Having been cheated on by her boyfriend over summer, 17-year old Mae returns to school for the new term, determined to not be known as 'the loser who got dumped on her birthday'.
Mae's aim, to be the one who bags Elijah Walker, whose extreme hotnes...
By the time the bell rang releasing everyone from class for the day, I was super hyped up to check out the latest scandalous graffiti found in school. In the hopes of avoiding explaining where I was going or what I was doing to any of my friends or classmates, I snuck across school in the sneakiest way I could. Ducking into empty classrooms, peeking out behind lockers, and tiptoeing down empty hallways all whilst humming the mission impossible theme tune to myself.
My mouth curled into a smile as I rested my hand on my chest, catching my breath from my final sprint to the stairs near the auditorium. That had been a close one, Dex, Jason and some of his other teammates were heading down the same hall as me, but I'd managed a quick burst of energy to outdo their slow meandering pace. They weren't paying much attention, too keen to get out of their and off to some arcade place or something to that effect.
Crouching in the space beneath the stairs, I placed my hand on the wall to steady myself. I'd found what I'd come here for, making the ninjary behaviour worth it, even if I'd gotten a few sly looks on my way here. There were words written in pen near the base of the wall. Not slanderous ones, but meaningful words, like a stream of someone's consciousness.
Loud enough to silence my thoughts.
Broad enough to cast me in shadow.
Who am I if not a student model clone?
Mimed and masked.
I sat back on my heels, leaning my cheek on my fist and my elbow on my knee. This time it was more than a single line. It felt personal, like I was reading somebodies diary. Either that or it was a riddle of some kind. Perhaps.
If this was Elijah's writing, and I was only around thirty percent sure it was, then I wondered what it was he was really trying to say. Especially as this was the second on. At least I thought it was the second one. Maybe there were others, hidden all over the school.
Taking out a notepad from my bag, I quickly scribbled down the words so that I could look at them again later. I recalled the sentence I found behind the locker rooms and wrote that down too, before standing and making my way back across the school to my locker deep in thought.
When I put in my locker code and threw open the door a folded bit of paper flew out and fluttered to the floor. I frowned at it as though it was a lethal weapon on verge of self-destruction. It may well have been but was also more likely another love note, left for Elijah and put in my locker by mistake.
I bent to swipe it from the floor, turning the small piece of folded paper in my hands cautiously as I straightened. This time there was no pretty envelope swathed in perfume, it was just an ordinary nondescript bit of paper probably torn from a worksheet. As much as I didn't want to read a love letter written for Elijah, I didn't want to just assume and make myself look silly if I was wrong.
With a sigh I unfolded the paper and scanned the writing drawn there in perfect pencil marks. The letters swirled in all the right places, like it was an important invitation to a fancy Prince's ball and not just scrap with only four words written on it.
Mae, you're in! Elijah.
For a long devilish moment, I was thrown. In what exactly? In trouble? In mortal danger? In for a wild ride? In a gadda da vida?
I flipped the paper over. There was nothing on the back. I read it again, trying to decipher its hidden meaning. The second time I read the note my heart skipped a beat.
It was a note from Elijah, for me. It wasn't a love note, but it was just as good. He wrote my name. My name! He said Mae. I wasn't just his Locker Buddy because now he knew my name. Well I assumed it was now, and that he hadn't known it before. It wasn't like I was going to ask him.
On reflection, he also knew the name of the girl he rejected, but that wasn't going to stop my inflated sense of glee.
I all but ripped Mae's steps to dating Elijah Walker out of my bag and went to Step Number One, putting a tick next to the line 'Tell Elijah my name'. Step One was complete; my plan was really starting to get somewhere. I did a little happy dance on the spot and then closed my locker and turned to see Toby, standing just a few feet away, frozen in place with a look of alarm plastered across his face.
"Erm," I mumbled, feeling my face beginning to flush. "We're having pizza for dinner tonight. I love pizza," I said in way of explanation before quickly making my getaway.
**Author's Note**
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OMG Sensei noticed me! Mae got caught out a second time by Toby, I swear that boy is always in the wrong place at the wrong time. Awkward!
