The pen hit her lip as she tried to focus on everything and anything. For some reason, whatever creativity September had possessed had completely left her. Of course, when she needed it the most, it was gone. Sighing, she shut the black composition book she used for her creative writing class and slipped it into her bag. Her eyes roamed the book shelves that surrounded her. Everything stood still in the empty library; the only noise being the chair moving as she stood from her table.
Similarly to the library, the hallways were vacant of students as sh walked to her locker. The only sign of life in the high school was the echo of voices coming from the cafeteria. She honestly hated the cafeteria. Everyone was so cliquey with who they sat by or where they sat. On her very first day, she experienced the judgy looks while trying to find a place to sit. Since then, she decided that the empty tables of the school library were a safer bet.
At her old school, September always sat with her two best friends wherever they wanted to sit that day. Sometimes she sat with the people in her English class or the girls from the soccer team. There were no restrictions as to where or who she wanted to sit with. Sure, it didn't help that she had moved here in the middle of the semester, but she didn't understand how that could affect the way people treated her. In the cafeteria, it felt like there was assigned seating. Cliques sat together and if you weren't like them, they didn't want you around.
Instead of trying to push her way in, she got the hint.
Twisting the lock of her locker, the purple metal door swung open. September set her bag onto the floor. As she crouched besides the bag, she pulled out the books she used for her first three classes. She shoved them onto the top shelf of her locker before reaching for the other books she would need for the rest of the day. Placing the two textbooks and three notebooks she would need in her bag, she shut her locker door and moved the lock so the line aligned with the small white zero. September swung her bag over her shoulder just as the bell rung above her head.
The cafeteria doors swung open as well as the classroom doors that were around her. As students began to fill the hallway, September weaved between them on her way to her fourth period, European History.
She entered the classroom as quietly as possible. Luckily enough, she wasn't the first student to arrive. As she took her seat in the back corner of the classroom, she set her bag on the floor and pulled out the textbook for the class. September stared at the cover of the history book. It wasn't that she hated history or didn't understand it's importance. She found a few things interesting, like Ancient Greece and the Medieval age, and knew that it was important to understand the problems and solutions of the previous time. Just something about listening to her teacher's monotone voice drone on about the first World War didn't appeal to her.
As the final bell rang, signaling the beginning of the period, her teacher Mr. Thompson stood from his desk. September's brown eyes followed him as he began to pass out the worksheet of the guided notes for that day. Mr. Thompson stood at the front of the classroom and began his lecture for the day. His thick accent made the girl yawn. As she filled in one of the blank words, she rested her head in her left hand. Not thinking much of it, she began to doodle in the empty space on the page.
In a matter of minutes, the empty space was filled with the aimless doodles. Reaching down in her bag, September searched for the pack of sticky notes she kept in the front pocket. She pulled out the stack of bright orange sticky notes. As she began to draw a bunch of cartoon clouds, her eyes wandered away from her sticky note to the wooden desk.
She had never understood why people wrote on the desks. They were, after all, school property, but she did understand the boredom that caused them. She noticed that at the top corner of the desk there was the word 'hello' etched into the surface. Obviously, no one had replied to the greeting yet, but she wondered if anyone would.
She stared at the carved word for a few more seconds. Part of her wanted to respond, to see if someone had written it recently, but she didn't feel comfortable writing on the desk. She shifted her gaze back to the stack of sticky notes. She could leave a note on the sticky note, but what if Mr. Thompson found it? September didn't want him to find it. Sure, it wasn't going to be anything inappropriate, but it would be embarrassing.
September shifted her legs under her desk. As her knee brushed against the bottom of her desk, the idea hit her. She could put the sticky note under the desk. If someone found it, they found it. If they didn't, then that would save her the embarrassment of anyone knowing what she did.
Peeling the sticky note covered in clouds off the top of the stack, the girl scribble a short note to a stranger.
Hi, to whoever finds this, I sit at this desk during fourth block. Is your class just as boring as mine or do you actually enjoy history?
~ September Adams
Signing her name at the end of the note, she peeled the bright orange paper from the stack and pressed it to the bottom of her desk.
