I stood by the door, holding the box of valentines. Before school started four of my classmates were busy stuffing envelopes into the red crepe paper-decorated mailbox on Mrs. Miller’s desk. What if everyone else has store-bought cards, I worried. I had spent several evenings creating twenty-three cards from paper, stickers and glitter. Mother insisted I give every member of my class a valentine
—even Malcolm. I made him a card, but I didn’t waste my sparkly heart stickers, and I didn’t sign my name.
The day dragged slowly toward the afternoon party with cupcakes and Koolaid. Mrs. Miller walked up and down the rows of desks distributing cards. My mound of colorful envelopes contained no other homemade cards. I looked around to see if anyone was laughing at my cards. On Malcolm’s desk six envelopes lay beside the remains of his cupcake.
I was stuffing cards into my empty lunchbox, when Malcolm appeared beside me. "Thank you for the card. I liked yours best. You always do such pretty art work." He shuffled toward the door in his ragged, hand-me-down pants clutching his small collection of Valentines to his chest.
I dumped my pile of cards in the wastebasket.
Cynthia Becker is a freelance writer and author of the biography Chipeta: Queen of the Utes
'>Chipeta: Queen of the Utes.
© 2007 Cynthia Becker. Original for CCF (Becker grants CCF first electronic rights for one month; CCF may archive the material indefinitely and include it in an eBook anthology).
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