Owner of the Secret

After that, it seemed as though I was popular. "How did you do that, Rachel?" people would ask. I'd shrug, and say "You know, Susan did all the work." They never believed me. Some people would come over to me and ask if I could embroider their homework in gold. At least Susan wasn't mad at me for stealing her glory, and she got some credit, too. "And you really discovered the library on your own?" I got that question all the time. "Yes", I'd say. People always came over to me after school and said "Hey Rachel, do you think this is good enough for a book?" The trick was, even if I didn't like the book one bit, I'd put it on the shelf of the library. The next day, it would look pretty and new and shiny. Soon enough, everyone in our class had written a good book. One day, the teacher comes over to me for a talk. "Rachel," she says "I really like what your doing with the library. Somehow, I thought you'd keep it all to yourself. Of course, you were thinking about it, weren't you?" "What?" I say, alarmed. "Well, haven't you figured it out yet?" I think about what she just said. "I found the library when I first started teaching here. We had a few funny contractors who came to look for mold. They took weeks, and one of them wouldn't keep their mouth shut about a secret compartment. I think they were planning to build a sort of prank headquarters. Of course, no student could have easily found it. The lock was at the bottom of the door, not attached to the locker. A metal container held it. Until I found it, at least."