Best Kept Secret by Debra Moffitt

be dormant right now, shut down?”
    We nodded.
    â€œYou girls would do well to keep all that Pink Locker business under wraps, understand?”
    Yes, we nodded again.
    Ms. Russo told us to wait a minute, stood up, and walked over to the door. She opened it and peeked her head out to look up and down the hallway. Just as she did that, we heard someone calling her name from the direction of the lobby.
    â€œYes, I’m here,” she called back. We heard her footsteps and then she said, “Right. Tell him I’ll be right there.”
    Ms. Russo poked her head back in the band room and said, “Sorry. To be continued.”
    Bet and I just sat there a minute with me wondering how big a mistake I had just made. What if Ms. Russo told the principal and the principal told my parents?
    â€œUgh. Why do I always say the wrong thing?” I massaged my temples as if I had a pulsing headache.
    â€œDon’t worry so much,” Bet said. “I can’t say for sure, but I think Ms. Russo is on your side.”
    *   *   *
    I left Bet and moved back into the loud music zone. I gave in—how could I not?—and spent some time with Kate and Brett. I had to admit they made a cute couple, and they were not one of those annoying duos who are so googly-eyed for one another that they make you, the third person, feel dumb. Still, when DJ Jeff said, “Let’s slow it down a little bit,” and the music took an obvious turn toward a slow dance, I told them I had to go find Bet.
    Really, that’s the only trouble with going to a dance without a date: You feel like there’s a spotlight shining on you when the music gets all quiet and couples start moving, hand in hand, to the dance floor. I didn’t want to linger, for fear I’d see Forrest and Piper snuggling up. I might be forced to plow into them and force them apart. Maybe we could dance—all three of us—to show Piper just how much she had intruded on my deepest, longest, most treasured crush ever.
    As I headed away from the dance floor, Taylor Mayweather and her replacement boyfriend brushed by me.
    â€œWhere’s your sixth-grader?” she said.
    The music was loud enough that I could pretend I didn’t hear her. I had yet to see Forrest and Piper slow-dance, but I watched Kate and Brett, Tia and Fitzy, and a bunch of other couples make the awkward adjustments necessary. It looked to me like a hug, where you left some space between you and the other person. Then you shuffled your feet a little bit to the music. The part I knew I could never do is gaze into my partner’s eyes the whole time. No lovesick staring contest for me, not even with Forrest.
    But I was saved by the bell, or the vibration anyway, of my pink cell phone. I had turned off the ringer for the night and thought it might be my mom, or Bet trying to find me, but it came up as Piper. Shocked, I opened the text she sent to me and Kate.
    COME TO MY LOCKER. IMPORTANT!

Fifteen
    In moments, all four of us were gathered there. Bet saw me darting off and had followed me. I didn’t stop her. Thankfully, Forrest was nowhere to be seen. I worried for a moment that they all had already found out that I spilled the beans to Ms. Russo. But that wasn’t it.
    â€œI told her,” I said, when everyone paused in recognition that Bet had come to the surprise secret meeting.
    â€œGood. We need all the help we can get,” Piper said, flashing her phone at us. “Just look how many questions and messages the PLS got during the dance. We have people sending us messages while they are here!”
    I noticed the questions coming in on my phone, but it wasn’t, like, a zillion. Did we really need a meeting about this right in the middle of the dance?
    â€œHmmmm … I noticed some people were asking questions, too. I felt bad that people were home needing help instead of having fun at the dance,” Kate said.
    Our phones