Dear Mike,
Keith’s hair smelled like chemically preserved mangoes—not the fruit itself, but the artificial flavoring in those discount popsicles that leave your tongue awkwardly sticky. It was 9:17 AM, third-period English, and Zoey’s pencil snapped against her notebook when I saw Harper, two rows ahead, slump lower in her seat, fingers digging into the straps of her backpack like she was trying to strangle it.
Later that day, Trevor told me everything, while simultaneously trying to wipe off that Expo Marker off of his forehead. First, Keith’s beloved hair gel vanished from his gym bag between second and third period. Then, a single pink rubber ball rolled out of Harper’s locker when she opened it after lunch—directly into the path of Vice Principal Greeley’s polished loafers.
"U think ur so funny laughing at my poem bout Aron. Well guess what—his new gf uses ur hair gel. I saw her. U deserve this & more. PS—Zoey Ball knows."
Said a note outside the girls' toilets.
Zoey, meanwhile, had been crouched behind the dumpsters outside the cafeteria, sketching Keith’s locker combination in the dirt with a broken ruler. “He uses his mom’s birthday,” she muttered, “but subtracts three from each number because he’s ‘paranoid about hackers.’”
When we finally cracked the locker, we found:
1. A single sock crusted with something resembling dried glue.
2. Seventeen packets of ketchup stolen from the cafeteria.
3. A Polaroid of Phil M’Kraken giving Keith a thumbs-up beside Zoey’s vandalized locker.
And tucked beneath it all—Harper’s poem, crumpled, with “lol weak sauce” scribbled in Keith’s blocky handwriting across the stanzas about Aron’s freckles.
Zoey pocketed the photo. “Evidence,” she said. Then she paused, staring at the ketchup packets. “...You think Harper took his gel just to mess with him, or—”
And well, Mike, the bell rang. Somewhere, Phil was laughing. Somewhere, Aron was holding his new girlfriend’s hand. And somewhere, Harper was crying in the girls’ bathroom, because revenge never actually fixes anything—it just gives you something else to clean up later.
Hope you liked today's entry,
Julian Tran,
7th grade,
Dover Middle School
ns216.73.216.208da2
and then Add to home screen.