left to our own devices

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    I know I already posted today but a happy thought hit me just now.

    Everybody is off bowling tonight, dressed as either hippies or preps, an event organized by the student senate. I chose not to go because I didn't see myself going. Fellow freshmen Patrick and Jim also chose not to go.

    I finished my allotted homework earlier than expected and so treated myself to finally starting the latest Mary Russell mystery. (Fab so far.) When I was done for the time being, I went back into my room, leaving the door open, and went under my desk to put the book back on the desk-shelf.

    "Hey, who's in there?" called out the voice of Jim.

    "Just me," I said, emerging to put my travel pillow back on my desk chair and my cell phone on my desk. Jim and Patrick had been around earlier, when I was in the lounge reading and they were knocking on the doors of the empty girls' rooms for the sake of noise.

    "Oh, it's Ruby. Hey, don't go in your bathroom." A stern eye and a pointing finger were directed at me through the crack of the open door jamb.

    "But I need to wash my hands."

    "Oh, you can go in the bathroom to wash your hands, that's ok."

    "Glad to hear it."

    I finished putting my things away and walked down the hall, where I found the two boys busily drawing on the mirrors of the girls' bathroom with dry-erase markers.

    It was as I was washing my hands and looking at a doodle of a purple, mustachioed octopus wearing a top hat and monocle (and saying, "good aftermorn!") that the happy thought hit me.

    "I have a fake mustache just like that one," I said. "I took mustaches with me to college, like a sensible person." I don't think the boys heard me; they were too busy snorting over one of their new creations.

    After washing my hands, I walked back to my room, but heard the words "Does it work on here?", then stopped and half-turned before going in.

    "Don't draw on the walls," I called out.

    "We won't!" echoed back.

    "Or the stalls. Or the floors."

    "Too late!" cried Patrick cheerily.

    I went into my room, closed the door and finally opened up the long-sealed package of fake mustaches my mother had bought for me back home.

    "'Hey Ruby!'" said Jim in monotone from outside my door as he read from the post-it note stuck to the aforementioned door, "'I love you! If you need to talk, you know where I am! Love, Danielle.'"

    "Oh," I said, "have you changed your name, Jim?"

    "Yes."

    "I like it, it suits you." 

    "Thank you."

    "Hey, man, are we still gonna watch Inception?" said Patrick.