Elise Gilmore
I fumbled with the lock on my locker, hot tears welling up in my eyes. How embarrassing that this combination still troubled me months into my freshman year.
The bell rang. Ugh. Late again. This was nothing like middle school. With a final jerk, the door swung open. The miniature disco ball taped to the top glittered, tossing light onto the wide-leg jeans and Beatles tee I wore for Decade Day. As I removed my biology textbook, a small slip of paper floated lazily to the ground.
I tucked an unruly curl under my flower headband and glanced up and down the hall before stooping to pick it up. The torn notebook paper contained a short poem handwritten in cursive script.
“Lucy–Iron is red. Octopus blood is blue. Experiments are cool, and I like you,” I read aloud to the empty hallway. My face warmed as I scoured the piece of paper for a signature. No luck.
Who wrote this?
A second bell reminded me I was supposed to be sitting in Biology 101. I folded the note and tucked it in my back pocket for safekeeping. I’d show it to my best friend Lainey after class. Maybe together we could figure out the identity of my secret admirer.
I raced down the hallway and slid through the door right as the third bell rang. Mr. Watson, dressed as Einstein today, raised his bushy eyebrows at me, but didn’t say a word as I slipped into the desk beside my other best friend, Leo.
“Cuttin’ it close, Lucy,” he whispered in my ear.
My face grew hot again as his breath tickled my neck. Why can’t my skin stay at its normal temperature today?
I pinched the blue sweatband he wore around his head, and let it go. As it snapped back into place, I stuck my tongue out at him, hoping to cover up the nervousness I felt written all over my face. Then I turned my attention to the board. I attempted to focus as my teacher explained how plants convert something into something else during photosynthesis. But nothing stuck. All I could think about was the note.
As soon as the bell rang at the end of class, I zoomed out, throwing a wave over my shoulder to Leo. I definitely couldn’t discuss a mystery poem or a secret admirer with him. That would be weird. Especially since his eighties-era basketball shorts were showing off a little too much of his well-toned thighs for me to think clearly. Since when did I notice the length of my best friend’s shorts? Confused, I made a beeline for Lainey’s locker.
“Do you think it could be from someone in your biology class?” she asked, her crimped side-pony bouncing in its purple scrunchie. “You said it fell out of that textbook, right?”
Why hadn’t that thought occurred to me earlier? “So, how do I figure out who it is?”
“Could it be your lab partner?” Lainey asked.
“My lab partner’s Leo.” Once again, my face felt hot. Maybe because I hadn’t told her that butterflies fluttered about in my stomach whenever he smiled at me.
Her face screwed into an unnecessary pucker. “Ok, next idea. Is there something from class you could compare the handwriting to? Maybe a sign-up sheet?”
I mentally retraced the last few weeks of school. “Yes! Mr. Watson had us sign up for frog dissection groups. I think he posted the sheet on the bulletin board so we could see who we were working with.”
“Maybe one of the names will have similar handwriting to the note,” she suggested.
The bell rang, warning us to get to our classes.
“Keep me posted!” Lainey called after me as I rushed to Study Hall.
For the whole block, I tried to cram for tomorrow’s math quiz, but I kept imagining what the poem would sound like if Leo were reciting it. As his voice filled my mind, my pen began moving over the blank page in front of me. All I had completed when the final bell rang was a doodle of a mad scientist experimenting with bubbling test tubes. So much for studying. I shot to my feet, quickly stuffing my books in my backpack before high-tailing it to Mr. Watson’s classroom.
“I just wanted to check who was in my dissection group again.”
Mr. Watson looked up from the quizzes he was grading and gave a slight nod. Quietly, I retrieved the note and began comparing the handwriting to the names on the sheet. After a few minutes, I had ruled out everyone except the students in my group. There were only two boys. I looked at the first one’s writing.
“Jerry…” I held the note up beside his chicken scratch. “No.” That left one name: Leo Murphy.
My eyes flitted back and forth between the letters in my best friend’s signature and the letters in the note. I felt a wave of dizziness as I realized they were a perfect match. I checked again, worried my Study Hall daydreams had clouded my ability to think clearly. Nope. The note was definitely from him.
The classroom door clicked as someone else entered. I turned around, poem in hand, to find Leo grinning at me. He glanced down at the note in my hand and his smile faltered for a moment. Then he stepped forward and linked his pinky with mine. My cheeks burned.
But this time, my flushed face didn’t make me nervous. Instead, excitement rushed through me. I inched closer, enjoying the warmth of his hand. Leo and I had been best friends since sixth grade, but now I could clearly see things had changed for both of us.
“Need more clues, Sherlock?” he asked, gaze locked on mine.
I shook my head, then planted a kiss on the tip of his nose. “Mystery solved.”
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