by Jaclyn Weist
3.Suggestive comments will also be censored.
4.State clearly who you are asking. We have more than one student with the same name here. Let’s not get people’s hopes up.
5.State your name clearly. They need to know who is asking them.
6.If you’re answering, please do so respectfully. Any bad language will be censored.
7.No public humiliation. Being told no is already bad enough.
I read through the rules again, making sure I hadn’t forgotten anything. Hopefully Max and Heather would help me tweak anything that didn’t seem right. Now for the harder part. It seemed that coming up with the creative part would be easy, but I wanted to make sure people would be excited enough that they’d want to participate. We’d had enough balloon explosions in hallways, interruptions in class, and embarrassing moments at basketball games to last a lifetime.
After another moment’s thought, I finally started writing it out.
Want to ask that special someone to the Valentine’s Day dance, but want a fun, new way to do it? Here’s your answer! Ask through our paper! That’s right, you can ask your date to the dance in a fun new way without having to worry about doing it in person. Simply email us at _______________ with your poem or question, and we’ll do the asking for you!
Signed,
Cupid
I wasn’t about to sign my own name. Not until we could figure out if this was actually going to work. Unless Mr. Reynolds insisted on it. He wanted us to take credit for our work, but hopefully he’d let me do it this way. We were getting a different email anyway, right?
Mrs. Larsen poked her head around the corner for the bookshelves and smiled. “There you are. The bulletin board looks great.”
“Thank you. I hope you don’t mind I used the rest of the hearts on it.” I ripped out the paper I’d been working on and slipped it into my dream journal.
“What are you working on? I usually don’t see you writing anywhere but in there.” She nodded toward the journal.
I hesitated before pulling it out. “A rough draft for the paper.”
She unfolded the paper and read through it. “This is great. And you got the okay for it?”
“Yeah, he told me I could have a week to see how it goes.” I sighed. “I just don’t know if I’m making a mistake.”
“It always feels that way when you put yourself out there. I think it sounds fun.” She handed back the paper. “Lunch is about to start.”
“Thanks.” I gathered my things and went to the lunchroom. I needed to hurry and eat if I was going to have time to get the email address.
Max was already seated with his girlfriend, Anna, so I grabbed my food and went to sit by him. Heather’s class was on the other side of the school, so it would be another couple of minutes before she got there.
“How was class?” I popped a fry in my mouth and opened my milk.
“It was sciencey. How was library aide? Was that you who did the bulletin board?” Max stole one of my fries.
I grinned. “How’d you guess?”
“A dragon made out of hearts. Wasn’t too hard.” He shook his head. “I just don’t know how you got away with it. Mrs. Larsen would have had anyone else’s head.”
“That’s because they’re not her favorite student.” I turned to Anna. “Are you going to the game with us tonight?”
Anna made a face. “Nope. Max already tried, but I’d rather shave my dog. I’m going to a movie with some friends.”
I blinked. Shave her dog? That was . . . descriptive. I still wasn’t sure what Max saw in her, but I did have to admit she had an awesome way with words. I glanced over at him. “I’ll need to make sure Mom doesn’t have anything to do at home and then I can come and pick you up. Unless you’d rather just meet there?”
“I’ll go with you. Dad needs the car.” Max stole another fry and ducked away from me. “Hey, Mom packed me tofu again. I need sustenance.”
I made a face and pushed my tray toward him. “Just don’t touch my burger.”
Max held his hands up in surrender. “I wouldn’t dare. Until you’re looking away.”
Anna rolled her eyes and stood. “I have other things I need to be doing besides watching you two. See ya, Maxwell.”
“Yeah, Maxwell. She’ll see you later.” I ducked to avoid the fry he threw at me. Anna was the only one I knew who called him that. In fact, I didn’t know that was his name until they started dating.
“You know, it’s a good thing your name isn’t short for anything or I’d tell everyone what it was. Maybe I should call you by your middle name.”
I froze. “You wouldn’t dare.”
He shrugged. “Don’t push me or I will.”
“Fine.” I took a bite of my burger. “Now leave me alone so I can eat. I need to talk to Mr. Reynolds.”
Max took another fry. “I figured we’d go to Heather’s audition together, but I’ll just tell you how it was after.”
I gasped. “That was today? I didn’t even think about it when he told me to come. Let me just get the email address from him and then I’ll meet you.”
“Sounds good.” Max frowned. “Speaking of the audition, shouldn’t Heather be here by now?”
“She should have been here a while ago. Maybe we both missed the audition.” I shoved the rest of my burger in my mouth and followed Max to the garbage, then out of the lunchroom. Mr. Reynolds would have to wait.
Music came from the auditorium as we walked closer. The auditions for the play had already started. Heather was trying out so she could attempt to face her fears, and Max and I wanted to be there for her.
The list was right inside the door, and I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw her name a few lines down from the girl trying out at the time. Max and I found a spot near the middle and sat down.
When it was Heather’s turn, she came out on stage and stood next to the microphone. Her voice shook as she read her lines, but she did way better than she thought she would. Although, she actually thought she’d either vomit or pass out, so anything was better than that.
