Operation Beautiful

I walk into home room and start drumming on the table with my fingers. In 2 minutes, the two students who do the announcements will come on. Jessica and some other cheerleader. They always pick cheerleaders to do the announcements. I don't know why. Matt said it had something to do with an easily persuaded male broadcasting club adviser and a deal with one of the head cheerleaders. I didn't press further.

"Hey, everyone!" comes a sickeningly sweet voice over the PA. I can never tell which overly peppy voice is Jessica's, mainly because people talk through the announcements. If it weren't for them saying their names at the end, I wouldn't even have known it was her.

Boring announcements go in through one ear and out the other until there's a long silence and someone says: "Oh my."

My head snaps up.

"Um. The principal's secretary just handed us a pink sticky note that she says needs to be read over the announcements." I wait with baited breath.

"It says: 'yes' and 'reset location.' Oh! And then it has 'Do you have short hair?' at the bottom. We don't know what that means, but...hopefully that means something to someone?"

The principal's secretary? The principal's secretary is my mystery girl?

The initial heart attack fades as I realize that my mystery girl said 'yes,' meaning she was a junior. Phew! Not the principal's secretary.

Reset location...that's not too hard. She must be talking about that poster.

The minute homeroom ends I dash to the bulletin board and find the poster in question. Underneath there's a small piece of pink paper and another green paper. I peel both off the wall and put them in my pocket. I need to find that secretary before it's too late.

"Um, hi." I'm standing awkwardly at her desk, not sure where to begin. I didn't think to bring Janice with me, which was a mistake.

"Can I help you?" she asks. She doesn't remember me at all.

"I was wondering who gave you that sticky note." She looks at me.

"Sorry?" I try again.

"They said on the announcements...you gave them a pink sticky note to read?" She shakes her head.

"What are you talking about?"

Huh?

"Did you listen to the announcements?" I ask, confused.

"Of course! Except for those few minutes when I went to the bathroom."

"Oh. Okay. Never mind, then. Thanks!" The bell rings and I hurry off to my next class. Then my mystery girl must be a friend of whoever read that sticky note out loud. Because then she could ask her friend to read it and pretend it was from the secretary. Either that or the secretary is lying...

I figured I would answer more fully here instead of over the PA. Impressed, no? But I won't tell you how I got the principal's secretary to hand the note over. That'll be my little secret.

How did I know you were in Negrutot's third period? Well, the very first day you asked me to drop it off in Negrutot's during break. Meaning you would pick it up after break, meaning third. It was just an educated guess. I probably should've asked if you had him before lunch and then narrowed it down, but you asked that ridiculous compound question so I thought that if you could do it, so could I.

Anyway, so I grabbed a copy of the attendance the other day. MUAHAHAHA! Its only a matter of time, buddy. As you heard on the announcements, my question is this: do you have really short hair (like, shorter than your ears)?

I flip it over.

Inside the fortune cookie that comes with the Chinese lunch. I blink at it in shock. What the-?! How the hell am I supposed to do that? Getting it into a fortune cookie isn't too difficult compared to actually getting into the lunch of a girl I don't know! I look at the next line of writing.

Maybe if the fortune cookie was a particular color *hint hint* I would find it much more easily.

I look down at the pink note, then to the green one I’m supposed to reply on. Green, I suppose, would be the color of choice. How the hell am I supposed to do this?

***

I’m pacing up and down the hallway outside fourth period.

“You look...off,” Trevor says, raising an eyebrow at me. He’s walking Haley to class.

“Yeah. Stupid post it note.” Haley looks up.

“I heard the thing over the intercom. Was that?” I nod.

“Yup. That was her. Or at least, she somehow managed to get her note read over the intercom.” I begin to share my “ask a friend” theory as the bell rings.

“Sounds complicated,” Trevor says, shaking his head. “I’m going to go to class, but...dude. You need to bring me up to speed later.”

“So you think it’s a friend of either Jessica or the other girl on the announcements?” Haley asks as we enter class together. I can see Christa looking at us from across the room.

“That makes the most sense. Either that or the principal’s secretary was sworn to secrecy and lied to me.” Haley shakes her head.

“Not likely.”

“Yeah,” I agree. As we sit down, Christa comes up to us.

“Hey, Haley,” she says, smiling a sickly sweet smile. “I wanted to go over all the details for this weekend.” I glance over at Haley, who seems just as surprised as I am.

“This weekend?” she asks slowly.

“You know,” she lowers her voice to a whisper, “when Trevor escorts me to that party.”

“Oh!” Haley nods, her eyes wide and innocent. “Of course, how could I forget?” What is she doing? She knows it’s all a lie.

“Yeah, so I was thinking, you know, just in and out, but Trevor wanted to take me to dinner...” her face arranges into the most sloppy display of guilt I’ve ever seen.

“Oh,” says Haley. “Yeah, Trevor’s like that. Unbelievably sweet, right?”

“Um...yeah,” Christa says slowly. “So you’re not upset?” She’s pretty obviously disappointed.

“Oh yeah, I’m totally fine with it,” says Haley, leaning down to get her binder out of her backpack. “Oh! Tell him to wear that magenta dress shirt of his. Makes him look ridiculously hot. Well, I mean, he looks better out of it, but...whatever, right?” She winks at Christa, who looks like she’s about to die. I can’t stop myself from laughing as the bitch disappears with her tail between her legs.

“Out of it? Have you even-?”

“Shut up!” she cuts me off, her long hair covering her face. “That was probably the most embarrassing thing I’ve said out loud.” I break into laughter again, but she turns her head to look at me. “And of course I haven’t seen him shirtless. It’s the middle of January, you think our dates involve swimming?”

“Well, you were implying--” She smacks my arm with her binder, her face pink.

“Shut up!” That just makes me laugh even more.

“Co-rey!” she pleads, but I can’t stop myself.

“Wait until Trevor hears about this!” I gasp between laughs. The next thing I know, I’m flat against my back on the floor, Haley’s face inches from my own.

“If Trevor finds out, you will lose your manhood.” I look up into her eyes. Not a glimmer of humor sparkles in them. “And do you want that? I don’t think so.” I put my hands up in surrender.

“Okay, okay. Trevor will not be informed.” She stands up and dusts her hands off.

“Damn right he won’t.”

I get back in my seat and show her the latest note.

“A fortune cookie?” She asks, incredulous.

“A green one, nonetheless,” I say with a sigh. “How the hell am I going to pull that off?” Haley shrugs.

“I don’t really know. I mean, you’re going to have to announce to the entire cafeteria that you have this green fortune cookie and make sure to pass it off to the right girl. How the heck is that supposed to happen?” she asks. I shake my head.

“And if I were to announce it to the world, she’d know I was the note passer, so I’d need someone else to do it.”

“Oh, that’s simple,” Haley says with a wave of her hand. “I’d be more than happy to do it for you. But what would I need to do?”

“Well...” I say slowly. “What if you were to get a Chinese lunch tomorrow and then I give you the green fortune cookie. And then you can suddenly yell about how gross it is that your cookie is green?”

“Makes sense,” Haley says with a nod. “But how do I pass it off?”

“I don’t know,” I say with a sigh. “I just don’t know.” She pats my shoulder.

“Well, we’ll just go forward with the plan and see what happens, yeah?”

“Okay,” I say with a sigh.