Dollface

Brooklyn, New York 1927

10 year old Heather Stanford looked out the window of her large town house. It was about three weeks into winter and snow was already falling on the ground. She didn't have to worry about any illnesses though, as her father was quite rich due to the fact that he worked for the government. He was quite an excellent doctor, and he owned his own private practice.

For the first 6 years of her schooling, her father paid for a place in a private school in England, but due to the start of an economical crisis the school had been shut down because of the lack of funding it was receiving. Now Heather was to be enrolled in a public school in the Brooklyn suburbs, where all the poor children went. She wasn't very happy about the new schooling arrangements. She didn't want to be in the same building as dirty, sick children. She could catch anything! Unfortunately, her father told her she had no choice in the matter, and that she had to go.

So, on this particularly snowy day, Heather's mother was getting her dressed for her first day of her new elementary school. She was dressed in her blue frilly dress, with puffy sleeves. It was her favourite. Her mother had put her dark hair in hair curlers the night before, so her hair was curled loosely down her back half of her hair in her favourite blue ribbon. She had her new white leather satchel laid on her bed, along with her thick woollen cardigan that should protect her from the harsh weather conditions.

"Now, Heather. I have packed you a ham sandwich, carrot sticks and yoghurt for lunch. There's also a granola bar if you get hungry at recess. You be a good girl now, daddy will drive you to school today, but after that you'll have to walk yourself."

"Yes, mother." She mumbled.

"Good. Now smile, you look like you're depressed or something. Frown like that and you'll have no friends at all!"

"Sorry, mother." "Mh. Now go down and have breakfast, and be hasty about it otherwise you'll be late for school." She patted her daughter on the head, and walked out the door, presumably to her bedroom to get dressed for a day of housework.

Heather sighed and grabbed her cardigan and bag, before making her way down the stairs to the kitchen. She found her father sat at the table reading the newspaper. She walked beside him, pressing a kiss to his cheek. "Good morning, daddy." She gave him a small smile.

"Hello, sweetface. Are you excited for school?" Adam Stanford asked his daughter.

"Of course, daddy." She lied, making sure to paint a smile on her face.

He gave a chuckle. "Of course you are, if we want you to work at the practice in the future you need good schooling." He grinned at her.

She took a seat at the table, and grabbed a piece of toast and putting jam on it. She finished and poured some orange juice to a glass, and drank it. She wiped her face with a napkin, and stood up.

"I'm ready for school, daddy." She told him, while putting on the cardigan and grabbing her satchel.

"Okay, let me just get my jacket. You start getting in the car, and I'll meet you out there," He told her.

She walked out the front door to the car and climbed in the front seat. Two minutes later, Adam came out the door, his wife behind him.

As he climbed into the car, she called "Have a good day, dear. Remember smile and make friends, Heather. You don't want to be lonely." Her British accent very clear.

"I will, mommy. And I'll tell you all about it!" She waved at her, as they drove away.

It look a little more than five minutes in the car to get to the elementary school. Her father came to a stop just outside the gates, and Heather climbed out looking up at the tall building. It looked like a prison.

"Have a great day, sweetface!" Her father called. That made faces turn in her direction. Great. Attention, just what she wanted to attract.

She smiled at him, and turned back towards the school, walking forwards and not taking any notice of the stares she was receiving.

All around her, people were making comments about her.

"Oh, great. We have a trust fund kid." She heard one kid say. 

"She looks like she came straight from a toy store." She nearly snorted at that one.

She was looking for signs that led to the office, but there didn't seem to be any. She looked around for somebody to ask. To her right, there was a small, blonde boy. He looked so fragile, she was scared that he'd break before her.

Heather tapped him on the shoulder, "Excuse me, I'm Heather Stanford. I'm new here, and I had instructions to go to the office? Do you mind helping me?" She asked him, as he turned to look at her.

"O-oh. Uhm, I'm Steve Rodgers, n-nice to meet you," He stuttered, making her giggle internally. "Uhh, I could walk you to the office? To be honest, explaining things isn't really my thing." 

She laughed. "That would be perfect. I just need my schedule, and my locker number. I've just moved here from a boarding school in England, where my mother went," She told him.

"I bet you're pretty loaded huh?" He took in her appearance.

"Oh, um I guess. My dad is a doctor. He owns the Stanford practice? You might of heard about it." She said.

"Oh, yeah! My mom cleans there. She said it's one of the best places. Well. Here's the office. I'll see you later, Heather." Steve told her, as he walked away.

