Chapter 1 – Anne Shirley

Canada, Avonlea, May 1896.

Anne Shirley had arrived at Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert's home only a couple of weeks ago. After some misunderstandings and one or two adventures on the way – including a disastrous Sunday picnic – the old brother and sister had decided to keep Anne. With an e, if you please.

But now it was time to start school.

"Oh, Marilla," Anne exulted. "I've always wanted to go to school!" Her grin was as large as her imagination could be. "Tomorrow will be the best day of my life!"

"Calm down, Anne," Marilla said, her eternal frown on her wrinkled brow. "It's only school."

That evening, Anne could not eat.

"What is food in light of the best day of your existence?" Anne said at supper when Marilla told her to eat. At the end of the table, Matthew Cuthbert suppressed a smile. This little girl was already filling all of his lonely heart.

"Then go on to bed," Marilla said. Anne jumped to her feet and ran to the staircase. But before she could be too far, Marilla said, "And don't forget to say your prayers, Anne!"

"I will!" Anne called back. As soon as she was in her room, she closed the door and took off her dress. Instead of slipping in her nightgown, she draped herself with her quilt and looked at the full moon outside, in between the cherry blossoms of the tree just outside her window.

"Oh, beautiful Snow Queen," she said to the tree. "You look so divine in your lacy gown. Princess Cordelia is going to school tomorrow! Can you imagine?" She sighed content and looked at the silver moon in the sky. She smiled. "If only I was a star," she said softly. "I could see the whole world from there. I could see the silver lightings of the moon over the trees swaying in the breeze." She stayed kneeling at her window for a moment, for the first time in days completely speechless at the beauty of her surroundings.

"Anne?" Marilla's shrill voice sounded from downstairs. "Go to bed."

Anne scrambled to her feet, took off the quilt from her back, slipped on her nightgown and kneeled at the side of her bed. She linked her hands together, and looked upwards, beyond the ceiling and roof of Green Gables.

"Gracious Heavenly Father," she started, just like the minister said during service last Sunday. It sounded so romantical. "Bless Marilla and Matthew, and bless Green Gables. Thank you for letting me stay here. As always, the list of things I want would be too long to enumerate right now, so I'm just going to name the first two: please, make me beautiful when I grow up; and please, may school be as wonderful as I imagine it." She paused. "Amen."

That said, she slipped under the covers and closed her eyes. It took her hours to fall asleep though. Her mind was imagining way too many scenarios at how perfect her first day of real school would be. The moon had traveled more than half of her journey across the why when Anne finally fell asleep, a peaceful smile on her lips.

Even with only a few hours of sleep, Anne woke up completely restored and ready to start her day. She put on her best dress – even if it was dull and brown and without puff sleeves – and braided her red hair in two identical braids. She looked at herself in the mirror and smiled, satisfied. Except for the red hair and her freckles, but she would have to contend with those. For how long, though, was a mystery.

She slipped down the stairs, a wide smile on her face.

"Do be careful, Anne," Marilla said. "You wouldn't want to fall in the stairs on the first day of school, now would you?"

Anne sobered up quickly and walked carefully to the breakfast table where scrambled eggs, hot tea, and toast with butter were waiting for her.

"Do you think Diana is going to be there?" Anne asked, her mouth full of eggs.

"Do not speak with your mouth full, Anne," Marilla admonished. "But yes, I believe Diana will be there."

"Oh, how wonderful!" Anne said, forgetting her breakfast.

Marilla stopped trying to make Anne eat. In just two weeks, she had learned not to push her in a state of ecstasy.

"Off you go, now, Anne," Marilla said. "Don't forget your hat, and do not tarry on the way to school. You don't want to arrive late."

"Of course, not!" Anne quickly finished her milk, put the hat on her head and ran out of the house. In her hurry to go to school, she had forgotten to kiss Matthew and Marilla goodbye.

She slipped along the way, her red braid dancing in a frenzy around her face, a bright smile in her lips, and chatting with the trees blossoming with white flowers. Of course, she had to walk through the White Way of Delight, and she couldn't be any happier than at that moment.

