The Improvement Plan

Three

Hope tried to stop Alex on the way out of class but, in the flood of teens hurrying to leave, she couldn't get close enough to him in the rush. He had managed to navigate out of the classroom without her.

Hope had tried to find Alex everywhere that day. He didn't walk her to her second block, he didn't show up at lunch, and she didn't see him when the final bell rang. She sighed and headed home.

It went like that for days. Alex Dennburg seemed to have disappeared from the planet, except Hope knew he hadn't. When she had walked up to Mr. Wilder's desk to ask for help with her classwork, any form of math wasn't really her thing, she had seen that day's assignment with Alex's name written on the top and next to it a big, red one hundred. He had done the work, he just hadn't come to class.

In chorus, she was tempted to ask Mr. Splinker if he knew where Alex had gone since she could tell they knew each other, but she decided not to. The bell rang and she stood up from her chair to leave. Hope scooped up her bag only to drop it as she smacked hard into someone else. A flash of her smacking into Alex on her first day went through her mind and she looked up eagerly, thinking it was him. To her disappointment, it was not. Just to make it better the contents of her purse dumped everywhere right along with all the loose papers in her binder.

"I'm so sorry," a guy said as he bent down to pick up her things. Hope looked down at the newly created mess before following his example. She looked up as she shoved lips gloss and other girlish things back into her purse to see the guy only inches from her, already looking. His big blue eyes found hers. He smiled. "I'm Jake."

"Hope," she said. "Nice to meet you."

He was a cute boy with reddish-brown hair and a half grin but he wasn't the person she had wanted to see. The late bell rang and Hope silently cursed herself for not rushing faster.

"We should probably get to class," Jake agreed while handing her the now messy looking binder before they went their separate ways.

The rest of the day Hope felt like something was missing, and not just Alex. In fifth block, the last of the day, she reached into her purse to pull out her cell phone. Her mother often had clients and some were not a fan of "children". She didn't feel like hiding in her room while they finished getting their hair done and decided to text her mom that she was going to the little coffee shop a block from the school. She searched through her purse to come up with nothing but a square container of cover-up and a pack of gum. Hope's phone was nowhere to be found. She began to panic. 

She thought about the last time she had seen it, sometime that morning, only to remember spilling everything out of her purse. Sighing, she made her way up the staris and to the back of the school. The hallways were nearly empty and her boots clacked against the floor.

As Hope neared Mr. Splinker's room she could hear the playing of the piano, the one only Mr, Splinker was allowed to touch. She stood outside the door, hidden, and listened as skilled fingers played beautifully. Hope began to wonder why Mr. Splinker didn't play like that in class. A voice began singing and she suddenly knew why Mr. Splinker didn't play like that in class because it wasn't him at all.

She peaked her head in between the small amount of space the person had left the door open. Behind the piano sat a boy with too long of ratty hair and dark clothing that was far too big. And he sang, unlike anything Hope had ever heard.

"crystalline bells and chirping jays

didn't compare to what she had to say

like the sight of the moon at eleven