A/N: Okay, I just got a new book on creative writing, and found something about acrostic poems. I was inspired to write this, and it's probably going to be a two- or three-shot. And yes, BTW, all the information in here about acrostic poems, I got out of the creative writing book.

"All right, everyone, take out your notebooks." Ms. Enright's voice echoes through the classroom as we all rifle through our backpacks to bring out our English notebooks. "Today we will be working on acrostic poems."

While she speaks, I dig frantically through my bag, searching for my missing green spiral notebook. Math binder, pencil case, Yale course information, some crumpled papers that I'd stuffed in there haphazardly last week… No English notebook. English homework, yes (that stays in my English binder), but the notebook in which I do all my in-class assignments is missing.

Then I remember – it's on the desk where I fell asleep last night, doing my English at 1:30 AM.

Henry notices my struggles (I think he notices a bit too much, actually), reaches over, and places a hand on my arm. I look up and mouth, What?

Henry scribbles something in big block letters on the top of his sheet of paper. Looking at it, I read, Take a deep breath and count to ten. Calm down.

I point frantically at my backpack and then at the empty desktop in front of me. How can he not get it? Henry smirks and jabs a finger at the top of the paper again. I sigh in defeat, do as my cousin commands, and then look at him with an Okay, now what do I do? look. Henry smirks again and points behind me.

Apparently Maggie has noticed my missing notebook as well, and has ripped out a piece of paper from the back of her notebook, extending it to me. I'm sitting in the middle, with my back turned towards her as I face Henry, and Maggie's face has adopted a look of deep exasperation.

Well, that's nice and embarrassing. Way to go, Jasper – totally screw up in front of the girl you've never quite gotten over!

I turn around sheepishly, take the piece of paper from Maggie's outstretched hand, and mouth a silent, Thanks. I owe you.

Ms. Enright notices this, but evidently decides not to comment (Thank you so much!), instead focusing on her lesson plan. "Now, can anyone tell me what an acrostic poem is?"

Maggie's hand shoots into the air, and I groan in irritation. No matter how pretty and smart she may be, I wish she'd give me a chance to answer a question once in a while. A corner of the teacher's mouth twitches slightly as she calls on the girl sitting next to me.

"An acrostic poem is a poem where one takes a word that does not have to relate to the content of the poem in any way, but can if the author wishes, and turns it so that each letter is on a different line, going down. The author then writes his poem, with each letter starting the first word of each line." Maggie recites, irritating me even more. How can she be so utterly perfect when I'm not?

Half the class's mouths drop open. I roll my eyes. "Show-off," I mutter. Maggie shoots me a look, one which I probably deserve, but I don't bother to look. She's too good at giving people glares, and weird as this seems, I really don't want to have a sudden bout of I'm-such-a-total-sucker-even-when-she's-mad-at-me brain melt during English class.

Henry grins mischievously (what's with him?) as Ms. Enright continues, "Good work, Maggie. In class we will be calling that word, the one that goes down the left side of the paper and starts each line of the poem, the spine word. Observe."

Turning to the board, she writes

A

C

R

O

S

T

I

C on it. "This is an example of how to set up the spine word. Now, would anyone like to come up to the board and attempt to fill in the blank spots? Henry?" How am I continually bested? Hands have flown up all over the room, including mine and Maggie's but Ms. Enright seems to have decided to let the new boy have his first chance at an acrostic poem in front of the entire class.

Henry shrugs, walks confidently up to the board, and began to fill in the blanks. It's a process of minutes, very slow going (the very topic of his poem) but eventually he winds up with:

An acrostic poem
Can be
Really tough depending
On which word you pick.
Some words (fox? inexplicable?) will lock you out,
Trying to confuse you with strange words and odd puzzles, twisted
In your head.
Can you take the challenge?

Ms. Enright claps, and the rest of the class follows her example. My claps are slow and slightly sarcastic. As Henry walks back to his seat, I get even more annoyed. Maggie, maybe, is acceptable. But my cousin who's never done this before in his life? Academics are supposed to be my strength, not Henry's. Oops, Ms. Enright's talking again.

"Can anyone tell me where the name 'acrostic' came from? Quinn?" The teacher challenges.

Yes! Something I'm nearly positive that I know and Maggie doesn't!

"Acrostic, as in across the page." Quinn replied confidently. I smirk as Ms. Enright frowns.

"Incorrect, as well as a common misconception. No matter. Let's see…" The woman surveys the scene, her eyes traveling to the back of the class, where 'The Three Musketeers' (as the teachers have labeled us) are sitting. All our hands were up, but when Quinn was told he was wrong, Henry put his down "Jasper?"