The song on the other hand . . . Heather froze the moment the music came on. I glanced over at Max and we stood up, acting out the lines. It helped that we knew the words by heart from her practicing constantly. Heather brightened and began singing.
Wild cheers broke out after the song was done. Heather’s face turned red from embarrassment and she fled the stage. Max and I scooted out of the seats to follow her. If anything deserved ice cream from the local shop, facing her fears was it.
“Not so fast you two.” Mrs. Carrington’s voice drifted from behind them.
I turned slowly, hoping she wasn’t talking to us. “Yeah?”
She gestured to the stage. “It’s your turn.”
“But the other people on the list . . .”
Max leaned toward me. “There were no other names on the list.”
“You’re not helping.” I elbowed him and moved up the aisle. “We don’t have anything ready, though. And I have no idea what play you’re even doing.”
Mrs. Carrington beamed. “With how you two were acting, I’d say you have no worries. Max, correct? Max, you take the prince. Alayna, you take the baker’s wife.”
I stared down at the script in my hand. Max and I had gotten into some pretty sticky situations before, but nothing like this. And I had no idea how to get out of it.
The only thing worse than being forced to audition for a play when you were just there to support your friend is actually getting a part. So not only was I starting a new newspaper column, I was also going to perform in Into the Woods for the spring musical.
I was sitting at the basketball game jotting down notes when Max elbowed me. I glared at the long line of ink across my paper and looked over at him. “What?”
“They posted the list.” Max shoved his phone into my face. “What did we just do?”
“What do you mean—no. No. How?” I’d gotten the part I auditioned for, and so had Max.
Heather got a small part, but that was a good thing considering she spent the rest of the school day in the bathroom hiding. Anything bigger than a line or two would have probably made her brain explode.
Max shook his head. “I don’t know. Can we petition or something? Run the other way? Maybe forget how to act. That could work, right?”
I shrugged. “Any of those would be better than sticking with it.” I jumped up and cheered for the three-pointer Brandon shot. When the sound finally died down I turned to Max. “Unless we decide to do it.”
“Wait—what?” Max stared at me. “You actually want to be in the play?”
“Kinda. I mean, it could be fun. The three of us together. Our last hurrah before college.” I could think of so many other things I would rather do, but as we already had parts, this worked. Besides, getting up there on stage was a lot more fun than I’d expected.
It was another moment before Max finally nodded. “Fine. But that better mean food after practice every day.”
“Of course.” I grinned.
“One question, though. Don’t you have to do that column? Won’t it take a lot of time to go through all the emails?”
I blinked. “Right. I hadn’t thought about that. It’ll be fine. The chances of it taking off is pretty slim. There are only a few more weeks and I don’t know that we’ll even get the word out until it’s too late.”
“So, you’re not even going to try?” Max asked, surprised.
“I didn’t say that. I just . . . I know if this column doesn’t work I’ll be pretty upset, so I figured the play would help distract me. And if it does work, well, even better. Besides, they won’t overlap for too long, right?”
“I guess not.” Max shook his head. “We just had to go to the audition today, didn’t we?”
I grinned. “You know it.”
As soon as the game was over, we went down to find Heather so we could tell her the good news. She shoved her pom-poms into her bag, then pulled the ponytail out of her hair. I hid a smile at the hungry looks from several of the guys around her as she shook out her hair. If she had any idea how much they liked her, she’d probably die of embarrassment.
“Hey, good job tonight. You didn’t tell me you could do back handsprings.” I readjusted the strap of my backpack.
“I just learned. It was painful. Landing on your head a few times really gives you a good headache.” She blushed as the team walked past to go to the locker room.
I went to the browser on my phone and pulled up the cast list. “Hopefully this helps your head.”
She scanned through, eyes widening. “I got a part.”
“You did. And uh, so did we.” I bit my lip. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“Are you kidding me? It will be amazing.” She took my phone from me and went through the list again. “This is a great cast. I still can’t believe I got in.”
I sighed. “If you’d stop being so hard on yourself, you’d realize that except for nerves at first, you did a great job with your audition. It’s not surprising.”
Max nudged my arm. “I think you’d better get going. Someone is on a rampage.”
I looked toward where he nodded and groaned. Ellie was pushing her way through to us, not caring who was between us. “Um, yeah. Let’s go. Milkshakes anyone?”
We left the gym and walked out into the crisp winter air. I pulled the keys out of my bag and went straight for my car. We were out of the parking lot before Ellie had time to catch up. I hoped she was still upset about the game report and not the next project. Because if she knew about it, I could almost guarantee she was going to try to steal it. Which meant I needed to get it out soon and go big.
“Hey, guys? What if we made a trip to the library before milkshakes?”
Heather looked up from her phone. “Uh, why?”
“I want to make copies. Lots of copies.” I turned toward the center of town. “Could you send out a group text? I need help getting them posted all over the school before it starts in the morning.”
Max whooped from the back. “There’s the Alayna I know. I really hoped you weren’t going to just let the column slide.”
