Emma Jean Lazarus Fell in Love

A change had come over the seventh-grade wing, and Emma-Jean sensed it the moment she entered the school building the next morning. Like a flock of starlings swarming before a storm, Emma-Jean’s peers were suddenly abuzz with excitement over the Spring Fling.

Indeed, Emma-Jean had never seen her peers in a state of such emotional agitation, not even last month, when their custodian Mr. Johannsen revealed that his handsome fifteen-year-old grandson Carl had been cast in a role on a popular television series. Laura Gilroy’s reaction to that news had been particularly extreme; she had clutched her chest and gasped “Oh my God! Oh my God!” in a manner that caused Emma-Jean to rush to her side, prepared to administer CPR if necessary. To Emma-Jean’s relief, Laura had recovered quickly, as evidenced by the robust tone in which she shouted, “Will you back off?” into Emma-Jean’s ear.

Emma-Jean watched her peers with keen interest throughout the afternoon. Wherever she looked, girls were huddled in whispering conferences, plotting their Spring Fling strategies. Boys who ventured too close were waved away with sly smiles and gentle chiding.

When the girls were ready to issue their invitations, they did so with surprisingly little ceremony. A few of the bolder types simply walked up to their quarries in the hallway and blurted out, “Want to go to the Spring Fling with me?” over the noise of slamming lockers and squeaking footsteps. It was in this manner that Kaitlin invited Neil Messner, who accepted with a blushing nod as his friends slapped him on the back.

More bashful girls used their friends as intermediaries; Michele hid outside the teachers’ lounge while Valerie and Kaitlin cornered Leo Daniels in the doorway of the band room. He was clearly delighted with their message, though in his excitement he dropped his bass, which barely missed Valerie’s foot.

Emma-Jean found the scene fascinating yet perplexing. It was as if an enchantress had stepped out of one of the fairy tale volumes in the library and waved her wand over the seventh-grade wing. Of course Emma-Jean didn’t believe in anything as fanciful as fairies or magic spells; she was firmly grounded in modern scientific principles. But clearly there were mysterious forces at work. Even the teachers took notice.

“What’s gotten into these kids!” she heard Mr. Petrowski saying as she rounded the corner between classes. “They’re out of control.” He was speaking to Ms. Wright, Emma-Jean’s esteemed language arts teacher, who was filling her thermos at the water fountain.

Emma-Jean hung back, eager to hear Ms. Wright’s insights. Not only was her teacher one of her closest friends, she was one of the wisest people Emma-Jean knew. Earlier in the year, when Emma-Jean was still eating lunch by herself, Ms. Wright would often pull up a chair so that they could discuss a poem they had read in class, or to share a story from her childhood in the African country of Ghana, where the breezes smelled like roasting pumpkins and acacia flowers. Ms. Wright always had expansive views on important issues.

“Oh Phil,” Ms. Wright said, “love is in the air. These kids are like the birds and the bees. They’ve got spring fever. You remember what it was like to be young, don’t you?”

Usually Mr. Petrowski dismissed statements of this nature with a jowly frown and wave of a beefy hand, but now he looked wistfully into the distance.

Emma-Jean was intrigued by Ms. Wright’s hypothesis. She thought of the joyous song of the yellow warbler outside the science room and the bees buzzing sprightly among the lilacs. Perhaps this excitement among her peers was a seasonal phenomenon.

But then she had an alarming thought: Did she have spring fever too? Was it communicable, like pinkeye or an intestinal virus? Perhaps this explained the fluttering of her heart that struck whenever she saw Will.

She frowned, rejecting this notion. Unlike her peers, Emma-Jean was logical to her core, not easily carried away on emotional tides or flights of fancy. And after giving the matter some serious thought, she had determined that her friends were correct: Will was not a suitable match for her.

After all, she and Will had little in common. Unlike Emma-Jean, who had an impeccable academic record, Will was a mediocre student who spent most class periods drumming his pencil on his desk and exchanging bored looks with his friends. Unlike Emma-Jean, who had far-ranging interests including nature, poetry, and the study of Hindi, Will’s only passion was the sport of basketball, which Emma-Jean considered monotonous and excessively loud.

Then again, Emma-Jean and Will shared a special kinship. Earlier in the year, Will had helped Emma-Jean by throwing a pear at Brandon Mahoney when he was pestering her in the cafeteria. She in turn had come to Will’s assistance by solving a vexing problem involving Mr. Petrowski, his beloved Cadillac, and some missing chocolates. Will had been very pleased with the results of Emma-Jean’s efforts on his behalf. “I owe you one,” he’d said to Emma-Jean not long ago. He’d put his hand on Emma-Jean’s head and, like a king bestowing a title on a noblewoman, pronounced her “a good kid.” Perhaps this was not the most regal title, but it was obvious that Will held Emma-Jean in high regard.

Emma-Jean puzzled over the issue of Will Keeler throughout the afternoon. It was like a complex algebra problem, with hidden integers and variables Emma-Jean couldn’t quite grasp. Laura Gilroy was certainly part of the equation, though her value was hard for Emma-Jean to calculate.

He dodged her in the hallways and ignored her flamboyant dance displays on the blacktop. Most striking of all was a dramatic scene that Emma-Jean had surreptitiously witnessed at the last seventh-grade dance. Emma-Jean had stepped out of the girls’ room to discover Will and Laura standing together in the deserted hallway. Emma-Jean had concealed herself in an alcove and observed the scene undetected.

Oddly, none of this had dampened Laura’s ardor for Will; as recently as yesterday, she had reaffirmed her plan to invite him to the Spring Fling.

“I’m just waiting for the perfect time to ask,” she had said to Emma-Jean’s friends, casting her proprietary gaze across the blacktop to where Will was playing basketball with his friends.

Emma-Jean now tried to imagine how Laura would react if another girl asked Will to the dance. The image that came to mind—a snarling dog—caused Emma-Jean to blink.

But after the final bell had sounded, Emma-Jean found herself standing outside Will’s social studies class. She followed him down the hallway and to his locker, mesmerized by the reflection of the afternoon sun on his golden hair. He looked surprised when he turned and discovered her standing behind him.

“Hey, Nancy Drew,” he said. He often flattered her with this reference to the fictional detective, whose powers of observation and analysis were almost as keen as Emma-Jean’s.

Emma-Jean had not meant to be humorous—hilarity was not in her nature. But it was gratifying to make Will smile. She followed behind him, her scalp tingling from his touch, her ears echoing with his pleasing laughter.

She stood at the windows, her heart beating with alarming vigor, and watched as Will jogged to the pickup lane and hopped into his father’s truck. She waited as the truck sped away, and then stood there for a few moments more, her hand resting lightly on her head, her eyes glued to the place on the pavement that Will’s sneakers had last touched.