AN: I have honestly NO IDEA where this came from. It just popped into my head at around eleven p.m... and now it's 2:30. I had to write this on the actual website which totally sucked. I have no spell check, so please be easier on me. The couple will be revealed at the end. Oh, and in some of the italisized parts, there are some intentional grammar and spelling errors. Keep that in mind.

This is really a kind of pointless one shot... it's kinda short and just like... blah. But oh well.

Title: What is Love?
Rating: K+
Author: MadiWillow
Summary: Mrs. O'Quinn has been a second grade teacher for nearly thirty years. At the beginning of every school year, she assigns a mini-essay to her students. And out of all the essay's over the years, she's never read one quite like this before.
Genre: Romance
Chapter: OneShot

The assignment had been quite simple, really. It was the same assignment Cheryl O'Quinn had been giving ever since her start at East Elementary in Albuquerque, New Mexico, way back in 1991. She still remembered vividly, on her first day at school, she'd given the task to her room full of seven-year-old's. Many of the other staff members at East Elementary thought she was crazy. Why would you assign an in-class essay to a group of second graders? they would ask. What purpose does it serve? Mrs. O'Quinn would never answer their questions directly. She would merely smile and shrug. "I have my reasons," she'd respond.

She continued giving the assignment every year, and it escalated to students entering her classroom wearily, fearfully asking if she was going to hit them with a ruler should they not write at least one page. It amused her that older kids would scare the younger kids with horrifying stories; she didn't mind if all of her students were terrified to her on the first day. She let them sweat it out for the first twenty minutes of class as they wrote their essay's, before collecting the papers and telling her students that they were not to be graded. The children always groaned loudly at that revelation, but by the time the first recess bell rang, their "wasted time" was forgotten.

Mrs. O'Quinn sat at her desk patiently, in September 2019, awaiting for her new students to walk into the classroom. Around three minutes after the bell rang, a couple of girls walked cautiously into the room, glancing frightfully at Mrs. O'Quinn. She, in turn, smiled warmly at them, which somehow scared them more. They looked for their name tags on the many desks in the room and took their seats, as more students started to pile in.

Finally, after five busy minutes of children finding their desks and placing their Shrek and Disney princess folders into said desks, Mrs. O'Quinn stood up in front of the class and stood in front of her desk, silent until the chatter died down.

"Hello class," she greeted. "My name is Mrs. O'Quinn, and I will be your second grade teacher." She beamed around at her class, all of whom were watching her nervously. They knew what was coming. "Before we play any name games, I have a little assignment for you." Mrs. O'Quinn reached behind herself to the desk, where a stack of wide-ruled loose leaf paper.

A collective groan rose from the sea of students. "Why can't we just play games like the other classes?" a red headed boy in the back complained.

"This'll only take a few minutes," Mrs. O'Quinn assured him. She was standing at the front of the class, handing each child in the front row a pile of six sheets of paper for them to pass back. "It doesn't have to be long. You can write one line, one paragraph, one page, if you want."

"One page?" the same boy groaned, but the teacher ignored him.

Does anyone know what a promptt is?" she asked.

There was a silence as each pupil stared at her.

"A prompt is when I give you a question, and you have to answer it with an essay," Mrs. O'Quinn informed them. "Except you won't have to write a big essay. All you have to do is write your answer in however many sentences you feel like, okay?" She smiled encouraginly. "Your prompt is: what is love?"

She was met with the same reaction that she got every year. The children simply blinked at her for a moment.

"What is love?" a boy near the middle asked seriously, and a chorus of giggles erupted from the kids.

Mrs. O'Quinn grinned and said, "Okay, settle down. Write down whatever you think love is. If you don't know what it is..." She faltered. "Well, just take you best guess." She turned around and sat back at her desk, observing the children as they wrote. One girl was scribbling furiously, her nose barely an inch away from the paper. A couple students were slowly writing a few words on the paper, their eyebrows furrowed. Most, however, were simply sitting there with blank expressions. Mrs. O'Quinn always get many one-liner papers - in fact, they were almost all one-liners. Ninety out of a hundred times, kids would jump when she said she was collecting the papers, and quickly scrawl something down before she took it. She never really took the one-liner essay's seriously, because they were almost always bogus.

A dark skinned girl, near the front of the room, was staring out the window to the playground. She was playing, absent-mindedly, with her pencil, twirling it around her fingers. Her paper sat at the corner of her desk, turned over, and she looked longingly at the swing set. Mrs. O'Quinn eyed her for a moment, eager to learn her name and read the paper.

Thirty minutes passed and she stood up to finally collected the assignment. As per usual, she pretended not to notice three quarters of the students writing a quick little sentence down as she went up the rows to collect the papers. The kids all, predictably, sighed with relief when she told them the essay's were not going to be graded. Afterwards, the next forty-five mintues were spend with students sitting on their desks and saying their name, birthday, favorite food, favorite sport, and favorite season. Mrs. O'Quinn made a mental note as she heard the girl's name - Freya.

