Branching Out

Lindy could usually be found climbing trees. Today, though, she had something else in mind . . .

LOOK at you with dirty knees and shoes. You’ll never be Rose Queen.” Andrea Harris looked Lindy up and down. Everyone had the same chance at the competition for the carnival in the community hall next week.

“Maybe they’re ready for a feisty Rose Queen,” her mother had said when Lindy told her she’d like to enter.

Did that mean she wasn’t pretty enough?

“Everyone knows Andrea will win. She’s the prettiest girl at school,” Anna, one of Andrea’s hangers-on, gushed.

Andrea flicked back her blonde hair.

“I don’t think she’s the prettiest girl in the school,” Lindy declared.

“Don’t tell me you think you are!” Andrea sneered, her eyes flashing, and the girls around her laughed.

Lindy skipped off, but inside she was burning.

She ran across the playground to the trees at the far end. Will and Nathan sat under the oak, pouring over their collectors’ cards.

“Race you to the top of the tree!” Lindy challenged.

“We’re not allowed,” Will said.

Lindy began to climb anyway.

The boys looked at each other then followed her. She had a head start and was soon halfway up.

“Nathan Ross! Will Taylor!” From across the yard came the harsh tones of Mr Willis.

Lindy kept still under cover of the leaves.

“What have you been told about climbing these trees?” he shouted.

She was right over Mr Willis’s bald head.

Will and Nathan climbed down. She expected they would tell on her, especially when Will looked up. Then she saw Nathan give him a nudge with his elbow.

“Sorry, sir,” Nathan apologised.

“Detention for you two.” Mr Willis turned on his heel.

Lindy waited until he was well out of sight before climbing down.

“Thanks for not telling on me,” she said.

Will pulled a face. Nathan coloured then looked away.

Sniggers rippled around the classroom during the next lesson.

“What’s so funny?” Lindy whispered to Lucy Cray.

“Andrea’s telling everyone you’re going to enter the Rose Queen competition and she thinks it’s funny.” “Why is it funny?” Lucy looked sympathetic. “Everyone knows she’ll win.”

“Maybe she won’t.” There were more sniggers. Andrea was popular with the boys as well as the girls. Lindy couldn’t understand how nobody saw through her. Just because she had lots of pocket money and the latest things, and because she was pretty.

She watched as Andrea leaned over her desk to talk to Nathan, twirling her long hair around her fingers.

Nathan would have been good in her work team, Lindy thought. He was clever as well as sporty, and he was good at making things. Last week he’d brought into school a wooden train he’d crafted with his grandfather.

“You are clever,” Andrea had gushed over him.

She had to get in first on everything. Lindy would never gush like that; she’d rather climb trees with him.

“So what are you going to wear?” Andrea asked Lindy the day before the competition.

“Mum’s made me a dress,” Lindy replied. Andrea raised an eyebrow. “My mother bought mine,” she said haughtily. “It’s pink with roses, and perfect for a Rose Queen.” Then she swept past with her girls.

Lindy knew her mother couldn’t afford to buy her a dress, so she’d adapted one of her old party dresses.

“I think you’ll be good,” a voice came behind her. It was Nathan.

This time it was her turn to blush.

“Do you want to climb some trees?” she said to hide it.

“OK, but not here.” No, she didn’t want to get him into any more trouble.

Lindy was excited on the evening of the competition. She sat patiently as her mother did her hair.

She looked so different. The blue dress fitted her perfectly and she had a matching ribbon in her hair.

“Remember, it’s not the winning that’s important,” her mother reminded her. “You already look like a princess, darling.”

Lindy couldn’t understand that. She wanted to win.

A lot of people didn’t recognise her when she arrived at the venue. Even Andrea raised an eyebrow and the evening was worth it just to see that.

Andrea looked like an angel in pink with sparkles in her blonde hair.

Lindy looked at the Rose Queen’s tiara and longed to be wearing it at the end of the evening.

One by one, the ten

girls paraded. When it was Lindy’s turn, she sashayed out to the beat of the music.

She gave her biggest smile to the judges. She would show them there was more to her than climbing trees, and that she could be as girly as Andrea. Maybe the boys in the class would see her that way, too.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” the head judge announced after the parade was over. “Our Rose Queen for this year’s carnival is . . .” Lindy held her breath. “Andrea Harris!” Lindy’s heart sank.

She watched as Andrea sat in the chair draped with a velvet curtain and had the crown placed on her head. Reluctantly she joined the others to sit at Andrea’s feet as her attendants. No-one would notice her now, she thought.

Andrea was lording it over everyone the next day.

“Fancy thinking you could be the Rose Queen,” she sneered at Lindy.

She turned to Nathan. “What do you think of me being Rose Queen, Nathan?”

“Nice,” he said without enthusiasm, and that made Lindy smile.

Maybe she wasn’t meant to be a princess. Maybe she would always be a tomboy.

A day later Nathan sidled up to her at breaktime.

“I’ve got a present for you,” he said. “I know you were disappointed not to be Rose Queen,” he said. “So I made you this.”

Out of a bag he produced an exquisitely crafted tiara of paper roses in shades of pink and peach and yellow.

“I think you look like a princess and deserve a crown.” He blushed.

“It’s beautiful!” she exclaimed.

Lindy placed the crown on her head. It was so much better than the cheap crown Andrea had worn.

She suddenly realised she didn’t care about Andrea, and that it was Nathan she cared about. He saw her as a princess.

“Now, do you want to climb a tree?” he asked.

She laughed and, wearing her crown of roses, followed him up into the branches. n