“I already told you I planned to keep it going. I just figured I’d move things along a little faster.”
“Good idea.” Heather held up her phone. “Ellie posted in the cheerleader chat saying you were up to something and she wanted to know what. It’s better to get it out there sooner rather than later. And really, I think she just helped your cause.”
I hoped she was right. The library would close soon, so we had to move fast. I wrote down the basics, then handed it over to Heather to decorate while Max made the online form so we could get the link for the ad. Once that was done, we picked the brightest colors of paper and made several copies in each one.
“Okay, I think we’re ready.” I straightened the pages and went up to the front to pay. “You got the texts out?”
“Yep. They’re meeting us at the school in . . .” Heather checked her watch. “About ten minutes.”
Ready or not, it was time to start what I’d planned.
The alarm went off way too early the next morning. I groaned and rolled over. Maybe pinning up a hundred flyers throughout the school until one in the morning wasn’t a good idea. I pushed out of bed and changed, then rushed downstairs to grab some toast.
“Morning, sweetie.” Mom kissed my cheek and handed me a plate. “Good luck today.”
“Thanks.” I left the house and set my plate on the passenger seat. There was enough toast for Max and me since I’d be picking him up and Mom knew he never gave himself time to eat before having to leave.
Dreams from the night before ran through my head, screaming at me to get them out onto paper. I wasn’t sure I would have time before school started, but I’d try. I hadn’t attempted to write a book about pirates before, but apparently that’s the direction my brain wanted me to go. I wasn’t sure how that would relate to the romance I was writing, though . . .
Max pulled open the car door as soon as I arrived, and I barely had time to save our toast from being sat on. “Dude. Have you seen the messages this morning?”
“No, I barely got out of bed. What messages are you talking about?” I pulled back onto the road and took one of the pieces of toast.
“Our flyers. They’re everywhere on social media.” Max grinned and tried to show me a picture on his phone.
I pulled over, grimacing at the honks from whoever was behind me. “What do you mean? School hasn’t even started.”
He held out his phone. “That doesn’t matter. There are a few teams who meet before school and must have sent it off to everyone else. Have you checked your email yet?”
“Again, I just got out of bed. I’ll check when I get to class.” I drove the rest of the way to school, thoughts of what was going on finally pushing the pirates out of my head. Sorry, pirates. That story would have to wait.
Max waved and rushed off to his class, toast hanging out of his mouth. I took the last piece, grabbed my bag, and headed for English.
Mrs. Morris droned on and on about the great poets of modern history while I went between jotting down notes and staring at my phone. I really wanted to see what Max was talking about, but phones were forbidden in this class. Yes, forbidden. As in, we’d get it taken away for the rest of the term if she caught us with it.
Not that I usually minded. We weren’t there to listen to music, right? And English was one of my favorite subjects. Most of the time. But right then I just needed my phone. The moment the bell rang, I was out of the class and practically running down the hallway to the newspaper office. Technically this wasn’t a class, but Mr. Reynolds had wrangled the principal into calling us all teacher aides so we could have the time to work on our articles.
I pulled my chair up next to one of the computers and typed in the email and password Mr. Reynolds had given me the day before.
Thirty-nine emails sat there waiting for me. Thirty-nine. And from the t
ime stamp on them, they’d been coming in since about seven that morning. Each of them was written to Cupid, and while it was clear a few of them were a joke (asking the mascot or one of the teachers to the dance), most were pretty fun poems or clever puns.
This was going to be awesome. I opened up a document and copied and pasted the legit questions into it, then replied back to each of the emails with a generic message about how they’ll be posted in the paper at the end of the week. I signed them as Cupid, figuring that would be more fun than signing my own name.
There were several typos in some of the posts, so I fixed those, making sure that I didn’t mess up any puns or poetry in the process. Once I had the formatting how I liked it, I added the image of the flyer so that those who wanted to ask next week would have the chance. I submitted that to Mr. Reynolds and the newspaper formatters, then leaned back in my chair with a smile. Twenty-seven girls would be asked to the dance by the end of the week. Not bad for a day’s work.
There were only a few minutes left in class, so I quickly made a spreadsheet of who asked who so I could add answers to the questions if they were sent to me later, then closed it so I could write up the basketball game.
It was a good thing Max had gone with me the night before because there were a few things he’d caught that I missed. I added a few pictures that our photographers took, and then submitted that as well.
On my way to PE, Heather grabbed my arm and dragged me the other way.
“We’re in theater, remember?” She looked slightly more terrified than excited.
“Right.” I’d forgotten they’d change our class so we could rehearse. I didn’t like PE anyway, so this was perfect.
Singing and laughter echoed through the auditorium as we walked inside. Students leaned against chairs talking to each other or danced around on stage. Max sat in one of the chairs playing on his phone when we got to him.
He grinned. “There you are. I was just about to text you.”
“Alayna was planning to run laps instead of coming to class.” Heather dropped into the seat next to Max. “I still can’t believe you two got into the play.”