The bell rang, and the kids charged out the door to recess. Mrs. O'Quinn sat herself down at her desk and grabbed the stack of papers, straightening them. She grabbed the paper at the top of the stack and started to read.

My dad says he loves me.

My mommy says I love my sisster so love is wen you do not like sumone.

Love is the soond my mom and dad mak wehn there in bed.

Mrs. O'Quinn laughed out loud at Terry's response. She read over half of the essay's, feeling very impressed with Kate - the girl who had been writing animatedly. Kate had written a long statement about how love is when you can't live without someone because your souls are two parts of a whole. That's what her grandfather tells her, she says at the end. She grinned slightly as she put the paper down and picked up the next. Another one-liner, she thought briefly.

Love is wen my moms face gets bright wen she looks at my dad and wen my dads eyes look like twinkle stars when he looks at my mom.

She stared at the paper for many moments, long after she'd finished reading it. She stared, her mouth slightly agape, as her eyes moved back and forth, rereading the same line over and over again. She sat there for so long that she didn't hear the bell ring and nearly fell out of her chair when she saw her students pouring back into the room. Mrs. O'Quinn quickly glanced at the top right corner of the paper and read "Freya Danforth".

"Hey, Freya," Mrs. O'Quinn called as said girl passed her desk.

Freya whipped around and smiled widely at the teacher. "Hi, Mrs. O'Quinn," she said pleasantly. Her afro-esque hair, which was pulled into pigtails and secured with two dark blue clips, bounced as she turned.

Mrs. O'Quinn smiled. "Freya, I have a question about your essay..." Freya nodded. Mrs. O'Quinn paused, unsure of exactly what she was wanted to ask. "Your last name is Danforth?" she asked after a moment. Freya nodded again, glancing quickly over at her desk. "Is your dad's name Chad?" the woman asked suddenly, realization dawning on her. Freya, yet again, moved her head up and down.

"Do you know my daddy?" she asked curiously.

Mrs. O'Quinn smiled. "I do, actually. He was in my second grade class a long time ago."

Freya grinned toothily. "Really?"

The teacher nodded. "Yup." She looked over Freya's shoulder and saw the rest of the class at their desks, waiting. "You can go have a seat now," she added to Freya, and the little girl skipped over the desk. Mrs. O'Quinn continued with the lesson, itching for the day to end so she could sit down at her computer.

After what seemed like days, school let out and Mrs. O'Quinn was able to sit down and open her e-mail, a wide smile on her face as she started to type. She grabbed the registry next to her that conained all the names and e-mail addresses of her students and one of their parents.

Dear Mr. Danforth,

Hello. My name is Cheryl O'Quinn, and I am Freya's second grade teacher. However, you may know me as Miss Daley - from my days before marriage. I first would like to say that having Freya in my class has so far proved to be a joy, and I'm very happy to have her. Hopefully she won't be as much trouble as you were when I was your teacher.

That being said, do you remember the "What is love?" assignment from your first day of second grade? I assume you don't, although I have to admit that I remember it. It's not hard to forget a student confusing love with glove, and writing "Love is what my father uses to when he's planting flowers."

Well, I am still giving the "What is love?" assignment even know, twenty-two years after havng you in this class. And, well, to put it bluntly, your daughter has written the most impressive and intuitive essay I have ever read from another seven year old.

"Love is the way my mom's face goes bright when she looks at my dad and when my dad's eyes look like twinkle stars when he looks at my mom."

I just thought you and your wife should see it. Take care, and best wishes.

Sincerely,
Cheryl O'Quinn

Five hours later, Mrs. O'Quinn was curled up on her living room couch, a bowl of ice cream in her hands and her laptop on her lap. While her husband watched Monday night football, she opened up her e-mail and cleared out her junk folder. She glanced over at her staff e-mails disinterestedly, but on e-mail in particular caught her eye. She opened it up and found herself smiling knowingly by the time she finished. A sudden flashback of a little blonde seven-year-old girl, wearing sparkly clothing and carrying a bejeweled purse throwing bark on a poofy-haired boy crossed her mind.

Miss Daley/Mrs. O'Quinn,

I was very surprised when I read your e-mail and discovered that Freya is in your class. Just this past summer, I found myself wondering if you were still a teacher at East Elementary, but I didn't see you name on the staff list so I figured you were teaching somewhere else. It never occurred that you would get married. And I mean that in the nicest possible way - please don't hold back Freya because of it.

I was, however, even more surprised that you're still giving out that essay, but I guess I shouldn't have been. You'd been doing it for so long, of course you wouldn't stop.

I can't really explain what Freya's essay meant to me and my wife. We were both stunned. We both turned a little red but we're so proud of our daughter. You probably already tell this, but we're a very loving family. Thank you so much for sending this to me. Sharpay and I were most pleased.

Chad Danforth