‌On Thursday morning after first bell, I linger, taking my time at my locker. I keep peering toward the end of the row, looking for Caroline, but she hasn’t shown up. I haven’t seen her once since we sat together in the theater on Monday. Finally, I give up and race to class.‌

The last few days have been brutal, with Caroline’s words running through my head in an endless loop. I can’t imagine what she wants to show me today or how it could possibly change my whole life. And if she’s right about me? What does that even mean?

Lunch can’t come soon enough. As soon as the fourth period bell sounds, I stand up and race past the rest of my U.S. History classmates, bolting for the door. Everyone heads for the cafeteria and the quad, but I take off in the opposite direction.

When I arrive at the double doors that lead into the theater, I take a quick look around. Then I slip inside and go straight to the piano, hiding from view like Caroline told me to.

I keep checking the time on my phone, and I’m starting to wonder if this is all a joke, when I hear voices, quiet but audible, coming toward me. I’m tempted to take a step forward so I can get a look at their faces, but I press my back flat against the curtain and tell myself not to move.

The voices fade away and Caroline pokes her head around the curtain, curls her finger toward herself, and whispers, “Follow me.”

“Where are we going?” I ask, and she brings her finger to her lips, shushing me. We disappear backstage, and about twenty feet away, I see a door closing. We wait for it to shut completely, and then we creep forward.

“Open it,” she says, and then adds the word “quietly.” She rests her hands on her hips and I read her T-shirt: EVERYONE HATES ME BECAUSE I’M PARANOID.

I turn the knob as gently as I can, and soon I’m staring at a steep, narrow staircase. My first instinct is to close the door and turn back the way we came. I shoot Caroline a questioning look and she gestures toward the stairs. “Go ahead. Go down.”

“Down?”

She raises an eyebrow. “Well they don’t go up, now do they?”

No. They don’t.

“Here,” she says. “I’ll go first.” And before I can say another word, she pushes past me and starts down the stairs, and because I can’t imagine doing anything else at this point, I close the door behind us and follow her.

The narrow hallway is painted dark gray, and I look up at the ceiling lights, wondering why they’re so dim. Caroline and I turn down another hallway just in time to see the door at the far end swinging shut. I stay on her heels until we’re standing in front of it.

This is beyond creepy. “What is this place?”

She ignores my question and points to the doorknob. “Okay, I’m going to be by your side the entire time, but this is all up to you from here. You have to do all the talking.”

“Talking? To whom? What do you mean, it’s up to me?” “You’ll see.”

I don’t want to see. I want to leave. Now.

“This is bizarre, Caroline. There’s no one down here.” I try not to look like I’m rattled, but I am. And I can’t imagine how anything in a freaky basement underneath the school theater could possibly change my life. My mind’s operating on overload now, my thoughts racing, and I feel a panic attack coming on.

What was I thinking? I don’t even know her.

I turn away and start heading back the way I came.

“Sam,” she says, and I stop, just like that. Caroline grips my forearm and looks right into my eyes. “Please, check it out.”

There’s something about the look on her face that makes me want to trust her, like I’ve known her all my life. And as nervous as I am, I’m even more curious to see what’s on the other side of that door.

“Fine,” I say, clenching my teeth. I reach for the knob and turn.

The room on the other side is small and painted completely black. Black ceiling. Black floor. Metal shelving units stocked with cleaning supplies

line three of the walls, and the other one is covered with hanging mops and brooms.

Caroline points to a section of mop heads gently swaying back and forth against the wall, as if they’d recently been touched. I pull them to one side, exposing a seam that runs all the way up the wall until it meets another one at the top. It’s a door. The hinges are painted black and so is the dead bolt, camouflaging everything perfectly.

“Knock,” Caroline commands from behind me. I do what I’m told without questioning or arguing or second-guessing.

First there’s a click, and then the door swings toward me and I see a pair of eyes in the narrow opening. “Who are you?” a girl’s voice whispers.

I glance over at Caroline, but she just gives me this Say something!

look, so I return to the girl in the doorway.

“I’m Samantha.” I hold my hand up. “I mean, Sam.” Why not, I figure, as long as I’m making introductions and all. “I was hoping I could come in.”

She looks past me, over my shoulder, and Caroline whispers, “She’s with me.”

The girl makes a face but pushes the door open anyway, giving us enough room to step inside. Then she scans the janitor’s closet, like she’s checking to be sure the two of us are alone, and I hear the dead bolt snap closed again.

I don’t even have time to take in the surroundings because now there’s a guy standing in front of me. He’s tall and thin, with broad shoulders and a headful of sandy blond hair. He looks a little bit familiar, and I’m still trying to place him when he narrows his eyes at me and says, “What are you doing here?”

I look at Caroline for help again, but she runs her finger across her lips like she’s zipping them shut, and I kind of want to punch her right now.

