Written by: Lucas Henderson At school the next day, there was a strange atmosphere when Hannah walked into
class. "Hmm. This isn't right," she thought. As she walked to her desk, she noticed that several
students were huddled around Leo's desk and that he had red rings around his eyes. He looked up
at Hannah and said, "Why are people so mean?" Hannah didn't know what to say and stopped as
Leo put his head into his hands. "Are you okay, Leo?" Hannah asked. She knew it was a silly thing
to ask; he obviously wasn't okay at all. One of the other students said, "Someone posted
something nasty about Leo online last night. He's just seeing it now."
Hannah felt nauseated. Things like this had happened at her school before, and she knew
that they never ended well. Leo had a very good question. Why are people so mean? That was a
real mystery. Someone probably posted something online thinking it to be funny. They didn't think
about how Leo would feel when he found out, and they obviously didn't think about how it would
feel if anyone did that to them.
Just then, the principal walked into the class looking stern and angry. "Will and Emily. My
office. Now!" he barked. The two students kept their heads down as they gathered their bags and
left the room, desperate not to look at anyone as they left. Hannah realized that they were already
embarrassed about what they'd done. Maybe they were already thinking about how upset their
parents would be when they found out from the principal exactly how callous, thoughtless, and
mean they'd been.
No one saw Will and Emily at school again that day.
The next morning, when Hannah got to her classroom, she saw everyone standing outside,
gazing at the lockers. As she approached, she noticed that people were smiling and laughing.
There were colored sticky notes on each of the lockers. As she got closer, she began to smile - the
positive energy was contagious, and she hadn't even seen what was on there yet. Each locker had at least two sticky notes on the door. Some sticky notes had silly jokes;
some said things like, "What do you call a dinosaur who likes words? A Thesaurus!" Others had
positive statements, such as, "You are truly wonderful!" Everyone was reading each other's locker
notes and sharing the jokes. Hannah joined in and was pleased to see Leo laughing along with
everyone else. At one point, someone said, "Mine says I am clever and funny," and Leo replied, "No,
it says ... ", and then didn't finish his sentence. No one else noticed, but Hannah thought this was a
bit strange. She caught Leo's eye and smiled at him. He smiled back before turning to someone
else.
Hannah thought about Sherlock Holmes's words. The art of investigating is in seeing what
others don't see. All of her classmates were looking at the lockers when someone said, "Who did
this?" No one owned up, but everyone kept smiling.
It took a while before people realized that Will and Emily were now on the outskirts of the
group, trying to get to their lockers. Both of them were obviously still humiliated by their actions.
Hopefully they regretted their actions. Their heads were bowed, and they didn't try to talk to
anyone. Hannah saw them look at the sticky notes on their lockers. On both of them it said, "Be the
best person you can be!" No one else had the same message on his or her locker, apart from Will
and Emily. Just then, everyone else moved into the classroom. Just before she went in, Hannah
heard Leo say good morning to them both before he went in. Emily and Will looked surprised, not
just at their lockers, but at Leo's greeting, too.
When their teacher arrived, he said, "The lockers look great, but I don't think this should
happen every day. Does anyone want to own up to this? No? Okay, let's just leave it then." Hannah
caught Leo's eye. He looked at her, gently nodded his head toward her, and smiled. Then he put his
finger to his lips and looked away. Hannah realized that she'd solved her second mystery, but this
time, she didn't need to share her achievement with others. What Leo had done was very special,
and maybe one day, she'd talk to him about it. One day, but not today.