“There’s someone new!” a girl, Jenna, replies excitedly.  “He came here from the Wild!” 

A lump forms in Kelly’s throat and she doesn’t come closer.  “When?”

“Caravan came in about two days ago,” a boy’s voice says from behind another pair of girls.  He pushes past them, flashing a grin as their eyes meet.  Kelly’sr gaze immediately darts to his eyes.  They’re clear like ice.  That relaxes her and her fist loosens, but she still stays in place, taking in his details.  Red hair buzzed close to his head, a spattering of freckles on sun-tanned skin, and a toothy smile that immediately made Kelly think of a few choice guys in her grade that she couldn’t stand.

“Oh yeah? Where from?” she asks.

“From Quebec City,” the boy replies.  His tone is rather casual.  “Week and a half journey.”  He steps forward and offers his hand.  “Name’s Dalton.”

Kelly stares at the space between them a moment before slapping her hand into his and giving it one firm shake.  “Kelly. Did you travel with a military escort?”

Dalton snorts.  “You think they’d let me in the city if I didn’t?”  He flexes his fingers.  “Our people got word that Halifax could use a little more manpower moving some goods along the trade routes, sent a few of us greenhorns along so we could get some experience.”

One of the girls shoves past Dalton to stand between him and Kelly, looking between them with a bright smile.  Despite Kelly’s apprehension for this newcomer, seeing that familiar smile brings one to her own face.  “Kelly is going to do that!” Cassandra quips.  “Escort caravans and such.”

“Not be a patrolman like her old man?” someone behind them remarks.  Kelly’s eyes drift to a boy off to the side, Tim, who is sneering directly at her.  “Wander around the city like some tough girl?”

“Big words for an inner city boy,” Kelly retorts.  “Do you even know what the fence looks like?”

Tim’s cocky expression falls immediately and he looks away, mumbling something under his breath as he pushes open the front doors and disappears inside.  Jenna and the other girl, no longer interested in this conversation, follow him.

Dalton seems to pay this exchange no mind, giving Kelly a once-over.  “You’re gonna be a military escort?”  Kelly nods and Dalton does the same.  “You look the part. Strong muscle definition, even if you’re a little small.”  He taps the side of his head with his pointer finger.  “I like what you did with your hair.”

Kelly reaches up to run her fingers along the buzzed side of her hair and one side of her lips tweaks up into a grin.  Her hand slips back to brush the band of her ponytail, as if needing confirmation it’s still bound tightly and standing high.  “Thanks.”  As her hand falls, she crosses her arms over her chest, shifting her weight onto one leg.  “So, Dalton, you going to sit here and make us late for class, or do you have somewhere you need to be?”

He chuckles at that.  “Alright, you got me.  I’ve been hauling grain up here to store.  They’re probably bitching about the fact that I didn’t follow them all back.”  He begins sauntering his way down the path Kelly came from, pausing to glance over his shoulder.  “Good luck on your tests, kids.”

As he wanders off, Cassandra takes a step towards Kelly and drapes an arm over her shoulders.  “That’s gonna be you in like a month.”

“You didn’t have to stick up for me, Cass, ” Kelly retorts, glancing at her friend.  “I’m not looking to impress some rando from Quebec City.”

Cass laughs and shrugs one shoulder.  “Can’t I be proud of my friend once in a while?”

Kelly can’t help it and chuckles with her, her laughter a little infectious.  She glances at the empty space in front of the doors.  “We better go in,” she says, pulling away from Cass.  “Exams and all that.”

“Right, right.” Cass follows behind her.  “Good luck, by the way.”

“You too,” Kelly replies, smiling at her and holding her hand up.

Cass gives her a high-five, then they go their separate ways.  Kelly pauses a few steps down the hall, looking back to the entrance like she expects Dalton to be there still, but it’s empty.

Everyone else is already in their seats when Kelly steps into her math class, a couple glancing up at her briefly as she walks to her desk and slumps into it.  The exam hasn’t begun, but she is the last one to enter, earning her a pointed look from the teacher before he clears his throat.  The soft chatter dies down.  “I’m going to hand each of you a test packet,” the teacher, Mr. Ramsey, says as he stands, gathering up the shabby stack at the corner of his desk.  It’s clear these papers have seen years of use.  “Please do not write on it, note your answers on a separate sheet of paper, which you will turn in when you return this test to me.  You do not need to show your work on your answer paper, but you’re free to if you want.”  He walks down the aisles, setting one wrinkled packet on each desk, not making eye contact with any student.  “If you need paper or pencils, there are blank sheets on me desk.  You may use calculators, of course.”  He returns to his seat with the remaining packets and sets them aside, leaning back in his chair.  “You may begin.”

Kelly gets to her feet and approaches his desk, taking two blank sheets of paper off the second stack and the sharpest pencil front those offered.  Returning to her desk, she sets to work immediately.  Math has always been one of her stronger suits, something her father likes to say she inherited from him.  I wanted to be an engineer, you know, he would tell her.  When I had done my time.  Sometimes she finds him at the kitchen table reading old textbooks on calculus and differential equations like there is still some chance he can pursue that dream, as if his time is close to done.  It’ll never be done, though, extended to a life sentence.

Kelly is going to do that! Cass’s voice chimes in her mind.

Kelly frowns and writes down the answer to the first question.

The test is over soon enough and she stands, grabbing her answer sheet and approaching Mr. Ramsey’s desk to offer it to him.  “Thank you, Ms. Cullman,” he says as he accepts the paper and places it off to the side.  “You’ll have your results tomorrow.”

“Thank you, Mr. Ramsey,” Kelly replies.

He makes a motion to dismiss her and she walks out of class, the first one to do so.

She does not have the same results in English, where she finds herself among the last students to turn in their exams.  She has a decent grasp on the subject, but forming her thoughts into the shape she is expected to present them in has always made her stumble.  She thinks through presentation too slowly.  Why couldn’t they just write the same way they speak?  Does it really matter anymore?

It will matter someday, her teacher once said when she brought up the subject.  She had to hold back a snort then much like she has to resist the urge to roll her eyes now as she deletes a sentence and begins to rewrite it.

What feels like ages later, she saves the file to the thumbdrive her teacher had offered her and pulls it from the borrowed laptop, closing the computer and bringing them both up to the front desk.  “Thank you, Ms. Cullman,” Mrs. Essex says as she accepts both.  “You’ll have your results tomorrow.”

Kelly mumbles a half-hearted thanks and shoves her hands into her pockets as she heads for the door.