Then, the schoolhouse came into view and she stopped. There were children playing outside in the fresh morning, girls in their pink or blue dresses with matching bows, and boys in grey or brown suits tossing baseballs at each other. Anne grinned. She knew in that instant that she would make some amazing friends that day. She took a deep breath without being able to stop grinning and took a step forward. And a second. And another one.

Until she was walking in the midst of the children who had stopped talking and playing. They were staring at her, murmuring amongst each other. Words like "ugly", "redhead", "orphan", and "trash" slowly came to her ears. But no. This couldn't be right. She ignored it and turned around, looking if Diana was among those people.

Her breathing raced, and she started to hear things as if her head was underwater.

"Anne!"

Anne had trouble pinpointing where that word came from.

"Anne!" Someone said again, shaking Anne from her muffled thoughts. Diana was walking up the path to the school. Thank goodness Marilla had taken her to the Sunday picnic the previous week and she had been able to make at least one friend.

"Diana! Oh what a blessed sight," she said just as Diana came up to her. She looked her arm in the redhead's and they walked inside the schoolhouse.

"Come with me," Diana said, pulling Anne to the third desk from the front. "Put your books here, and I'll explain everything you need to know about school." Anne obeyed and did as Diana said. She left her hat and cardigan with the others near the door; Diana told her about lunch, the depot room, and the smaller kids' classroom. Then they went back inside, and everyone was already there, talking loudly to one another. When they saw Anne and Diana, it turned out into a loud murmur, secrets she was meant to hear. The same words as before came to her ears.

She sat down, silent, next to Diana just as the teacher, Mr. Philipps, walked in.

"Everyone at your seats!" He ordered, and all the children, younger and older, scrambled to their seats and sat in silence. Mr. Philipps looked over his class and his eyes stopped on Anne.

"You, the new girl. Stand up," he ordered again.

Slowly, Anne stood.

"Name?"

"Anne Shirley."

He frowned. "Oh, you're the orphan the old grumps took in. Right."

Hearing those nasty words, Anne became red to the face. But before Anne could say anything, Diana pulled her down on her seat.

"Don't take the bait," she whispered. "He loves to bully new students."

Anne tried to calm down, but she knew she would have two words with him after class.

"Open your readers page thirty-six," Mr. Philipps said. "Moody, begin reading."

An overweight brown-headed boy stood at the back of the class, cleared his throat, and started reading. He was stumbling on every two words, making Anne and half the class cringe.

"That's enough, Moody," Mr. Philipps said sternly. "He looked around the classroom.

"Prissy Andrews," he said with a smile on his lips.

Anne noticed the change of tone and turned around to see who was standing up to read. A pretty girl with long blond curls in the back of the class stood. But her looks didn't quite go in pair with her reading skills. Anne chuckled softly, and Diana elbowed her discreetly.

"Shush. I'll explain later."

This had, of course, annoyed the teacher immensely. Who dared talk during Perfect Prissy's reading?

"Anne Shirley," he said. "Continue reading."

Anne, more than happy to oblige, stood and read the sonnet with such passion and tone in her voice that the whole class giggled, leaving Mr. Philipps with a chaotic bunch of kids.

"Sit down at once!" He yelled through the classroom, making everyone obey quickly. He had a rod in his hands and was looking over the students to see which one he would punish first. No one moved.

After a whole minute of silence, he resumed his class with geometry, since reading had been such a disaster.

"Take out your slates," he ordered and proceeded to dictate a geometry problem for the students to write down. Once it was done, he went to his desk, opened his book, and started reading, ignoring the children.

"I abhor geometry," Anne whispered to Diana.

But Diana ignored her, not wanting to be punished in front of the whole class for talking during geometry.

Anne tried to focus on the problem. But geometry was so limited for the scope of the imagination.

Suddenly, she received a little ball of paper on her head, bouncing on her slate. She ignored it. Three times a little ball of paper landed on her or her table. She closed her eyes and breathed out.

"Hey, Carrots. Carrots!" Someone hissed at her.

