“You can’t send that,” he said. “You’ll get in so much trouble.”
“Mrs. Martin isn’t even going to read it,” I whispered back.
“That’s so mean,” he said. “You’re going to make her cry.”
“So? I don’t know her.”
I took my letter back, folded it, and put it into the envelope our teacher had provided. I thought that would be the end of it. Naomi Light would ask for a new pen pal, and I wouldn’t be expected to write to anyone.
But it wasn’t the end. Two weeks later, Mrs. Martin handed out our new letters. I was surprised to see that Naomi had written another letter to me. Ben seemed surprised too. He waited for me to open mine before he even opened his own.
“What did she say?” he asked before I was finished reading.
Her letter made me angry. “She didn’t even understand what I wrote last time, and she’s making stuff up.”
I opened my notebook and began to draft my response. I was halfway through my first sentence when I scribbled it all out. She was right. My handwriting was messy. Mrs. Martin was always asking me to write neater, and even my mom had told me I needed to work on it. I flipped to a new sheet of paper and started over. This time, I wrote slowly, careful to keep all my letters separate and readable.
I showed it to Ben when I was done. His brows shot up while he read it, and then he frowned at me. “That’s gross,” he said. “Do people in Oklahoma really do that? Marry their brothers and sisters?”
I shrugged. “Probably not.”
I took the letter back and stuffed it into the envelope.
“Why are you still being so mean to her? She was probably excited about having a pen pal.”
Ben looked around at the other kids in our class, and I followed his gaze. All of the girls had big smiles on their faces as they read the letters they had received, giving each other ideas for what to write back. I knew what he was doing. He was trying to get me to see Naomi as one of them: a real person, rather than just a piece of paper that came in the mail.
“I don’t want to have to keep writing to someone all year long. If she’s the one who decides not to write back, then it won’t be my fault, and Mrs. Martin will leave me alone.”
I sealed the envelope and wrote down Naomi’s name and school address, and then dropped it off in the basket Mrs. Martin had designated for our letters. I was the first to hand mine in. She smiled at me.
“That was fast,” she said.
I shrugged, and gave her what I thought was my most charming smile. “My pen pal is really easy to write to. I can’t wait to hear back from her.”
It was another two weeks before our pen pals wrote back. Mrs. Martin walked through the classroom, handing the letters out. When she reached my desk, she paused, flipping through the stack of letters in her hand. She slipped one out and handed it to Ben. She reached the end of the stack, and started over.
“Hmm,” she said when it was clear there wasn’t a letter for me. “I’m sorry, Luca. It looks like there isn’t a letter for you this time. It might have been separated from the others. That happens sometimes. We’ll probably get it in a day or two.”
“Oh.” I tried to sound disappointed, but I didn’t have to try very hard. I was surprised to find that I actuallywasa little disappointed. While we waited for the letters, I had found myself hoping that Naomi would send another snarky letter in response to mine, so that I could fire back with something even meaner.
I knew that the whole point of writing mean letters was to get her to stop writing back, but I hadn’t realized it would happen this quickly. Now I was the only kid in the class who didn’t have a letter to read.
The following day, I stopped at Mrs. Martin’s desk at the end of recess.
“Did I get a letter today?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Luca. Nothing yet. Maybe tomorrow?”
But there was nothing in the mail the next day, either. Or the next day.
I had given up on hearing from Naomi by the time the next round of letters came in the mail. I didn’t even look up at Mrs. Martin as she walked around the room, handing them out. I was working on a homework assignment when she dropped an envelope onto my desk. I looked up at her, surprised. She winked at me, then continued around the room, handing out the rest of the letters.
“I guess your plan didn’t work too well,” Ben said.
I ignored him and opened the letter.
Dear Luca,
