"... lu..."

"... Tallu...."

"... Tallulah...."

"Tallulah Thorne!"

I jumped in my seat, looking around startled, only to see the smug faces of my fellow classmates staring back at me. Whispers and silent jeers filled the room, but with the stern hush from the teacher standing at the head of the class, they quieted down once again.

I took this as my turn to sheepishly look at the strict woman, who had now directed her pointed gaze towards me once again.
"Would you like to inform the class as to what had your undivided attention?"

I always hated the way she spoke. I love eloquent speech, but she used it to appear above others, her pointed nose high in the air as she addressed me.

"I was... thinking, Miss Finchley." I cringed at myself. Thinking? Well yes, I was, but I couldn't have thought up something better?
"Then you ought to think less! Thinking too much might make you faint!"
That was probably one of the lamest comebacks I've ever heard. Mixing modern mockery with a tattered old teaspoon like Miss Finchley? It's like trying to teach a fish to sit.

Though apparently it was enough to make my classmates laugh. Not surprising, I was always the black sheep I suppose. I didn't like any of them, they all came from snotty rich families with sticks halfway up their arses. I was only here because my parents thought that a private school could teach me more about literature, the one subject I could stand.

Though funnily enough, we were in literature class right now, but my mind kept drifting. I had all these... ideas, running through my mind, waiting to be written down. I loved writing. And reading for that matter. I ju-

"It seems we have once again lost our little daydreamer." Miss Finchley sneered. Despite loving literature, she couldn't stand me. Good, because I couldn't stand her either. "Perhaps you would like to read to the class? It might keep your eyes open."

I glanced down at the book opened on my desk. The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter. Gothic short stories. Gothic literature was one of my favourites to read, so when we were assigned to read it during the summer holidays, I had read each short story within the small book at least 5 times. We were currently studying one of the shortest stories, The Snow Child.
I cleared my throat, but before I could even so much as breathe, the old hag stopped me. "No! No, no, no. Up here. Come on!" She gestured to the very front of the class, and my once nonchalant face was replaced with a deep frown.

Great.

Any chance of a way out?

I glanced to my left. Windows. We were on the third floor, I am not going to the hospital. Or worse.
I glanced to my right. A door at the front of the classroom. Too far... damnit.

With a heavy sigh, I dragged myself to my feet and trudged to the front of the class, clenching the book in my hands and glaring at the pages.

Third paragraph. "... the nhnnmhh-"

"Speak up, child-"

"THE COUNTESS-", everyone jumped at the sudden loudness of my voice, which even surprised me for a second, but I hid the smirk that tugged at my lips when I saw the outraged look on Miss Finchley's face.

Try again. "The Countess dropped her glove in the snow and told the girl to get down-", I hesitated when I heard a faint muttering, but I ignored it continuing on, "- to look for it; she meant to gallop off and leave her there but the Count said-"

"I'll buy you new gloves."

I looked towards where the deep, sultry voice had come from to my left, but found no one, and hushed words broke out between the students as they seemed just as confused as me. I turned my gaze towards the teacher, who told the other students to quiet down, and told me to continue.
My brows furrowed, and I opened my mouth to question what had happened, but quickly shut it again, and looked down to my book once more.

"At that.. uh...", I coughed, trying to regain my composure, "At that, the furs sprang off the Countess's shoulders and twined round the naked girl. Then the Countess threw her diamond brooch through the ice of a frozen pond-"

"Dive in and fetch it for me."

This time, it was a sophisticated, strong woman's voice that interrupted my reading. Or rather, seemed to be reading the words off the page, saying the lines of the characters.
"Whoever's idea of a joke this is, you shall stop immediat-", her words were replaced with a shriek as she stepped forward, not onto the hard wooden floors of the school, but right into a crack in... a frozen pond...?

Whilst the other students began to panic, some standing to rush to the teacher and aid her, others frantically looking around, searching for the source of the voices, my curiosity got the better of me, and I read on.

"S-She..", my voice wavered, and I spoke louder over the panicked calls of my classmates, "She thought the girl would drown. But the Count said..."

"Is she a fish, to swim in such cold weather?"
"Is she a fish, to swim in such cold weather?"

We spoke in unison, I and the male voice that was now behind me, and I took a deep breath as I turned, praying that it was an upper class man, playing tricks.

Though what I met with made me freeze up.

And then it went black.