Once there was a teenage boy named Bobby Christian. He was an average teen of average looks and very much like other young men his age, except for one thing: Bobby loved poetry. Poetry spoke to his soul. Now, obviously, being a lover of poetry is not the sort of thing that wins admiration from a young man's peer. Fancy high-priced sneakers might do it; skill in athletics-yes; a pierced ear-probably; a nice car-definitely; poetry-uh, no. So, understandably, Bobby just kept his poetry to himself.

In fact, Bobby tried to keep his love of poetry a secret. He would sometimes sneak books of poetry to the librarian's desk, hiding them beneath copies of sports magazines. Miss Shallot, the librarian, would put down her needlework and stamp Bobby's books without making any embarrassing comments. Miss Shallot was most definitely a pretty cool lady, and, as far as Bobby knew, she was the only person at school who knew that he liked poetry.

One day when Bobby was checking out at the library, Miss Shallot pulled a book from under the folds of the tapestry she was working on and slipped it beneath Bobby's stack of books. All she said was, "I think you'll like this." It was a copy of Alfred Lord Tennyson's Idylls of the King, which is a series of poems about King Arthur and his court. Tennyson became Bobby's favorite poet, and Idylls of the King became his favorite work of poetry.

Now in the poetry of Tennyson, one occasionally encounters a beautiful damsel: a female far to stunning to simply be a "girl" or "a woman," she's got to be "a damsel." Now a damsel is not only heart-breakingly beautiful, she is also very profound and says things like, "My knight, my love, my knight of Heaven, O thou, my love, whose love is one with mine." Hubba-Hubba. Above all, a damsel simply cannot resist a man who loves poetry. Bobby dreamed of meeting a damsel.

One year, after Christmas break, there was a new girl at school, and by common consent of the goo-goo-eyed boys, she was a fabulous babe. Her name was Elaine Bouffant. Bobby was smitten with her. She most definitely had damsel potential. Bobby kept repeating to himself, "Elaine the fair, Elaine the lovable, Elaine, the lily maid of Astolat." He could not, however, muster up the nerve to speak to her. Alack.

One day Bobby was walking past the school library just as Elaine came out with a couple of her friends. Bobby's pulse quickened and he felt his face flush. And then his heart skipped a beat when he saw that right on top of Elaine's stack of books was a copy of The Sonnets of William Shakespeare! "She loves poetry!" Bobby exclaimed to himself. "This is too good to be true."

It was, in fact, too good to be true. Elaine didn't even like any kind of literature, much less love poetry. The awful truth about Elaine is that she was an airhead who spent hours doing her nails every night while gossiping on the phone. She had a copy of Shakespeare's Sonnets only because of an assignment in her English class. She hadn't the foggiest notion of the meaning of a single line of Shakespeare.

But it was too late for Bobby. He had already hatched what he thought was an ingenious plan to win Elaine's heart, and he was so sure of success that he was almost cocky.

That night Bobby took his favorite edition of Tennyson, and, opening the front cover, he wrote on the flyleaf, "Dear Lady, art thou sick of shadows and Philistines? Lo, thy Lancelot will soon come to thee." Then he signed it, "Your Secret Admirer."

The next morning Bobby waited by Elaine's locker with the copy of Tennyson and a box of Fanny Farmer chocolates. When he saw her turn the corner toward her locker, he quickly put the book and the chocolates on the floor beneath her locker, and tried to look casual as he walked a short distance down the hall to a place where he could safely watch Elaine. His fantasy was that after Elaine had read the inscription and had clasped the book to her heart in blissful wonderment, he would reveal himself to her and botta-bing! She would be his babe.

The moment arrived. Elaine was at her locker. She picked up the book and the chocolates. "Oh, I love chocolates!" Elaine squealed to her friends. "But what's this? A book of poetry?! Ooo, like totally gross! If I see another book of poetry I'm just going to be, like, gagged to the point of barfing!" And with that she tossed the Tennyson into a nearby trashcan and cavalierly sauntered off down the hall trying to pick up a chocolate without messing her nails.

Bobby was not crushed. She was obviously a swine. He felt stupid. He couldn't believe that she would do that to his book! He went straight to the trashcan and fished out the Tennyson. It had a little bit of Twinkie crème on it, but it would be okay. He was just wiping it off when he was startled by a voice at his side.

"Hey, Bobby, did you miss breakfast or something?" It was Billy Scott. "'Cause if you're trying to find something good to eat in the trash, I just saw Mr. DeLong throw away…Hey, what's that book you've got there?"

"Aw, nothing," said Bobby whisking the Tennyson behind his back.

But it was too late. Billy had seen the book and asked, "Is that the poetry of Alfred Lord Tennyson? What kind of moron would throw away a great book like that? Man, I wish I'd found it first. You gonna keep it? I love Tennyson."

Bobby stared at Billy in disbelief. "Are you kidding with me?"

"Of course not," Billy replied. "I've been a poetry freak ever since Miss Shallot sneaked a copy of The Faerie Queen into my books last year. I thought that I was the only person in this whole school who had even heard of Tennyson. Have you ever read The Idylls of the King?"

From behind her desk in the library, Miss Shallot looked up from her needlework just in time to see Bobby and Billy walk past the door of the library in intense conversation. They looked in and waved at her. She smiled and went back to her tapestry.

(Allusions to Tennyson's poems: The Lady of Shallot, and Locksley Hall; Quotations from: The Holy Grail, 157, 158, and Lancelot and Elaine, 1, 2).