The moonlight was barely hitting the floor of our dorm room—mostly because The Grump-Monster (our Matron) had already patrolled the hallway twice, radiating an aura of pure bitterness that literally blocked out the stars.
We were huddled on the floor like we were planning a high-stakes bank heist. In reality, the only thing we were stealing was the dignity of Olivia's secret biscuit stash.
"I'm telling you, Mr. Ice Cube looked at me for 1.5 seconds today," I whispered, clutching my song journal to my chest like a holy relic. "In 'Cold Guy' language, a 1.5-second stare is basically a marriage proposal and a down payment on a house."
Luna rolled her eyes so hard I genuinely feared they'd get stuck in her brain. "Diya, he wasn't looking at you. He was looking at the clock behind you because he was praying for a miracle to end Math class. Which, by the way, is the place where dreams—and my last two remaining brain cells—go to die."
We all groaned. Math. Our greatest mortal enemy. Our teacher, Mr. Subtract-the-Joy, thinks we actually care about the value of x. Meanwhile, we are over here trying to solve a much harder equation: How to get our crushes to notice us without accidentally tripping over thin air.
"At least your crush is a biological human," Olivia chimed in, using the back of a shiny metal spoon to check if her pores were behaving. "Luna's crush, 'The Flash,' ran past her so fast today that her braids almost achieved lift-off. He didn't even see her 'accidental' hair-flip! He probably thought he passed a very confused windmill."
"Hey! He's just... goal-oriented!" Luna defended, her face turning the exact color of a panicked tomato. "He has places to be! He just happens to be at those places at Mach 5!"
Suddenly, a heavy THUD-THUD-THUD echoed in the hallway. The floorboards trembled. It wasn't an earthquake; it was worse.
"ABORT MISSION! HIDE!" I hissed.
We dove under our covers like Olympic athletes. Angela, the "Brain" of the group, was so frantic she accidentally cracked her skull against the iron bed frame with a CLANG that definitely sounded like a church bell.
"Dorm 4! If I hear one more giggle, I'm reporting you to The Shiny Dome!" the Grump-Monster barked through the door. She sounded like she had spent the afternoon gargling gravel and battery acid.
"The Shiny Dome" was our Principal. His head was so perfectly polished that we once used his reflection during morning assembly to fix Olivia's winged eyeliner. There is a persistent rumor that he doesn't use shampoo—he uses floor wax and a buffing machine.
Once the Lemon-Lady's heavy footsteps faded, I sat up and pulled out a crumpled scrap of paper. "Okay, ignore the Matron. I wrote a new song about my crush. He's so cold he's basically a human refrigerator, but I know he loves me. He's just been playing 'hard to get' for the last three consecutive years."
I cleared my throat, gripped my hairbrush like a Grammy-winning microphone, and sang in a dramatic, soulful whisper:
"Oh, Mr. Ice Cube, you're chilling in the hall,
You act like I'm a ghost, or a crack upon the wall.
I gave you a pencil, you didn't say 'Bless you',
(Wait, that doesn't rhyme, but you know I want to dress you—no, wait—)
You're cold as a freezer, you're quiet as a stone,
But one day you'll realize you want me alone!"
"You are absolutely tragic," Angela laughed, launching a balled-up, crusty sock at my head. "But honestly? I get it. My library crush, 'The Bookworm,' didn't even blink when I 'accidentally' dropped four massive encyclopedias right next to his hand. He just pushed them back toward me without breaking eye contact with his Greek History book. I think he thinks I'm a very loud shelf."
"We are a disaster," Olivia sighed, finally putting the spoon down. "Four girls, four crushes, and zero progress. If we don't pass this Math test tomorrow, Mr. Subtract-the-Joy will keep us in detention, and we'll miss the inter-school sports gala. And you know what that means..."
"NO SEEING THE BOYS!" we all whispered in synchronized horror.
"Okay," I said, opening my journal to a fresh page with a look of grim determination. "New plan. We study Math for exactly ten minutes—enough to survive—and then we spend the rest of the night drafting a 'Top Secret' letter to The Flash. We need to melt the ice, girls. Who has a pen that hasn't run out of ink from writing fake wedding invitations?