"Uh, bye?" She said to his retreating figure. She shook her head, and walked into the office. At the desk sat a rather miserable looking woman.

"Uhm, excuse me? Heather Stanford, the new student?" She said to her.

"One sec, Miss Stanford." The woman went to her drawer and pulled out a piece of paper. "Here's your timetable and locker number and code. Homeroom starts in 15 minutes, so you best hurry."

"Thank you! Have a good day." She smiled at the woman, before exiting.

She looked at the slip of paper that held all of her information. She had locker 125. So she walked down the hall till she found it. 

5 minutes later, she had arrived at the locker. She walked up to it, and started to put the code in. 

"9...0...5...7" She read off the paper while turning the dial. She tried to pull open the locker but had no luck. She put it in again. No luck. She banged it.

"I hate my bloody life." She rested her head against it.

"What are you doing?" A voice asked from behind her.

She turned to see a brunette boy, about her age, staring at her curiously. His eyes were the most striking blue color.

"Well. I was trying to open this silly thing, but it seems the code doesn't work." She huffed.

"Here. Let me try." The boy took the paper from her hand.

"9...6..." He started.

"Six? Where did you get six from? It's a zero." She told him.

"No. I'm pretty sure it's a six." He put the last two digits in, and the door pulled open.

"What?  Impossible. That was a zero."

"Obviously not, otherwise it wouldn't have opened." The boy said.

"Sorry, Mr-Know-It-All. Not to burst your bubble or anything, but I'm pretty sure I can read." She said while putting her cardigan and bag in the locker."

"Your sentence makes no sense. Why would it burst my bubble if you can read?" 

"Uh- I- Um. Because it does! Okay?" She furrowed her eyebrows at him.

"Oh, whatever. Get your stuff, you have your homeroom in like 2 minutes." He shook his head while walking away.

In the next ten seconds, Heather decided she hated the boy. Well disliked. Her mother always said hate was a word a woman never used.

She looked down at the paper again, looking for who and where she had homeroom. Mrs Leightner. Room A6.

That was just across the hall from her locker, so she was quite lucky. She grabbed her pencil and notebook, and walked into the classroom.

The class was near enough full, and it was quite loud. Just after Heather sat in a desk towards the back, a woman in her mid-30s walked in the oom.

"Ehem. Settle down now. Okay, so today it seems we have a new student. Heather Stanford?" She looked at the class.

Heather raised her hand, and the teacher nodded towards her. "Okay, kids. Say hello, and be welcoming. We don't want to scare her off now, do we?"

A chorus of "Hello" echoed around the room.

"Okay. Time for registration. Mary Adams?" The teacher read all the names on the list.

"James Barnes?" A very familiar voice answered. Heather looked around for the source of the voice. Eventually, her eyes landed on the blue eyed boy from earlier, the one whom she decided she disliked. She had to supress a groan from coming out her mouth.

She was happy to see the kind boy from earlier, Steve Rodgers, was in the class. She would like to have Steve as a friend, he seemed like the kind who would always be there for you no matter what. There was nobody like that in her old school, so it would be nice for a change.

During the rest of the class, Mrs Leightner read them all a book, which was quite boring in her opinion. James seemed to find it boring also, as he was sat with his head laid on his desk, seemingly asleep.

As homeroom ended, Heather looked a her schedule, to see she had biology first period. She love that subject, and she always got top marks. And chemistry, She adored chemistry. She watched her father in his home lab all the time. It was always so intriguing.

She walked into the class, and sat at a seat on the back row. She saw Steve Rodgers sat near her, next to James Barnes.  While everyone was getting settled in the class, Heather was already answering the questions the teacher had wrote on the chalkboard.

How many joints does an ant have in each leg?  Easy question. "Three per leg, and they have six legs, so in total they have eighteen leg joints." She wrote in her exercise book. Next question.

How many joints does the human body contain? "360 in the whole body."

"Okay class. Does anybody have an answer the these questions. We studied this last semester so you should have learnt it."

Heather put her hand up, and the teacher pointed to her. "The ant has three joints in each leg and they have six, meaning they have eighteen in total. And the human body has 360 joints altogether." She said.

"Well done! I take it you're the new student, Heather Stanford?" She nodded.

From the corner of her eye, she saw James look at her with raised eyebrows. 

In that moment, Steve Rodgers knew James Barnes had developed a crush on the new girl.