Another slip of paper fluttered out of the locker and drifted delicately to Peggy's open hand.
She plucked it up from her palm and unfolded it, straightening out the creases with the ginger experience she'd gained in doing so. She looked down to it, her own face looking back up with a closed-lip smile and a microphone extended in her grasp. "I look better in oil pastel than I look in real life," murmured the blushing journalist. Gently folding the picture back up, Peggy placed it with the other ones and closed her locker door.
She had been getting drawings of herself in her locker for the past three weeks. Monday through Thursday they were always colored pencil, but for some reason Fridays were different. Her image would be cast on pages in dainty strokes of paint or intricate rubs of charcoal.
Peggy admired each work of art she was given, and held the artist in high regard. Err, she would anyway, if she knew who they were. The lovely portraits were never signed.
The brunette racked her brain again and again but never came up with a concrete suspect. The mystery frustrated her even more than one would think. She knew anything about everything that went on in the school, and yet she didn't know who kept visiting her own locker.
The only person she knew to be an avid artist was Violette, but she couldn't possibly be the one leaving the drawings, could she? Every single drawing had been of Peggy and accurate down to the last detail. Why would the shy girl have such an interest in her? Violette wasn't into girls, as far as Peggy knew. And even if she were, Peggy was Violette's polar opposite. She and Violette may as well be the sun and the moon.
It had to be someone else.
An idea that wasn't exactly brilliant illuminated the metaphorical lightbulb above her head. Peggy opened her locker again and scrawled a short, sweet and to the point message on a sticky note: 'Thanks for all the drawings. I'm flattered! But who are you?'
She stuck the note to the inside of her locker door and closed it again, heading down to her next class.
The following Monday, Peggy's note was posted to the drawing she received. In the picture her hand was raised and a single finger was pressed against her pursed lips, her royal blue eyes looking to the side and at something not shown on the paper. A secret.
Frustrated, but not deterred, she posted another note to the inside of the door: 'Why a secret?'
There was no reply the next day. Or the day after that. The journalist was disappointed, of course, but also felt rejected in some way. Perhaps she shouldn't have prodded her secret admirer? But thankfully on Thursday, there was a reply. Her note was stuck to another picture.
Carefully unfolding the paper with delight vibrating in her fingertips, Peggy breathed a mental sigh of relief and surveyed the penciled scene. Her smaller self walked happily down the sidewalk, blissfully unaware of the one who reached for her. The other person was not actually shown, but a slender arm extended from the part of the page that did not exist and an outstretched hand reached for Peggy's. The hand wore a fingerless ash gray glove that Peggy instantly recognized. Concealing her surprise under a pleasant smile, the brunette began to search the halls.
She found Violette walking to class on the second floor and wordlessly took her hand. She looked up to Peggy with wary bewilderment, cheeks as pink as carnations. Peggy smiled at her in an encouraging, and only the mildest bit uncertain, kind of way.
She'd never been opposed to trying new things.