“I’m Sam—” I begin, but he cuts me off.

“I know who you are, Samantha.” I study his face again. He knows my name. I don’t know his.

“I’m sorry.” I’m not really sure why I’m apologizing, but it seems like the right thing to do. I step backward toward the door, feeling for a knob, but there isn’t one.

The girl who let me in hands him a thick braided cord and he slips it over his head. A gold key bounces against his chest.

“How did you find this room?”

“My friend…” I say, gesturing toward Caroline. He glances over at her and she nods at him. He quickly returns his attention to me.

“Your friend what?”

Caroline’s made it pretty clear that she isn’t going to do anything to help me at this point, but that doesn’t mean her words can’t get me the rest of the way into the room. “I heard that this place might change my life, and, well…I guess my life could use some serious changing, so I thought…” I trail off, watching him, waiting for his face to relax, but it doesn’t.

He stares at me for what feels like a full minute. I stare back, refusing to give in. Caroline must be getting worried, because she wraps both hands around my arm and pulls herself in closer, showing him she’s on my side.

He crosses his arms and never takes his eyes off me.

“Fine,” he says. “You can stay today, this one time, but that’s it. After this, you have to forget all about this place, got it? One time, Samantha.”

“Got it,” I say. Then I add, “And it’s Sam.”

His forehead creases. “Fine. But it’s not like this makes us friends or anything.”

Friends? My friends don’t call me Sam. “Why would I think we’re friends? I don’t even know you.”

He smiles, revealing a dimple on the left side of his mouth. “No,” he says, as if it’s funny. “Of course you don’t know me.” He walks away, shaking his head, leaving Caroline and me standing alone at the back of the room.

“What the hell was that?” I ask her. My voice is even more wobbly than it was a few minutes ago.

She gives me a supportive nudge with her elbow. “Don’t worry about it.

You did great.”

Now that he’s no longer blocking my view, I can see where I am. The room is long and narrow and, like the janitor’s closet, painted entirely in black. But the ceilings are twice as high, and even though it’s dark, it’s not claustrophobic at all. At the front of the room, I see a low riser that appears to be a makeshift stage. Smack in the center, there’s a wooden stool.

I count five other people in the room. They’re sitting on small couches and oversize chairs facing the stage and set at a slight angle, each one covered in different material—blue crushed velvet, brown leather, red and gray checks—and completely unique. Low bookcases line the room, and

small mismatched lamps are spaced evenly around the perimeter. I nervously wonder what would happen if the power went out.

Then I see the walls.

I spin a slow 360 in place, taking it all in. All four walls are covered with scraps of paper in different colors and shapes and textures, all jutting out at various angles. Lined paper ripped from spiral-bound notebooks.

Plain paper, three-hole punched. Graph paper, torn at the edges. Pages that have yellowed with age, along with napkins and Post-its and brown paper lunch bags and even a few candy wrappers.

Caroline’s watching me, and I take a few cautious steps closer to get a better look. I reach for one of the pages, running the corner between my thumb and forefinger, and that’s when I notice handwriting on each one, as distinctive as the paper itself. Loopy, flowing cursive. Tight, angular letters. Precise, blocky printing.

Wow.

I don’t think I’ve ever experienced this sensation outside the pool, but I feel it now, deep in my bones. My shoulders drop. My heart’s no longer racing. I can’t see a toxic, negative thought for miles.

“What is this place?” I whisper to Caroline, but before she can say anything, the girl I met at the door comes out of nowhere and grabs my arm. She has dark hair and a pixie cut, and now she’s bouncing in place like this is the most exciting thing that’s happened to her in a long time.

“Come sit with me. There’s an open spot on the couch in front.” She starts leading me toward this atrocious green-and-pink-plaid sofa in the first row. “How long have you been writing?”

For what feels like the one-hundredth time today, my head spins toward Caroline. She’s got a weird grin on her face. “Writing?”

“Don’t worry,” Pixie Cut says. She tightens her grip on my arm and pulls me closer. “I’m the newest one here and I totally remember my first time. Don’t be afraid. You’re only here to listen.”

She plops down on one end of the couch and pats the cushion on her right. “Sit.” I do as I’m told. “Well, you definitely picked a good day,” she says. “Sydney’s going first and AJ’s up after her.”

Caroline settles in on my other side. I look to her for clues, and again she gives me nothing.

Everyone gets quiet as a heavyset girl I assume to be Sydney climbs up to the stage and bumps the stool with her hip, scooting it to the side. Wait. I

know her. She’s in my U.S. History class.

I’d never seen her before this week, but on the first day of school, she strolled into class wearing a black strappy dress with bright red cherries all over it. It looked vintage. But it wasn’t her outfit or her confidence that caught my attention. It was her hair. Long, thick, and bright red, like Cassidy’s. I’d already been thinking about her all day, wishing the two of us were at the pool instead, and seeing that hair made me miss her even more.

