Ashley walked into the classroom, glancing around before dropping her backpack beside her desk. Several students were already present, talking in small groups. With one week of school under their belts already Ashley wasn't surprised that they already had formed friendships. She wondered how long those friendships would last.

Ashley was in tenth grade. She had brown hair and hazel eyes and was generally a background person. She spent her time playing video games, writing fanfictions, and talking to her friends. Most of her friends were guys, with the exception being an energetic girl named Mackenzie, or Kenzie for short. Kenzie was always saying that Ashley was a strong independent girl, but that she needed a boyfriend. Ashley disagreed. She had seen Kenzie with her own boyfriend enough times to decide she wasn't ready for a heart-wrenching relationship.

As the minute hand moved closer to the seven, more students filed in. Ashley sat down and stared absently at the whiteboard. It was clean and empty. If this class was anything like Ashley's last english class, this week was the only week it would remain empty.

Just as the bell rang one last student entered the classroom. A young man with dark hair and eyes. He glanced at the teacher's empty desk before moving to the desk beside Ashley's.

"Think we'll have a sub?" he asked, dropping his backpack to the ground and stretching. His name was Johann Vallejo and he was a good friend of Ashley's. They had met in seventh grade. Now they were in high school together. They often talked in the mornings and at lunch.

"Maybe," Ashley responded. A man walked into the room, pulling the door closed behind him. He smiled widely at the class.

"Good morning, class!" he announced.

"Good morning Mr. Cliffton," the class recited back, taking their seats.

"Now that you've all gotten a chance to know each other, it seems like a great time to talk to you about your semester project," Mr. Cliffton announced. The class groaned in unison.

"Really? You've got to be kidding me!" Seth, a student who didn't seem to have the usual amount of self-restraint, complained.

"No, I'm not," Mr. Cliffton assured him in an amused voice. "And thank you for giving me the perfect example of what not to do in my class. In the future please raise your hand to express opinions."

"I wonder what the project is," Ashley whispered to Johann.

"Whatever it is, it's too soon," he agreed.

"M . . . A . . . S . . . K . . . S," Mr. Cliffton read as he wrote the letters on the board. "Masks. We all use them, sometimes literally and sometimes figuratively. That's what we're going to be working on until the first week of December."

He added to his original letters, making an acoustic poem. Ashley quickly read it.

Making
A
Student
Know
Sympathy

"Can anyone tell me what they think this means?" Mr. Cliffton asked. A girl raised her hand and he pointed at her.

"Helping other students by understanding their problems?" she tried.

"That's the basic idea," Mr. Cliffton approved. "Each of you will be assuming a type of mask yourselves. I've looked at the attendance list and found out that there are exactly the same amount of boys and girls. Each of you will be randomly paired up, one boy to one girl, and you will write each other letters. It's a good way to learn how to socialize and develop your writing skills. It will also help you all to appreciate each other more."

"What if we get someone we don't like?" a girl in the back asked.

"You won't know if it's someone you do or do not like because everything will be anonymous. Each student will make up a pen name for themselves and will not reveal their identity to anyone else. In the first week of December you can reveal your identity to your partner."

"I've already got the perfect pen name," Johann told Ashley.

"Beast Slayer?" she guessed.

"I can't tell you, remember?" he teased. She turned back to Mr. Cliffton. She already had her own pen name picked out. Cinder. It sounded tough and was similar to Ash, which was already in Ashley's name.

"I want you to turn in your pen names by the end of class. Yes, it will be a grade. And no, you can't request partners. No exceptions. I'm not making you become your partner's soul mate. It's just a writing assignment," Mr. Cliffton said. Ashley sighed inwardly. What would she write letters to a random guy about? Maybe what sports he participated in. Or homework. Video games or movies. Maybe she could even give him advice about girls. The project shouldn't be too hard.

"What do girls usually like to talk about?" Johann asked.

"I don't know," Ashley replied. "All of my friends are guys except for Kenzie, and she pretty much only talks about her boyfriend."

"Suppose the girl doesn't have a boyfriend though," Johann suggested.

"Are you in the market for a girlfriend?" Ashley teased. Joshua laughed and turned his attention back to the whiteboard as Mr. Cliffton finished writing their assignment for the day.

"Why? It's not like you really have to get to know her," Ashley continued as she pulled out her notebook.

"I want to actually become her friend if I can, and I don't want to make a fool of myself," Johann explained as he reached for a pen.

"You? Make a fool of yourself? Never," Ashely told him. He grinned at her.

"See, that's what I'm talking about," he told her. "I can never tell if you're being sarcastic or not."

"Then take it as a compliment," Ashley laughed. "That's what I always do."

But as she began to do the classwork, her mind kept wandering back to her writing partner. Writing letters to someone for a grade. Who would have guessed?