to her home.
"I'm not sure. Yeah, I'd be closer to the Heart of the Forest, but at the same time, he might not let me close to it again. He also likely knows that I know of it, so I'm not really sure," Charlie replied, already deciding that she probably would accept it if they couldn't think of a different way.
"Well, we'll see what we can do about it, but we might have to have you accept, even if it turns out to be a trap," Beth commented.
Charlie let Beth talk to her the rest of the walk. She paid attention enough so she could seem like she was giving her full attention, but instead let her mind mull over the ways she might be able to get to the Heart of the Forest.
As they reached the entrance to Petals' forest, only Tim and Wes were already waiting with Petals, but Amelia and Hannah were merely a second behind Beth and Charlie.
"Ralph should be here soon," Tim said. "He told me that he never got to explain how he was able to get into Petals' forest."
"What's his excuse for being late this time?" Beth asked, a grin on her face.
"Let's just say that his latest prank backfired on him big time. He was told that he had to clean up the mess before he could leave for the day," Tim replied.
"What was the prank?" Amelia asked.
Tim looked at Amelia levelly. "Do you really want to know? I mean, this is Ralph after all."
Amelia chuckled as she shook her head. "Yeah, probably best not to know. He'd likely somehow know and be insufferable for a while just because one of us wanted to know what it was."
"He does have a sizeable ego," Hannah commented.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Ralph said, stepping past the bushes. "Laugh it up. I'll just be more creative with the next prank I decide to play on you."
"You're really not all that creative, Ralph," Wes said. "You've been repeating yourself for a while."
"Let's get onto the main topic," Beth interrupted.
"Fine by me," Wes said.
"So, what was it that allowed you to get into Petals' forest," Beth asked Ralph before he could say anything in response.