Chapter 3

The two walk back to the classroom. Jane is calm now but still looks sad. The class gets quiet when she walks to her seat in the middle of the two halves of the class. They started talking again, each person's words being drowned out by someone else's. Jane counted the students. 10 boys near the window, 9 girls near the door. 20 students in total, counting herself.

She looked at the boys. At each of their differences. What they were wearing, what color their eyes were, how they style their hair, and how they acted around their friends. The girls had similar hairstyles, clearly trying to copy Veronica. The boy's had wore their hair differently. Some had messy hair and others were combed back neatly.

The bell rings and Ms Jessie stands up. "Time for lunch." She says. She doesn't look happy but she tries to smile. The kids all go to the lunchroom. Jane is the only one left in the classroom. The teacher looks at her. "What's wrong?" The girl picks up the chalkboard and chalk from the floor. Someone must have stepped on the chalk because it was broken in half. She erases it and writes something.

When she shows the teacher, the woman looks shocked. It read 'Why does everyone hate me?" She looks at the girl, sitting there. She just stares back. "N-not everyone hates you. I certainly don't and you'll meet people who won't hate you either." She walks up to Jane and hugs her close. "I promise." Jane nods and hugs back. "Now, you go to lunch. You can come back for recess if you want and you can teach more sign language." She smiles warmly at Jane. She returns the smile and walks out of the class.

She won't need to chalkboard because no one sits with her at lunch. She goes to the lunch room and sits down. She never ate at lunch and didn't see the need to. She took out a book to read. After all, she had nothing better to do.After lunch, she went outside. She only wanted to get some air. Then,

Veronica and the two girls from the day before walk up to her.

"Hey Jane. I'm sorry for what I said earlier, I didn't mean it." She hugs Jane tightly. Jane's eyes widen as she hugs back slowly. She never thought Veronica would hug her. She nods to say it's alright.

"We were going to pick some flowers for Ms Jessie. Do you want to come?" She nods happily. "Alright, come on then girls." Veronica walks to the side of the school to the forest, the other 3 girls following behind her, looking for flowers.

...or so Jane thought....