Those who said Catherine was naughty crept back into their homes, nosebleeding a common symptom of their departure.
    She wasn't a fighter as such, and neither a crybaby as many a little girl her age was. Fathoming her philosophy of life would have  sounded a bit more of a stoic saga cold stone avenue.

When Catherine said, 'I hate you' , it wasn't in a high pitched noise and pathetic scowls or the murky watery eyes of over pampered girls. When Catherine said 'I hate you', you'd feel it to the bone, like some insidious gaze from the devil himself. You wouldn't sleep. Nightmares would wake you up.
They'd haunt you in the daylight, when everyone went about their merry go round lives.
   Perhaps her cold demeanour and the fact that she found it unamusing and perhaps uncultured to wear normal clothing to church.
    "Of all the children I've worked with, she's out there." Madam Faridah, the headmistress, clenched her teeth, "She's not allowed in our school anymore. And if you'd excuse me ma'am, I have other parents to attend to."

Perhaps those who saw her never took her for who she was. They might have been too caught up in their own fantasies to mind her. That could explain why Catherine hid around the classroom during class times and smoked a cigarette.
  The smoke very visible to all, could've been dismissed in some bizarre fantasy the teacher of the day held.
    If one of the students raised their hands to report the mischief, such a teacher would not have bothered.
There were too many a thing running through their mind. To begin with, the pay would've been but miagre barely enough to cover the teacher's evening beer and pork chops as was the custom of their more richer counterparts who'd taken positions in schools deeply rooted in the city where education and corruption wore the same attire.