Anne breaking the slate over Gilbert's head

One September afternoon in the Avonlea schoolroom, Gilbert Blythe, a handsome new pupil with curly brown hair and roguish hazel eyes, reached across the aisle, picked up the end of Anne Shirley's long red braid, held it out at arm's length, and whispered, "Carrots! Carrots!" The taunt struck at Anne's deepest insecurity. She had already confided to Diana Barry that her red hair was her "lifelong sorrow," something she could not imagine away. Now a stranger had weaponized it in front of the whole school. Anne looked at him "with a vengeance." She sprang to her feet, her bright fancies fallen into cureless ruin, and flashed one indignant glance from eyes whose angry sparkle was swiftly quenched in equally angry tears. "You mean, hateful boy!" she exclaimed passionately. "How dare you!" And then—thwack! Anne brought her slate down on Gilbert's head and cracked it—slate not head—clear across. The entire school enjoyed the scene. Everybody said "Oh" in horrified delight. Diana gasped. Ruby Gillis, inclined to be hysterical, began to cry. Tommy Sloane let his team of crickets escape while he stared open-mouthed at the tableau. Mr. Phillips stalked down the aisle and laid his hand heavily on Anne's shoulder. "Anne Shirley, what does this mean?" he said angrily. Anne returned no answer. It was asking too much of flesh and blood to confess before the whole school that she had been called "carrots." Gilbert himself spoke up stoutly: "It was my fault, Mr. Phillips. I teased her." Mr. Phillips paid no heed to Gilbert. In a solemn tone, as if the mere fact of being his pupil ought to root out all evil passions, he sentenced Anne to stand on the platform in front of the blackboard for the rest of the afternoon. Anne would have infinitely preferred a whipping to this punishment, under which her sensitive spirit quivered as from a whiplash. With a white, set face she obeyed. Mr. Phillips took a chalk crayon and wrote on the blackboard above her head: "Ann Shirley has a very bad temper. Ann Shirley must learn to control her temper," and then read it out loud so that even the primer class, who could not read writing, should understand it. Anne stood there the rest of the afternoon with that legend above her. She did not cry or hang her head. Anger was still too hot in her heart for that, and it sustained her amid all her agony of humiliation. With resentful eyes and passion-red cheeks she confronted Diana's sympathetic gaze, Charlie Sloane's indignant nods, and Josie Pye's malicious smiles. As for Gilbert Blythe, she would not even look at him. She would never look at him again! She would never speak to him!! When school was dismissed Anne marched out with her red head held high. Gilbert tried to intercept her at the porch door. "I'm awfully sorry I made fun of your hair, Anne," he whispered contritely. "Honest I am. Don't be mad for keeps, now." Anne swept by disdainfully, without look or sign of hearing. "I shall never forgive Gilbert Blythe," she said firmly to Diana as they went down the road. "And Mr. Phillips spelled my name without an e, too. The iron has entered into my soul, Diana." Diana, who had never heard Gilbert apologize to anyone before, tried to soothe her, but Anne insisted there was a great difference between being called a crow and being called carrots. Gilbert Blythe had hurt her feelings "excruciatingly." The incident did not end there. The following day, when Anne was late returning from the spruce grove at noon, Mr. Phillips, needing a scapegoat, ordered her to sit with Gilbert Blythe as punishment. Anne felt this was "as the end of all things." She sat down beside him and buried her face in her arms on the desk. When Gilbert slipped a little pink candy heart with the motto "You are sweet" under her arm, Anne arose, took the pink heart gingerly between the tips of her fingers, dropped it on the floor, ground it to powder beneath her heel, and resumed her position without deigning to bestow a glance on him. After school she packed up all her belongings and declared she would never return to that man's school. Marilla, after consulting Mrs. Lynde, let her stay home. Anne learned her lessons at home, did her chores, and played with Diana in the chilly purple autumn twilights. When she met Gilbert on the road or encountered him in Sunday school, she passed him by with icy contempt that was no whit thawed by his evident desire to appease her. Even Diana's efforts as a peacemaker were of no avail. Anne had evidently made up her mind to hate Gilbert Blythe to the end of life. Yet the rivalry that began with that broken slate soon transformed into something else. When Anne finally returned to school, she flung herself into her studies heart and soul, determined not to be outdone in any class by Gilbert. The rivalry was entirely good-natured on Gilbert's side, but Anne held her grudge with an unpraiseworthy tenacity. Honors fluctuated between them: now Gilbert was head of the spelling class; now Anne, with a toss of her long red braids, spelled him down. One awful day they were ties and their names were written up together. When the written examinations at the end of each month were held, the suspense was terrible. The first month Gilbert came out three marks ahead. The second Anne beat him by five. But her triumph was marred by the fact that Gilbert congratulated her heartily before the whole school. It would have been ever so much sweeter to her if he had felt the sting of his defeat. The slate incident thus set in motion a pattern of academic competition that would define their school years, a contest that sharpened both their minds and, beneath the surface of enmity, began to forge an unacknowledged bond.