Young Writers Society

Hettie Marie Thea Griffinths, more commonly known as just plain Hettie, didn't just live a normal life like the other schoolgirls in her town. Her mother, Lilia Griffinths, also wasn't typical. Hettie's father, Evan Brown, on the other hand, was perfectly normal and boring. Their daughter took her mother's maiden name for obvious reasons: it was normal.

 Hettie refused to associate with anything that wasn't interesting, hence the reason she didn't have any friends. All the schoolgirls at the Haven boarding school dressed neatly in their black and white plaid skirts, and their crisp white collared shirts, only adding a faded tan sweater during the summer months. To add to the eccentric uniforms, the girls had to wear strictly white knee-high stockings and their little black dress shoes and none of the students would ever dare wear anything else in case of the risk of a harsh rapping of the knuckles by the headmistress. However, Miss Hettie Griffinths didn't care about getting red and swollen knuckles every few weeks. For she always had with her uniform, a bright red sweater instead of the faded tan one, and her large messy curls she let flow all over her lengthy shoulders without the required up-do, which so happened to include a black hair scrunchie to keep it out of her face.

 Wild indeed she was, with her flowing curls and piercing green eyes as well as her enhanced outfit. Hettie's brown leather satchel almost never had her textbooks in it as much as the large mysterious books her mother gave her. She loved to read fantasy books and ruthless graphic ones at that, but her father always threatened to take them away if she didn't at least read her school work occasionally. 

Smart, yet rebellious was Miss Griffinths, and her father didn't try to tame her spirit, just maintain some respect on his account. Mr. Brown always wondered why he married Lilia. They were nothing alike in the least, seeing as he was your typical perfect British gentleman and she was a wild gypsy with a free spirit from Spain that certainly had no place in a quiet English town with a gentleman who had not one bit of wildness in his person. But ah love is a curious thing and sometimes the opposites in life come together and make a beautiful image. Hettie Marie Thea never had one spot of her father in her at that, and it's a wonder that she even could be controlled. 

She was smart and sly as well as wild and respected her father a great deal in a certain sense even though she had nothing in common with him. Her mother as well had that same respect for Mr. Brown just as much as he respected his wife and daughter's wild spirit. A loving family they were. Joy and laughter ran through their home every day with such beautiful glee in their voices that often the other middle-class neighbors wondered how it could be that such a difference in the family from each other could still produce such a lovely home! The truth was that respect and perseverance of their beliefs for each other made their happy little home the only happy home in Cornwell Haven for 15 years.

Around 15 years ago in the Midlands of eastern England, in a little town called Brightbury, a little baby was born. Lilia and Evan gave the little baby such a wonderful first few months in the town and often took her to see the countryside and nature around them. But a time came when, in order for Evan to keep his job, he needed to move to another town called Cornwell Haven to continue his job as an internal clerk for a famous professor. Reluctantly the family left their home that little Hettie lived in for only a short period of a few months and moved to Cornwell Haven into a beautiful house. 

Society around them was strict in their ways, which forced Lilia and Evan to get married. So they hired a legal personage to legally marry them, but the details of their little wedding have never been enclosed to any person including their daughter. Mystery surrounded the first few years of the Griffinths life in the town for they never went to social events, never made friends, and never told anyone about their past life. Private indeed they were and intended to keep it that way for the time being.  Hettie Marie Thea Griffinths was enrolled in the local boarding school for girls once she reached the age where the normal British children were put into school, but never before that had she been to a school let alone even a playground with other children. 

She was raised wildly, but yet elegantly, so she did have some social standard of manners and polite encounters but never enjoyed one moment of it. Oakfern, the name Lilia gave their quaint home, had neighbors, but the mysterious family never met with them or even invited the surrounding families to join them for an afternoon tea or a garden lunch. Hettie did often notice a boy around her age peeking over the fence that guarded Oakfern against his rich and powerful mansion, but she never paid any heed to it and not once did she say hello or good afternoon to the boy. But every afternoon, after school or during the summer months he would observe her happy family and wished that his home could be joyful like theirs and that maybe someone could love him just as much as Hettie's parents did love their daughter. "No, I couldn't even wish for something as beautiful as that" He often told himself. For his family was the complete and utter opposite of the Griffinths, and not one miracle could ever change that.