The Girl Who Cried Wolf.

S

Flick.

The red pen twirls over her thumb as she mulls over how to start writing.

Dear diary.

"Nope, that stinks." The obsidian-haired girl crosses out the ugly scrawl and plants her chin in her palm.

Someone snickers behind her. "More like her cooch stinks."

The pen thumps to the table.

Rolling her eyes and popping her gum, the girl twirls in her seat to face holy 1, 2, and 3.

These higher-than-Jesus croons give her a rash faster than her ex did in seventh grade.

She cocks her head and chews her gum in the most ratchety way possible: mouth open, tongue swirling, and legs spread in front of them.

They cringe, scrunching their noses.

"Want to sample?" She smirks, ignoring the boys stretching their heads to sneak a peek under her short skirt.

When the girls stay silent, she snorts. "Thought so."

Something catches her attention just as she turns back to her paper.

The teacher is watching from the front of the class, and a small smile hints on his lips.

She answers by looking back at the blank sheet in front of her.

Write a secret you'd never tell anyone. That is the class hour-and-a-half assignment.

Well, an hour now.

She could leave it anonymous or sign it.

Whatever.

She taps on the sheet till a net of blue ink spreads, then turns it over.

A thought crosses her mind, and she readies her pen. No one would believe the skank of the school wrote it anyway.

Carefully, she tilts the pen and allows the tip to move across the page.

The words she never allows to cross the border of her lips or the door of her dark bedroom melt onto the paper.

The pen moves and moves and moves, almost as if it has a life on its own, dragging her hand along.

She watches, fascinated and scared, as emotions she's kept under perfect control bleed out in front of her, and she realizes with horror she couldn't stop herself even if she tried.

Just as the words beneath the ink get darker and heavier, a bell blares to signal the end of the class.

She snatches her hand off the bewitching sheet and digs into her bag. She can't submit this paper.

It's too open.

Too private.

Before she can pull out a new sheet to scribble nonsense on and rip the inked one in two, the class rep snatches it up and adds it to the heaping pile in the crook of her arm.

She whips past her and collects the rest before the dark-haired girl can argue for her paper back.

Her foot bounces under the table. If she goes for it now, her paper will be on top, and everyone will know she wrote it.

It was fine; at least she remembered not to write her name.

"All right, class," the teacher claps to draw the attention of those packing, "your papers will be reviewed, and the best will be posted up on the notice board."

"Lmao," someone says behind her, "the hell are we? Kids?"

She has to agree with that.

"And," the teacher goes on as people get to their feet, "if your paper makes it to the board, you get an automatic A for a subject of your choosing."