locker 160

Locker 160 (by Leo Busselman)

It was my idea, I guess, in the first place.
“Let’s put a hate note in someone’s locker,” I said to Julie, half as a joke. We were waiting for biology class to begin. She smiled and raised her eyebrows. “Another one of your great ideas, Karen? Whose locker do you suggest we put it in?” I glanced around the room. “Oh – Miriam.” It wasn’t that we really – I mean really – hated Miriam. That is, we both said “Good morning” to her and “See you tomorrow”. But she was just – well, different. In spite of the fact that she was pretty, with long, black hair and a graceful figure, she wasn’t popular. Miriam always kept to herself. Besides that, she wrote poetry – that weird, free verse kind that nobody can understand. That was how it began.