Dear Miss Gardner:
Hello. How are you? I am fine.
I hope you remember me. I was one of your third grade students for the 1971-1972 school year. In the class picture, I was the one with the olive skin and a shag haircut fashioned after Keith Partridge. I wore a pinkish-purple, slightly shiny shirt that made me feel pretty sexy, even though I was only eight.
You may remember me as the Siamese twin of the short, spunky girl named Ellen S. Ellen and I were inseparable, except for the times you forced us to sit apart. I suppose we were a bit high-spirited. However, despite your occasional exasperation, you did appreciate our collective effort in creating The Buzzum Book, a hand-drawn (in pencil and blue ballpoint ink) tour de force housed between the black and white speckled covers of a wide-rule composition book. You admired our creativity and our dedication.
I think you should know that, although we idolized you and wanted to be you when we grew up — in fact, you were the model on which I based "Miss Lawrence" — we laughed at you behind your back. You see, although the "buzzums" were indeed limbless, happy-go-lucky, adventure-seeking characters who wore jaunty berets and always appeared in profile, there was a bit more to them than you suspected.
But I suppose I can understand your error, in part. After all, how were you to know that "buzzum" was Ellen's way of spelling "bosom"? And we never did correct you when you pronounced it BUZZ-uhm. I would like you to know, though, that although I did know the correct spelling (remember my perfect spelling quizzes?), we decided to go with Ellen's so no one would be the wiser. Including you.
So, anyway, I just thought you should know. I hope you don't feel like, well, a big boob for having been duped.
Sincerely,