Chapter Text
Most of the love stories or fairy tales that a young Gilbert Blythe had had read to him by his mother and father as he was growing up usually started with opening lines such as: ‘Once upon a time….’ or ‘In a land far far away…’. So what a 14-year-old Gilbert didn’t expect was that his own love story would start on a normal, sunny, Tuesday afternoon as he was sitting at his usual desk next to his best friend Fred in his Geography class at Avonlea Junior High School.
Gilbert looked at the dangling golden braid flicking back and forth across the back of the chair in front of him as its owner Ruby Gillis chatted with Jane Andrews who was sat next to her. Gilbert had grown up with both of these girls and he knew that Ruby had a thing for him, the way she stared at him across the cafeteria at lunch time made him feel hot under the collar and a little exposed as though he was standing there in his boxers in the lunch queue.
Gilbert was aware of the way that the opposite sex and sometimes some of the same sex stared at him wherever he went. At the age of 14 he was well on his way through the rocky journey called puberty, and was tall with an athletic physique, a slim waist and broadening shoulders. He had chocolate coloured curly hair and long dark eyelashes that were the envy of all of the girls he knew, framing the most beautiful hazel eyes that most girls had ever seen. He was good looking and he knew it. He had shared kisses with quite a few of the young ladies that were now sat in this classroom with him. He knew all he had to do was give them a hint of a dimpled smile and a wink of his bewitching eyes and they were putty in his hands. Fred called him a ‘cocky bastard’ and he knew that he was not far wrong.
Gilbert Blythe was also a first-class tease. Knowing that because of his good looks he could get away with all levels of mischief that he chose to indulge himself in to keep himself entertained throughout the day. Even the teachers tended to go lightly on him whenever he got caught being involved in said mischief, all he had to do was give them his best puppy dog eyes and bow his head slightly in apparent shame and he was sent away with a flea in his ear and a ‘do not do it again’, whereas less charming culprits ended up in detention for a week.
He flipped his pencil case open and took out a couple of drawing pins, leaning across his desk he gently took hold of the end of Ruby’s golden braid and pinned it to the back of her chair. Sniggering, he nudged Fred next to him to draw his friend’s attention to his prank. Ruby tried to stand up to hand her work in, but gave a small yelp as she stood up taking the chair with her. She turned around and took in Gilbert’s laughing features, his eyes twinkling and she turned pink from her collar bone to her hairline. Her heart beat frantically at the thought that Gilbert Blythe had touched her hair. Gilbert whipped the pins out of the back of the chair and hid them away from view back into his pencil case and arranged his features back into a picture of innocence as Mr Phillips looked up to assess the commotion that was taking place in his class.
“Ruby. Is there some sort of problem over there?” Mr Phillips asked sternly.
“No sir” Ruby breathed. Her heart still all aflutter.
“Well settle down then please!”
She handed her work in and returned to her desk smiling shyly at Gilbert as she took her seat again.
The class settled back into getting on with the task that was assigned, when there was a gentle knock on the classroom door and Prissy Andrews, Jane’s eldest sister, one of the school’s admin assistants entered the room with a red-haired girl in tow. The unfamiliar girl was clutching a hard backed world atlas nervously against her chest, like it was a shield. She had a little pointed chin and the most beautiful eyes that Gilbert had ever seen, unlike any he had ever seen before and he was immediately entranced by her.
As Mr Phillips stood up quickly to meet Prissy, nearly knocking his chair over in his haste to greet the attractive young woman who it was known that he was infatuated with. The pretty red-haired girl behind Prissy turned to look over the classroom full of students. Upon seeing Diana Barry who was sat just across from Gilbert, the new girls face lit up and the two girls grinned at one another.
“Ted….I mean Mr Phillips….This is Miss Anne Shirley. She is the new girl that we discussed at the staff meeting last night” She introduced. Mr Phillips didn’t take his eyes of Prissy, and a smarmy and rather unnerving smile spread across his face. Gilbert was so entranced by the new girl that he didn’t see Jane in front of him miming sticking her fingers down her throat and pretending to throw up at the nauseating display going off in front of her.
“Take a seat over there Miss Shirley, next to Diana Barry” Mr Phillips said not even looking at her. Gilbert heard both girls make a slight squealing noise as the new girl hastily took her seat next to Diana. They immediately clasped hands together, and began whispering intently to each other. Gilbert’s eyes following her all the way.
“Get on with your assignments please class!” Mr Phillips demanded as he lent against his desk and chatted lowly with Prissy, obviously intending on keeping her in his classroom as for as long as he could.
For the next few minutes, the class were doing pretty much as they pleased. Slipping their ear phones in or scrolling through their phones under their desks.
