Compared to lunch break, morning break was shorter, since students were not expected to spend their time finding food and consuming them. That did not stop a few from doing so, usually those who had skipped breakfast because of oversleeping or some other reason. Most students used the break period to stretch, to take care of those urgent washroom needs and to catch up with gossip, not necessarily in that order or separately.
Annie was using that Monday's morning break to flip through her textbook. She was rereading the part the teacher had lectured on that she, because of some momentary lapse in concentration, had missed.
Her classmate, the redhead Connie, was one of the many who would use this time to talk to others. That girl had the habit of popping up next to her. She had done it so often that Annie could sense when the redhead would appear.
Thus, she turned her head just in time to receive Connie's greeting. "Hey, Annie!"
"Yes, Connie?" Annie greeted mildly.
"So... what went on in that restaurant last weekend?" Connie asked, "Spill the beans."
"What beans?" Annie questioned back with a straight face.
"Annie, you entered a high-class restaurant, alone," Connie pointed out, "Why were you there?"
"Like I said, secret." She touched a finger to her lips.
"Boyfriend?" Connie gasped with mock surprise, "It must be a boy!"
"No, I don't have a boyfriend," Annie denied.
"Mm-hmmm..." Connie rubbed her chin in thought. "Oh, I know! You're moonlighting as a professional call girl!"
Annie's jaw dropped. "A what!?"
"Oh, you're there to keep some lonely old man company, that's what!"
"That's not true!" Annie protested, "I'm a minor! What an outrageous thing to suggest!"
"Annie's a professional call girl," Connie mocked loud enough for the class to hear.
"Don't listen to her," Annie said to the classmates present, to those who had turned when they had heard the redhead. "That's not true!"
Little Annie, a professional call girl? Of course, it would be more interesting if it was true instead of the actual truth. So of course such a gossip, never mind it was obviously false, would get circulated among the girls.
As Connie went away laughing, Annie could only glare at the redhead. Then a little chill found its way into her heart. "Don't any of you dare tell any of this to the Journalism people!" she warned her classmates.
If he had heard it, that Keith McDowell would probably twist that rumor into something actually believable and the gossip would float around the school much further and much longer than she cared.
***
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