Chapter 1

Marina

It was a lovely autumn morning and Ivy was walking to school. Her long brown hair swayed in time with the pattern of the wind and her cheeks were going a light shade of red from the mild bitterness in the air. Ivy had a friendly smile and warm brown eyes that made you feel safe. She was a kind, outgoing girl, but sometimes she could be a little bit mischievous due to her outrageous personality. Ivy was always looking for new ways to help others and for exciting games to play.

As she thought about the day ahead, she looked at the leaves below her feet. It was like the leaves had fallen perfectly in-line with each other to make it seem like Ivy was walking on a patch-work quilt filled with shades of oranges, browns, yellows and reds.

When Ivy reached her school, she looked around for her two best friends: Eva and Chloe. They were standing in the far-right corner of the playground next to a giant game of hopscotch painted on the floor. As Ivy walked over to them, she heard the usual noise of children laughing and shouting, but today the noise felt different. It was like a secret was being passed through each one of them like a ghost. 

She did not take much noticed of it and just carried on walking towards her friends. When Ivy reached her friends, they were talking about what they had done that morning so Ivy joined in. Eva had bright green, emerald-coloured eyes and long flowing dark brown hair that was always tied up in a ponytail with a vibrant blue bow. She was loving and kind and very enthusiastic about learning new things. Chloe had curly ginger hair with a pair of light blue glasses. She was always answering questions and loved helping with jobs. Ivy, Chloe and Eva all stood talking about their morning until the bell rang. The golden bell to start the school day rang three times. One after each other and each ring was the same length as the one before.

As soon as Ivy walked into her classroom, she could tell that something was different. Mrs Smith was stood at the front looing serious and occasionally talking to a woman with a pencil and dark blue notebook. All of Ivy’s class knew that something was going on too as they kept whispering to each other. Everyone sat down quietly in their seats and sat waiting for Mrs Smith to say something. At first there was an awkward silence but then Mrs Smith started talking, “Good morning everyone. I have something important to tell you.” Mrs Smith wasn’t talking in her usual happy tone, so everyone knew this was serious.  “This lady standing next to me is Mrs Khan and she has come to help us.” Ivy could hear Tom whispering to Alfie “Our class doesn’t need help; we are not ill.” 

Ivy thought that Mrs Smith heard Tom as she gave him a stern look. Mrs Smith continued in her serious voice, “I need you to listen very carefully now, we have someone new joining our class.” Mrs Khan looked behind her and from behind a girl came out. Everyone looked at her very closely inspecting her from her feet to her head. “This is Marina.” Mrs Smith said, “She has come from another country and so we all need to be considerate and kind to her.” Ivy looked around the room and everyone was silent. Not a shout. Not a whisper. Nothing. Ivy looked back at Marina, her hair was black and she was wearing the most beautiful red scarf Ivy had ever seen.

It had a silver clasp at the top to tie it together and the red colour looked like a freshly picked cherry sparkling in the sunlight. After a few minutes of total silence Mrs Smith said, “Marina will go to the learning room for now but if she wanted to, she could come and sit in the classroom later.” Mrs Smith gave Mrs Khan a little nod and Mrs Khan took Marina’s hand and went out the door.

Chapter 2

Question

“Ivy and Chloe, can you please hand out the maths books.” said Mrs Smith in her usual tone of voice. Then she started drawing something on the whiteboard in her green pen with a calculation next to it. Ivy got up and handed out the maths books and then sat down again and listened to Mrs Smith. Well not really, all Ivy was thinking about was Marina. Why was she behind Mrs Khan? What did Mrs Khan have to do with it? Why was Marina in England? Soon a thousand questions filled Ivy’s mind and soon enough she was pulled into a land of questions.

Ring! It felt like one second had gone by since Ivy has sat down but it had obviously been longer. The bell rang for break time and everyone was pushing and shoving their way through the crowd of people, to get out to the playground. Ivy stood up quietly and joined the back of the crowd. Ivy still had so many questions and she wanted them to be answered. After a while of waiting, Ivy went into the playground. She went over to Chloe and Eva and they came up with a new game to play. They jumped, skipped and ran as they tried to play a game, but Ivy sat down. Eva and Chloe went to sit next to her when Ivy said, “Marina never smiled, she looked happy though but she just didn’t smile.” Chloe and Eva agreed with her. 

 Then Chloe said, “Maybe she doesn’t like smiling.” “Or maybe she was just scared.” added Eva. Ivy thought about this until the end of break, but she still wasn’t sure what the reason was.

The rest of the day seemed to go by so slowly. Each lesson seemed to go on for hours. Finally, the bell rang for home time. Eva and Chloe went to the park, but Ivy went straight home. She had to think more about this. When Ivy got home, she got a piece of paper and wrote all her questions on it.

Chapter 3

The red scarf

The next day Ivy, Eva or Chloe or any of Ivy’s class saw Marina. On Wednesday no one saw her but on Thursday Marina sat in the classroom. She sat at the back next to a desk full of books about space and Mrs Khan sat next to her. All day Ivy tried to talk to Marina, but she couldn’t. At break time Marina wasn’t outside but she looked out of the learning room window at the playground like a dog that had been left alone from its owners and waiting for them to come back. Ivy went over to the window and smiled at her kindly, but Marina did not smile back. She just sat there looking at Ivy like she was going to say something but she didn’t. 

That is when Ivy noticed. Marina’s eyes looked magical. They were brown and green and had a hint of orange in them all at the same time. Ivy thought that she could see a picture forming in them. Indeed, it did look like Marina’s eyes had a picture in them. It was almost as if her eyes could tell a million different stories. Ivy looked more closely into her eyes and saw them twinkling like she was smiling. Then Ivy had an idea. Maybe Marina told her emotions through her eyes. It made sense. All the time it looked as if Marina was sad and serious, but her eyes always seemed to have something going on inside them. Ivy started smiling to herself and skipped happily back into her classroom.

After school Ivy told Chloe and Eva all about her thoughts. Chloe said, “That all makes sense. It explains almost everything.” Then Eva said quietly, “Everything except the red scarf.” “Yes.” said Ivy as Eva looked surprised that anyone had heard her. “I am going to find out more. I need to. This is such a mystery and every part of the mystery we seem to find makes sense. So surely if we find out more then we will be able to solve the mystery. “explained Ivy. After that Ivy was confident that she could find out more about Marina.

The next day was different. When Ivy got to school it seemed normal but when she went into her classroom that is when she noticed that today was going to be an exciting day.