Bright River Station, the Charlottetown Train, then the Causeway (Monday Morning, Fandom Time)
The day had finally come for Anne to go to town, and so it was after tearful partings with Diana and Marilla (though decidedly untearful and practical on the part of the latter) that she let Matthew help her up into the buggy and drive down to Bright River Station, there to catch the train to Charlottetown, and Queen's Academy.
She was not the only Avonlea scholar to be making the momentous journey that day; Jane Andrews, Ruby Gillis, Josie Pye, Charlie Sloane, Moody Spurgeon MacPherson, and of course her chief rival Gilbert Blythe were soon gathered on the platform with her. Today was, as Anne was wont to say, an epoch in her life, and one that she felt must needs be approached with all the pomp and solemnity due such an occasion. But Josie being a Pye, with all the attributes thereof, preferred to assuage any apprehension she felt by means of chattering gossip with Jane and Ruby about the Queen's boys. Anne turned up her nose at them and marched to the opposite end of the platform -- past Gilbert, who looked as determined as she herself felt -- there to reflect on her upcoming odyssey.
But it is hard for fifteen years old to approach such an "epoch in one's life" without some quailing of the spirit, after all, particularly when one is on a train speeding inevitably toward one's destination. Anne, who had elected to sit alone in a corner of the railcar, promptly found herself in need of comfort and fell back on the old friend that had never failed her: her imagination.
So lost was she in spinning a fantastic tale of arriving not in Charlottetown, but on an island with its own castle, that she scarcely noticed when her surroundings changed, nor did she notice, as she stepped off the train, that none of her classmates -- indeed, no one at all -- had disembarked with her. Anne stood at the end of a causeway, her luggage in hand, staring at the island in the near distance.
"Why," she said to herself breathlessly, "why, it's exactly as I imagined it would be! Oh, I've never had anything I imagined come quite this completely true before, and certainly not right away! I've always dreamed of such an opportunity! Carpe diem, I suppose -- oh, how I wish Diana were here with me."
With a wistful little sigh at that final sentiment, Anne took off at as much of a run as she dared, and as she could manage burdened with her bags, down the causeway and toward what was for her, quite literally, a dream come true.
[OOC and ETA: So I forgot to paste this bit out of my original document file. *facepalm* Anyway, the first paragraph is adapted and paraphrased from chapter 34 of Anne of Green Gables. The rest . . . well, that part's not in the book. *g*]
She was not the only Avonlea scholar to be making the momentous journey that day; Jane Andrews, Ruby Gillis, Josie Pye, Charlie Sloane, Moody Spurgeon MacPherson, and of course her chief rival Gilbert Blythe were soon gathered on the platform with her. Today was, as Anne was wont to say, an epoch in her life, and one that she felt must needs be approached with all the pomp and solemnity due such an occasion. But Josie being a Pye, with all the attributes thereof, preferred to assuage any apprehension she felt by means of chattering gossip with Jane and Ruby about the Queen's boys. Anne turned up her nose at them and marched to the opposite end of the platform -- past Gilbert, who looked as determined as she herself felt -- there to reflect on her upcoming odyssey.
But it is hard for fifteen years old to approach such an "epoch in one's life" without some quailing of the spirit, after all, particularly when one is on a train speeding inevitably toward one's destination. Anne, who had elected to sit alone in a corner of the railcar, promptly found herself in need of comfort and fell back on the old friend that had never failed her: her imagination.
So lost was she in spinning a fantastic tale of arriving not in Charlottetown, but on an island with its own castle, that she scarcely noticed when her surroundings changed, nor did she notice, as she stepped off the train, that none of her classmates -- indeed, no one at all -- had disembarked with her. Anne stood at the end of a causeway, her luggage in hand, staring at the island in the near distance.
"Why," she said to herself breathlessly, "why, it's exactly as I imagined it would be! Oh, I've never had anything I imagined come quite this completely true before, and certainly not right away! I've always dreamed of such an opportunity! Carpe diem, I suppose -- oh, how I wish Diana were here with me."
With a wistful little sigh at that final sentiment, Anne took off at as much of a run as she dared, and as she could manage burdened with her bags, down the causeway and toward what was for her, quite literally, a dream come true.
[OOC and ETA: So I forgot to paste this bit out of my original document file. *facepalm* Anyway, the first paragraph is adapted and paraphrased from chapter 34 of Anne of Green Gables. The rest . . . well, that part's not in the book. *g*]