Sydney holds up the top of a Chicken McNuggets container. “I wrote this last night at…” She flips the paper around to show us the McDonald’s arches and bounces her hand up and down, nodding proudly. “The lid wasn’t as greasy this time, so I got an entire poem in,” she says, and everyone laughs at what I presume to be an inside joke.

“I call this one Neujay.” She turns the paper around again and runs her fingertip across the word “Nuggets,” and then clears her throat dramatically.

ENTRY

My teeth pierce your bumpy fNesh. OiN, sweet, sNipping over my tongue SNiding down my throat.

DECISIONS

Barbecue or sweet and sour? Mustard or honey?

I cNose my eyes Let fate decide. Tip, dip, Nift Barbecue.

STUDY

GoNden. Shining under fNuorescents. PiNed. Grazing each other’s edges. Patient. ANways patient.

ADMIRATION

GoNd, pink.

Crispy, saNty.

What the heNN are you made of?

Everyone stands, clapping and cheering, and Sydney holds her skirt to one side and curtsies. Then she throws her arms up in the air and her head back and yells, “Yes! Stick me!”

Some guy on the other couch tosses a glue stick at her. She catches it in the air, removes the cap, and, using the stool as a table, runs the glue back and forth across the McDonald’s logo.

She steps off the stage and I think she’s walking toward me, but she passes our couch and stops at the wall. We all watch as she smacks what’s left of the Chicken McNuggets lid against it. Brushing her hands together, she settles into a spot on the couch behind me and our eyes meet. She smiles at me. I smile back. I don’t think I’ve ever heard her speak until now.

When I turn around again, the guy who let me inside is taking the stage.

He perches himself on the stool and picks up the acoustic guitar that’s strapped over his shoulder.

How do I know him?

I follow the string around his neck, and picture that gold key hiding behind his guitar.

“I wrote this last weekend in my room. And, okay, I’m sayin’ it.” He pauses for dramatic effect. “This one sucks.”

He stands up, holds his hands in front of him, and lets the guitar fall slack so the strap catches it. He’s gesturing toward himself in this go-ahead- let-me-have-it kind of way, and everyone around me starts ripping papers out of notebooks, balling them up, and chucking them at him. He laughs and keeps gesturing with his hands, silently telling them to keep it coming.

I look over at Caroline. She won’t make eye contact with me, so I lightly elbow pixie-cut girl. “Why are they doing that?” I ask, and she comes in close to my ear. “It’s one of the rules. You can’t criticize anyone’s poetry, but especially not your own.”

He perches himself on the stool and picks up his guitar again, and the second he does, the paper stops flying. He starts plucking the strings, and this melody fills the room. He’s only playing a few notes, but they sound so pretty together this way, over and over again. And then he starts singing.

So Nong, Lazy Ray.

Were you a crack you’d be tempting to Nook through. Were you my coat on a coNd day,

You’d Nose track of the ways you were worn. And it’s true.

I haven’t got a cNue. How to Nove you.

He’s not looking at any of us. He’s just staring down at the guitar, picking at the strings. He sings two more verses, and his voice rises higher, louder when he reaches the chorus. After another verse, the tempo slows, and I can tell the song is winding down.

Like sunNight dancing on my skin, You’NN stiNN be in my mind.

So I’m onNy gonna say, So Nong, Lazy Ray.

The last note lingers in the silence. Everyone remained quiet for a second or two, but now they’re on their feet, clapping and cheering and tossing more paper balls at his head as he swats them away. Then they start pelting him with glue sticks.

He manages to catch one as it bounces off the wall behind him, and then he does that musician thing, slipping his guitar around his back in one fluid motion. He’s shaking his head as if he’s embarrassed by the attention, and pulls a piece of paper out of the back pocket of his jeans. He unfolds it, flattens it against the stool, and rubs glue along the back before he steps down from the stage.

He walks to the other side of the room and, still clutching the paper, bows once. Then he reaches up high on the wall, smacking his words against it.

I’m trying to figure out if everyone else is as taken aback as I am, but they don’t seem to be. Didn’t anyone else think that was amazing? Because while all of them are clearly enjoying this moment, none of them look quite as surprised as I am, and I’m pretty sure their arms aren’t covered in goose bumps like mine are. They all look relatively unfazed.

Except Caroline.

She’s grinning ear to ear, and as we take our seats again, she threads her arm through mine and rests her chin on my shoulder. “I knew it,” she says. “I was right about you.”

As I scan the room, taking in the slips of paper scattered around me, I think I catch Caroline and pixie-cut girl look at each other. “What is this place?” I ask again, hearing the amazement in my own voice.

Pixie Cut answers me. “We call it Poet’s Corner.”