Back at School

Monday morning came once again, and it was time for the students to make the daily trek to school. But there was something different about this morning. There was no Allison Beecher stepping from a limousine, there was no Allison Beecher stopping in her path to criticize another girl's outfit, or to say something sarcastic. Instead, Allison Beecher was walking with the general population of students.

Many people had stopped in their own paths to marvel at this, eyes widening and jaws dropping open to see her 'mingling with the common people' of the town. The only person who didn't seem too disturbed by this was of course Katherine Keller. She grinned almost maliciously when Allison reached the school on foot.

She actually learned the lesson… quicker than I expected, I suppose. But she's still not totally cured, seeing as she's wearing Armani heels to walk three miles? I guess she can learn a lesson, but not common sense.

"Keller. Over here." Common sense or manners. Katherine made her way rapidly to where Allison was now seated with Andrew. She smiled innocently when she arrived directly in front of them. Andrew raised an eyebrow, but nobody spoke right away, and when they did, nothing was quite explained.

"Yeah, Beecher? What do you want?" Katherine quirked her own eyebrow, as though she didn't have any idea what was going on. But inside herself, she was almost exploding with emotion.

"I don't have much to say to you, Keller, but let me make one thing clear to you." She paused, and Katherine's face and heart both fell. Maybe she hadn't taken the lesson seriously, after all. Maybe she was still going to be the same hell raiser she had always been.

"Yeah?"

"Well, I think you realize that you did teach me something. I never knew that life could be like that. I wanted to say… thank you. I also wanted to thank you for-" She stopped abruptly, looking at Andrew, but then shrugged and decided to continue, motioning to him at the same time that she would explain to him later. "I wanted to thank you for letting me be with my mother again. You were right, though. Nothing is the same in those projects.

"And finally, I just would like to tell you that I'm sorry. I'm sorry for all the pain that I've caused you, and for everything that you had to go through when you were growing up. I can't see how you managed to handle that all so well, but I admire you for that." Something in Allison's eyes told Katherine that she was being earnest and meant every word coming out of her mouth. "I'm never going to be the way I was before. It almost gave my father a heart attack to see me walking to school, but I felt it was worth it." She laughed slightly, almost awkwardly.

"Well… thank you. Allison," Katherine said sincerely.

Without another word being spoken, or any type of crowd gathering nearby, Katherine turned around and made her way towards homeroom, smiling to some extent.  It had actually worked. It was actually even more than what she had hoped for, and the power of the book had come into play to make her understand that it truly could work. I hope that you're true to your word, Allison. Let's see how long you can keep by that.

The bell to signal homeroom was about to begin rang, and Katherine sat down in her seat. For once, it was the morning, and she was no longer troubled by a foolish girl's foolish ways.