Passing Notes Read Online Free PDF Page A

Sure is very, very unsure. It’s a waffle. It’s
the weak, wimpy kid brother to “I guess so”. It is the kind of
affirmation that makes you feel like your request is an obligation.
What could I do?
    I typed quickly, my heart pounding in my
chest and my fries from earlier scorching the back of my
throat.
    I really did think you looked beautiful
today. You always do. I’m sorry if I texted something that upset
you. From my heart, believe me, you are gorgeous in every way from
your looks to your brain and your heart. In fact, it’s the
brilliance and sweetness that are what make you so stunning. I’ve
never met anyone like you, and I hope you’ll give me a chance to
show you how much I adore you.
    The words poured out of me. I’d never written
or said anything like that before.
    For an hour I sat and stared at my computer
screen, waiting for some kind of reply. Midnight came and went, and
nothing happened except that the wall filled up with questions and
comments from her friends about my post. All of them tore it to
shreds like I was some weird stalker trying to inflict mental
anguish on my girlfriend. A handful asked who I even was.
    I hoped the reason she wasn’t responding was
because she actually was doing homework or had gone to bed. Only,
I’d posted this right on her wall where all 382 of her friends were
clearly reading it too. Surely one of them had called her to ask,
“Did you see what that Mark guy wrote?”
    Why didn’t she respond?
    I finally shut down my computer and slipped
into bed, wondering as I began to doze off if I’d get another note
from the ghost writer in the morning telling me what I’d done wrong
this time.
    Ghost writer. Yeah. That made perfect sense.
Instead of throwing books around, slamming classroom doors, and
screeching through hallways, this ghost chose to haunt the high
school by teaching random kids how to write better love
letters.
    Even though there was nothing remotely scary
or believable about that concept, I wound up not sleeping a whole
lot that night.
     

 
    4
     
    I got to British Lit early the next day and
poked all around the boxes on the desk for more yellow scraps of
paper. Nothing turned up. I finally gave up the search when Mrs.
Hollstein and some of the students arrived. I’m not sure if I felt
disappointed or dejected that I hadn’t heard from the stalker/ghost
person. Relieved would have made the most sense. Glad that it
really was just a coincidence and not something personal, would
have been another way to look at it. Instead, I felt this strange
sense of desperation. I think I was really hoping this “person”
would help me understand why Bethany continued to ignore me.
    I rubbed my eyes and shook some sleep out of
my head, then tried to focus on Mrs. Hollstein’s lecture about
vocabulary lists being done in good penmanship and not on the
computer.
    “I don’t want you to cut and paste from some
website. Write the definitions legibly and you will learn better.
And it wouldn’t hurt to do it in cursive, to make it look like you
care.”
    I copied the word list off the board. Then,
just for laughs, I wrote them all again in cursive like she told us
to. Well, as much cursive as I could remember. Flipping the paper
over to write on the other side, I discovered it had already been
written on. But not by me. By my ghostly companion.
    Yes. I was sure now. It had to be some kind
of ghost or spirit. That paper hadn’t left my hand since I tore it
out of my notebook, and it had been blank on both sides at that
point. I was pretty sure of that. I would have noticed several
sentences written in cursive, in black ink, wouldn’t I?
    It’s stupid, but I actually felt my eyes
widen as I took in a long breath through my nose in alarm. I looked
around warily, wondering where the ghost might be. Was he nearby,
watching me?
    Then I read the note.
    A true love letter is shared only with your
lover. Only she needs to hear what your heart has to say. Hold
hands in