That was too much. Rage was boiling inside her. But before she could reply anything, someone pulled at her braid, calling her carrots again. Without thinking, she stood and smashed her slate on the boy's head, with a deafening crack. The slate, not his skull. "Anne Shirley!" Mr. Philipps said, standing up.

Anne looked up at the boy on whose head she had slammed her slate, but he was grinning.

"Come up here at once," the teacher said. He wrote on the blackboard, enunciating each word as he wrote it:

Ann Shirley has a very bad temper.

"You will write this one hundred times before leaving today," he said, red to the face. He didn't like disruptive students in his class. "And you will stay standing in front of the class until lunch break." He looked over the class to see if anyone would be bold enough to say anything. No one piped a word. He continued on with his lesson.

When he had his back turned, Anne added an 'e' at the end of her name on the blackboard. Unbeknownst to her, the boy who had called her 'carrots' was grinning like an idiot. He would never forget to put an 'e' to Anne's name, now.

Anne spent the last hour of the morning class standing in front of everyone, seeing their disgusted glances toward her. She didn't hear them, but she could imagine what they were saying.

Trash. Orphan. Carrots. Ugly.

Anne pushed away these words from her mind and stared at a spot at the back of the classroom until Mr. Philipps rang the bell and dismissed the students for lunch.

Anne ran outside, without forgetting to take her hat and basket and quickly found a spot away from the others, hidden behind a bush. A smile patch if wild white flowers lay at her feet, and she smiled softly at the sight, a tear streaming silently down her cheek. She didn't even notice it until it splattered on the white petals. She angrily wiped it away and took out her sandwich Marilla had made for her. She tried to take a bite, but she was way too humiliated to eat anything substantial. She only drank some milk she had taken with her.

"You okay?" someone asked, coming over.

Anne looked up. It was neither Diana, not that boy who had insulted her. It was someone else entirely. She hadn't even noticed him in class. She shrugged, as a reply.

"Yeah, I know how you feel. People usually make fun of me." He paused when Anne didn't offer anything. "I'm Cole Mackenzie, by the way."

"Anne," she simply replied. Somehow, this boy seemed nice enough. Or at least not an idiot like the other one.

"Spelled with an 'e'," Cole said, a lopsided smile illuminating his face. But Anne didn't see anything negative in that smile.

She nodded.

"Don't mind Gilbert," Cole said. "I don't know what got into him. He's not like this, usually." He paused to think, frowning. "I've never seen him searching for attention from any girl, before." He chuckled. "He's barely come back from the city with his father."

Anne looked up. "I don't want to talk about him."

"Right," Cole said. "Sorry." He took out a notebook from his bag. "Do you mind if I draw?" He asked her.

"No, not at all," Anne replied. She observed him sharpening his pencil and starting to draw some strokes on the blank pages of his book. She could have watched him for hours, seeing the landscape brought to life under his hand. She completely forgot to eat until the bell rang again, calling the students back to class.

That afternoon was the worst Anne had ever lived through. Mr. Philipps totally ignored her, and the others continued to murmur nasty words in her direction. Even Diana didn't really pay attention to her. She was too engrossed in her calculus exercises.

So, since no one paid her any attention to her, she might as well copy that line one hundred times during class, so she wouldn't need to stay a minute longer in that classroom afterward.

As soon as the bell rang again, she gathered her things, put the page with the hundred lines on it on Mr. Philipps' desk, and ran outside without a glance backward for anything. She was never setting foot in that school again. Once she was on the path home and not in view of the school anymore, she slowed her pace and let her tears flow freely on her cheeks.

"Anne!" someone called behind her, down the path. She knew that voice. The same who had called her 'carrots' earlier. How dare he? She didn't even turn around.

"Anne, wait!"

But Anne ran faster, praying to whoever was up there to make her legs strong until she was home again.

Hi everyone, welcome to my little 'Anne with an E' fanfic, don't mind my Shirbert shenanigans... lol. But I hope you enjoy them, too! Shirbert has my heart, and I hope you'll enjoy these chapters. Every other chapter will either be Anne or Gilbert. ;)

If you want to review, I'd really appreciate it a lot, but if you just want to read, that's fine with me, too. (But I love reading my reader's thoughts ;))