I stand up. "Acrostic comes from two Greek words. Acro, meaning at the end or edge, and stic, meaning a line of poetry."

Maggie's hand drops to the desk, a disappointed look flitting itself across her face. So she did know. Well, I finally beat her to the punch. She won't be mad – it's competition, the place where we're best of friends. Ms. Enright nods as I sit down.

"So today we are going to be writing our own acrostic poems. Your poems aren't going to be seen by me – rather than being ripped out of your notebook and handed in, they are for your eyes only. They can be about anything in the world, from elements to friendships to-" here the blond woman smiles (it's nearly identical to Dad's ambush smile), "-your crushes."

The entire class groans, save Maggie and Henry. Henry has his head cocked to one side, confused, and I make a mental note to explain the term crush to him later. Where did he live where he didn't pick up at least that one bit of slang? Maggie, on the other hand, looks contemplative, as though she's actually thinking about writing about a crush. I wonder…

But no, that's silly. She's turned me down once, and Maggie doesn't make mistakes. She also doesn't change her mind very easily (one more thing we have in common).

The teacher continues, "These are only suggestions, of course, and the last one only because I won't be watching, but-"

Here the entire class groans again. Teachers always give assignments like this, ones that make it easy to do next to whatever you please, and then they tack on a but…

"We are going to do a whole unit on these poems, so you'd better use this time to practice, not goof off. I'm just trying to help you guys."

So the group of students gets to work, and in the back row, our three heads bend down over our papers. And I'm concentrating as much as a person can when there are thoughts nagging them, but it's actually pretty hard.

Maggie flies through her first acrostic poem and quickly starts on her second one, and who can tell if she's distracted or not, but I can tell she's working on another one by the way her hand jumped to the top to write a title and then down to the bottom, skipping a line.

We've been friends since we were ten; I know things about Maggie she doesn't tell other people, and she knows things about me that she doesn't tell other people, and so we both know a heck of a lot about each other, but neither of us know everything. For instance, I never found out quite what was going through her head when I asked her out (and I know she lied to me when I asked), or how the fact that her mother's… not… around anymore makes her feel.

And she doesn't know that, despite the fact that for all accounts on the outside, I appear to have gotten over her (no danger of me asking her out again), I actually still harbor a massive crush on the girl who beat me for top spot in class six years in a row, who thinks I'm an immature person with no common sense.

But I do know some stuff, like that she had always wanted to launch our rocket, from the moment we started working on it to the moment we had to check everything in under a minute and a half in order to launch Sputnik.

And she knows that it actually is really starting to bug me that Henry is great at everything from saving me from a football in the head to punting an explosive device straight through the goalposts, right in front of my dad, to picking up his grades higher and higher while mine are starting to drop from all the sneaking around we've been doing. I'm the smart cousin. Maybe I'm not the best at football, or basketball, or any other sport, really, and Henry's pretty good, but I've always been the smart one, and now Henry's doing so fabulous at everything that everyone likes him, even the one girl who I thought would never take an interest in boys.

Not that she knows why I mind that the one girl I never thought would take interest in boys would take an interest in Henry, who still likes Whitney from the Sputnik adventure.

And I look down at my paper, and I realize that I've just spent five minutes thinking, and my paper still doesn't have a single word on it. So I wind up deciding to just pick something and get it over with.

Pancake, pink (eww!), jealousy, rocket, twenty-nine, Maggie…. All these words run through my head, and I immediately veto the last one before narrowing it down to twenty-nine and rocket. Then I decide to go with rocket because I seriously have no idea what I would write about in a poem about twenty-nine.

Rising up,
Off the ground and into the sky. We
Can feel proud, me and Maggie
Knowing we did
Each step of the way
Together and separately.

Then, just for kicks, I add another line. I have a little bit more to tell.

Rendering us silent,
It rises for the first time, late,
Very late, but at the same time, exactly on time, because it was needed
And we did it together, bonding. And I can't help but feel the same feeling that made me
Let her push the button for blast-off.

There, that's not too bad. But I do have to acknowledge that this is harder than it looks – I've got one poem, two words, and as I look at the clock, the bell rings.

I glance over, to my left first, quick enough to notice that Henry's spine word was Whitney, and then to my right, where the most I can see before Maggie snaps her notebook shut is that her second poem is the longest acrostic poem I've ever seen, and that three of her spine words are I, have, and crush.

Suddenly a tingle of energy runs through my spine and down to my feet, making me shake suddenly. I need to see that notebook.