Alicia’s dreams

Alicia stepped out of the reception and hurried along the corridor behind Mrs Guild as she walked quickly and swiftly through the cold stone halls of the school.Her thin legs carried her extra fast, while Alicia’s little legs wobbled like jelly as she stumbled after her new head mistress.
“Penny, take Alicia to her dorm, number 13, I’d say.” A short girl with long brown plaits swung out from one of the classrooms and hurried to Mrs Guild.
“Yes Mrs Guild, yes.” She grabbed Alicia in an incredibly strong grip and tugged her down the hallway. Alicia cast a desperate glance behind her but Mrs Guild was already gone.She was lead through a set of double doors and up a great staircase to a door labelled ‘ Room 11’ .
“You can find your way to your dorm, room 13 on the right hand side.Evalyn and Emily will be there waiting for you.” With that she turned and whisked off down the stairs, her shawl fluttering behind her like an autumn leaf.
“I can do this.” Alicia grabbed her rucksack from the floor and hurried along the corridor before stopping at the door labelled
‘ Room 13’ she pushed it open with a shoulder and gazed around the room that she saw.
The room was large with 4 beds in each corner and a window in the roof and on the far wall.A short plump girl sat on one of the beds, staring at the pages of a book with extreme interest. Another girl sat on the bed by the window, staring at the floor and fiddling with her knotty blond hair.
Alicia said hello to both the girls at once but the one under the window only grunted and the other one ignored her completely. Alicia tried not to feel hurt by this, so she hugged her bag tightly and slid towards the bed with plain white sheets.

Alicia had only just finished placing her clothes into the wardrobe and her stationary into the desk draws when a bell rang from the hallway.
“Tea, that’ll be.” The girl called Evalyn said as she placed down her book and stood up, holding her stomach with both hands.
Alicia leapt up and followed the other girl, Emily, out of the dorm. In the corridor there were two neat lines of children progressing swiftly towards the dining hall in utter silence. Alicia swung in with them and tried to match their pace as they marched down the marble stairs to the ground floor.

Alicia found herself on a table full of laughing girls with fancy hair and stupid accessories, who looked at least 3 years younger than she was. The food was served on big china plates with patterns of animals like owls on them.Todays meal was a sloppy looking chunk of beef along with very crispy roast potatoes and green beans.A girl with hair that bobbed on her shoulders slid down in the seat next to Alicia and began to wolf down the food.
“Hello.” Alicia said.
“Hellooo?” Alicia said after a minute or so of silence.
“Are you ignoring me on purpose or can you just not hear me? Why are you not replying to me, I’m talking to you- hello? Ugggh!” Alicia groaned as the girl still didn’t reply.
“Hurry up and eat. The plates will be cleaned up any second now.” The girl hissed as she shoved a potato into her sloppy mouth.
“What? That can’t be right, no that’s not true!” She replied, slowly lifting a bean to her mouth. Alicia began to nibble at her bean, but apon seeing the other girls beginning to eat faster and faster, she did the same and shoved hulks of meat and hard potato into her mouth.

Alicia hurried along the hallway with a girl called Nancy who was very kind and sweet.She was the same age as Alicia and she was probably going to be Alicia’s best friend, in the future, anyway.They rushed through many doors until finally they reached a door that Nancy stopped at and nodded to.
“That’s where sewing class is.” She said and rushed inside.
Alicia followed quickly and was instantly pushed onto a bench, handed a needle and a pile of thread. The teacher at the front of the class called out something and everybody instantly began to thread the thread through the hole at the end of the needle. Alicia’s thread just wouldn’t go in, so she was still struggling when incredibly thin, hard fabric was passed around and landed on her lap.
“Girls, I expect 24 perfect bags at the end of this lesson. Silence please, GO!” The teacher swung up onto her feet and everybody began to hurriedly thread the needle through the hard material that was ‘ apparently ‘ fabric.Alicia, who’s needle still wouldn’t let the thread go through it, was trying to press the thread through the hole the needle had made, but it didn’t seem to be working.Thinking as fast as her average brain could think, she put her hand up and asked or go to the toilet.She snuck her felt with her as she sprinted through the corridors to her dorm. Nancy was waiting outside the door, one of her previously made bags in her hand.
“Take it and go, go, go!” Nancy yelled, grabbing the fabric from Alicia and shoving her the bag.She took it in her hands and ran back to the class as fast as she could.

Later, when Alicia was lying in her bed, her head only just on the pillow, she thought about the events that day.When she had first arrived at rowanhead boarding school for girls nobody had been kind to her.Now she had a friend that would sneak out of class to get an old craft they had made and give it to her as a stand in. ‘The day could have been better,’ She thought.
‘And it could have been worse...’