Gilbert Blythe was trying to make this ‘Miss Anne Shirley’ look at him and failing utterly. He quickly ripped a few strips of paper from the top of his note pad that he was supposed to be working on and screwed them up into small balls. Checking first that Mr Phillips was still distracted with Prissy, he lightly lobbed one of them over at the new girl. It hit her softly on the head and she turned slightly and scowled at him. He tried it again with another small ball of paper that bounced off her shiny hair, this time she ignored him completely.
Gilbert wasn’t used to putting himself out to make any girl look at him. She should look at him. Why wasn’t she looking at him?
Even though he was a master teaser, he had never resorted to any physical mischief before. But as he saw it in that moment, desperate times called for desperate measures, and that’s what he was at this point. Desperate. Desperate for her to turn her beautiful eyes to him so that he could study them at length as he charmed her. He reached across the aisle and picked up the soft end of Anne’s red braid, held it at arms length and gave it a gentle tug and whispered:
“Carrots, hey Carrots!”
Her head snapped around and she glared at him with vengeance. Her beautiful eyes focused on him at last, burning with anger. His jaw dropped open as their eyes locked for the first time and he felt like he had been hit by a bolt of lightning. She sprang up on to her feet, her cheeks pink and flushed with indignance. Her eyes flashed with anger and tears appearing in them.
Gilbert’s heart raced. What had he done? He didn’t mean to make her cry!
“You mean hateful boy!” she yelled, tears slipping down her cheeks. Gilbert waved his hands in front of her in a gesture of surrender.
“How dare you!!”
She suddenly twisted to her right picked up her world atlas from her desk and whacked him on his head as hard as she could.
Thwack!
There was an audible intake of breath from everybody in the room. Anne froze, atlas still in hand, Gilbert’s hand flew to his forehead and checked for blood, there was none. His face flushed and he rubbed where she had just struck him. Their eyes still locked together.
“Anne Shirley what is the meaning of this?” Mr Phillips yelled.
“It was my fault Sir, I was teasing her”’ Gilbert owned up immediately.
“Gilbert Blythe she hit you! I will not have a student of mine behaving in such a vindictive way! Detention for both of you! Anne Shirley stand at the front of the room for the rest of the class”.
Anne turned and walked stiffly to the front of the room where she turned to face the rest of the shocked classroom. Her eyes full of resentful passion and cheeks red from humiliation. Diana looked at her with a sympathetic gaze and Josie Pye snickered maliciously behind her hand. As for Gilbert Blythe, she would not look at him. She would NEVER look at him again. She would NEVER speak to him.
At last, the bell rang and Mr Phillips swept out of the classroom after handing her and Gilbert Blythe detention slips. She returned to her desk to pack her things away, and as she was slipping her bag on her shoulder, she felt a warm hand softly grasp her for arm. She knew immediately who it was. He had been trying to catch her eye for the entire agonising hour that she had been forced to stand at the front of the classroom.
“Anne, I’m sorry I made fun of your hair….don’t be mad at me for keeps?” He breathed looking at her with earnest hazel eyes. His voice was deep and made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.
She refused to look him in the eye and pulled her arm roughly away from his hold.
“I’m never talking to you Gilbert Blythe!” She declared fiercely and stomped out of the class room.
Gilbert smirked at her retreating back. “You just did!” He called after her laughing.
Diana scampered after her new friend, giving Gilbert a stern look on her way past him. She and Anne had come to be close friends over the last few weeks of summer following Anne’s adoption at the age of 13 by the Cuthbert’s at Green Gables. Marilla had brought a shy Anne over to the Barry house to introduce her to Diana and the two girls had hit it off immediately.
She caught up with Anne in the hallway as she was frantically ramming the contents of her bag into her locker.
“Anne, chill out ok. Gilbert’s just being Gilbert. He just teases all of the girls to death, he a good guy really. I’ve known him since we were babies”.
“I don’t care Diana! I hate him…..The iron has entered my soul and I shall never forgive him, he’s an arrogant pig” she spat angrily.
She looked over her shoulder just as the boy himself was strolling past her, as though he had not a care in the world. She flushed again as she took in his teasing smile causing his cheeks to dimple delightfully and his eyes to twinkle.
“I hope he heard that the arrogant pig!” Anne repeated loudly. Making sure that he had overheard the name she had just called him.
“So, it’s ok for you to call him names but woah betide he call you one?” Diana challenged her.
“Whose side are you on Diana? Remember our sun and moon pact” Anne gently reminded her, a bit of a smile forming on her lips. “Girl code and all?” she closed her locker door and lent against it smiling at her ‘bosom pal’.
Anne linked her arm through Diana’s. “I think we need a quick trip to the store. I’ve just about had it with this!” she said picking up the end of one long red braid and examining it.
Diana rolled her eyes and smiled….she had a feeling that it was going to be an exhausting year.