John handed the note to Jordan. Jordan looked at the note that was folded into a small square. Underneath her desk top she unfolded it by feel while above her desk she casually looked around the darkened classroom. On this early June Friday her fifth grade classmates were lounging watching a video of “Swiss Family Robinison”. It was a movie break after a morning of water games on the playground for field day to celebrate a year of hard work at school. Even Miss Smith was nodding during the after lunch movie.
Jordan eased the unfolded note out from beneath the desk. It took her eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness and enable her to read the words pencilled on the blue-lined notebook paper:
Don’t tell Emma
I like her.
I think she is cute.
John
Jordan looked over at Emma and giggled. The snicker got Emma’s attention and when she looked back Jordan smiled and gave her the big eyes face filled with amusement. “What?” Emma leaned over and whispered.
“I can’t tell,” Jordan whispered back leaning in Emma’s direction while scanning the room to make sure no one, especially Miss Smith, was paying attention.
“Tell me what’s up,” Emma softly demanded.
Jordan looked back at the note in her lap. Around the edges John had pencilled, “Don’t tell. Don’t tell” at least five times. She looked over at John and met his worried stare. He had seen her lean toward Emma. It was clear from his raised eyebrows and frown that he knew she was on the edge of disclosure. Jordan liked John. As boys go, he was pretty nice, but here in the desk next to her was her best friend Emma. In her hand was the best secret of the month, maybe the whole year.
Jordan smiled at John and looked away as she leaned toward Emma. “John likes you,” she whispered.
Emma looked ahead at the Robinson family stranded on their tropical paradise. “How do you know?” she whispered back.
“It says so in this note,” Jordan snickered poking her index finger at the creased notebook paper. “He sent me a note that says that he likes you.”
“Well,” said Emma turning a serious face to Jordan, “I don’t accept notes. If he likes me he’ll have to tell me himself.” Emma straightened back in her desk and stared ahead at the video.
Jordan looked back at John who had clearly scrutinized her convergence with Emma. He looked hopeful more than angry. He suspected that she had provided an open conduit for his secret to the object of his affection and, given that Emma knew, he only wished for a good outcome. “Does she at least like me, too?” Jordan knew the question on his mind from the look on his face. She eased her pencil from the shelf in her desk and wrote back to John beneath his words of love:
“She doesn’t accept notes.
You’ll have to tell her
yourself, in person.”
Jordan refolded the paper at the original creases and sent the note back to John. She crossed her arms and looked ahead at the movie leaving John to his own troubles. She glanced sideways at Emma who smiled at Francis Robinson riding the ostrich cowboy style on the movie screen.
At 2:15 the school bell rang while Emma and Jordan packed folders into their back packs. Jordan looked over at Emma in the scramble of children talking and packing up. “Don’t you like John?” She asked.
“Sure, I like John,” replied Emma, “But, you know, I think he ought to talk to me. He can’t just send you a note.”
She and Jordan fell into the makeshift line of fifth graders leaving the classroom. Miss Smith had led the front of the line out of the door and John must have been at the beginning. Emma and Jordan both looked around to see if he had waited behind, but he was nowhere to be seen.
The girls silently plodded out of the class and down the hall. Just before reaching the sunshine beyond the front door of the school Emma felt someone brush against her right side. She looked over to find John there. She noticed his dark hair and the fact that although he was probably an inch shorter than her he was closer to her height than a lot of the boys her age. They were essentially eye to eye and he said, “I do like you.”
“Okay,” replied Emma.
John smiled and went running out into the sunshine off to catch the bus. Emma turned back to Jordan who had stopped along her left shoulder to see what John had to say. Emma looked at Jordan a moment and shrugged her shoulders, “I guess I have a boyfriend,” she said.