Passing Notes Read Online Free PDF Page B

and learn.
    “Who are you?”
    The lunch bell rang, and my time was up. My
ghost friend seemed to understand this and went silent.
    Mail? He had to be kidding. Bethany had
contacted me , checked on me . This meant she still
cared about me. I had to strike while that iron was hot, as my
Grandma used to say. My ghost friend was wrong.
     

 
    5
     
    My work schedule started an hour later that
day, so I hung out in the locker room after 5 th period
to work on the letter some more. I finally got out some words that
I thought seemed earnest, and then I pulled out a sheet of Jill’s
art paper and copied it, trying hard to be neat. Nothing about that
letter was attractive by the time I was done. I had written with a
ballpoint pen, in print, with no lines to guide me, using the bench
of the locker room as a writing surface. The whole thing slanted to
the right. It looked terrible. I wadded it up and threw it out. I
tried again, but it wasn’t any better. Neither were the next three
tries.
    Now I’d wasted all of my good paper, and any
moment the bell chime would signal the release the poor saps that
had a 6 th period. Bethany would go to her locker for the
last time of the day, and my note wouldn’t be there. Gritting my
teeth, I considered sending the last note anyway. Who said it had
to be perfect? Instead of tearing that one up, I folded it neatly
in thirds. I put my pen to the back and drew a heart. But when I
began to write Bethany’s name inside it, the letters refused to
cooperate. My R showed up as an S. My e became a t. This continued
until the word Stop appeared inside the heart.
    “Leave me alone!” I said out loud, glad the
locker room was empty.
    No.
    “What do you want from me?”
    Nothing. I want you to be happy.
    “This is not making me happy. You are
completely stressing me out.”
    Your girl is wonderful. She makes you
happy.
    My shoulders fell and the anger fled. “I’ve
been in love with her since 7 th grade. I never thought
she’d give me a chance.”
    And now she has.
    “Yes.”
    She’s going to college. You’re going to
war.
    “That’s true,” I said. I guess I knew that
was in our future, but I hadn’t really allowed myself to think
about it yet.
    She knows. She will pull away. You have to
win her with a deep, true love if you want her to be yours when the
years have passed and you can be together again.
    “I don’t think she cares for me that way,” I
said. “We’ve only had one real date.”
    She will care for you if you do this
right.
    “Okay,” I sighed. “A good letter with the
right words, on stationery, in the real mail...”
    Written in cursive.
    “Ugh. Really?”
    Really. But not now. Go to work. Care for
your grandmother. Write it when you are ready to do it with all the
love your heart can bear to share with her.
    As the words reached the end of that sentence
they began to fade, as though the invisible marker was running out
of ink.
    “Are you there?”
    Fading. Not much time left.
     

 
    6
     
    I had every intention of following the
ghost’s advice. I folded up my letter and stuck it in the side
pocket of my backpack. I gathered up my belongings and headed out
of the locker room. I was parked on the other side of campus, so I
weaved my way through the hallway to get to the exit doors. A
friend of mine, Stephan, bumped into me and asked where I’d been at
lunch. I was surprised he’d looked up long enough from his game to
notice I was missing.
    “Were you with Bethany?”
    “How did you know about Bethany?” I asked
him. Stephan was hardly in the middle of the school gossip.
Sometimes I was surprised he even knew the names of his teachers or
had the vaguest idea who was in his classes with him.
    Stephan wiggled his shaggy eyebrows at me.
“Everyone knows. You’re the talk of the school today. About fifty
people came up to our table to ask about you at lunch.”
    Ah, that’s why he noticed I wasn’t there.
    “Fifty?”
    “That might be an exaggeration, but