The Notebook

Lena had three rules about her notebook.

Rule one: it stayed in the inside pocket of her school bag, zipped, at all times.

Rule two: nobody asked about it and she did not bring it up.

Rule three: if anyone found out what was in it she would have to move schools, possibly towns, possibly countries.

The notebook was full of poetry.

Not the kind they studied in English, with the footnotes explaining what everything meant. Her kind. Twelve-year-old Lena's kind, written in the small hours and on bus journeys and during free periods when she was supposed to be doing something else. About things that were hard to say out loud but went onto the page without difficulty, which was the only reason she kept doing it.

Not the kind they studied in English, not the old difficult kind with the footnotes explaining what everything meant. Her poetry. Twelve-year-old Lena's poetry, written in small neat handwriting on the lined pages, about things like the way rain looked on bus windows and the particular smell of the library on Monday mornings and what it felt like to miss someone who was still technically there.

She had been writing it since she was nine and had shown it to nobody. Not her best friend. Not her mum. Not her English teacher who had once told her she had a talent for words, which was the closest Lena had ever come to someone almost finding out and which had made her go home and move the notebook to a new hiding place immediately.

The problem began on a Tuesday when she left the notebook on her desk by accident while she went to get a book from her bag, and when she came back Marcus Osei was sitting in the desk next to hers looking at it.

Not reading it. She could see the notebook was still closed. He was just looking at the cover, which had a small watercolour painting on it that she had done herself, blue and green and smudged at the edges where she had not let it dry properly.

He looked up when she sat down. Something moved across his face, quick and unreadable, and he looked back at the front of the class.

"Nice cover," he said. Very quietly. Not looking at her.

Lena picked the notebook up and put it in her bag and zipped the pocket. Her fingers did it quickly and from practice. "Thanks," she said.

She did not know why the word thanks came out so small. It was a nice thing he had said. She had just not been expecting anyone to say it.

That was all. The lesson started. But she spent the next forty minutes aware that he was sitting two feet away and had said something kind about the cover and she did not know what to do with that, so she filed it under things she was not going to examine right now and tried to pay attention to maths.