My Funny Valentine

Everybody loved Suzy.

Suzy was cute, talented and vivacious, the darling of Jenny Lind Elementary School. No one loved her more than me, second grade romeo. When St. Valentine’s day came around, we all bought the cheap grocery-store valentines for our classmates. The rules were clear, one card to each student, no ‘special’ cards to anyone. But my love would not be bound by their petty rules! I would give Suzy a truly special valentine, made by hand, and it would show her that she, among all the girls in the primary grades, was the most wanted.

I labored at home, in secret in the basement, with scraps of discarded construction paper and paper doilies, with white glue and glitter. I had a little trouble with the heart (it resembled a baseball mitt) and I didn’t have any extra red paper, but it was close enough. I wrote ‘I Love You’ in red crayon, although the letter v was closer to a u: ‘I Loue You’. The glue for the glitter kind of ran a little, but it did look festive. After it was all done, I stole out of the house and ran the four blocks to Suzy’s house (I had to be back in time for supper.) It started snowing, first lightly, then big flakes. I walked up her front walk, my heart started pounding - what if she saw me? What could I do? I could put it in her mail slot - but she might hear that - did I see the front curtain move? I ran back to the curb, there was a wrought-iron railing at the end of the walk, I curled the valentine into the rail and headed home in the blinding snow. As I neared home I realized that I forgot to sign the card! I ran back to Suzy’s and the card was gone!

The next day in school I played it cool.

Suzy never said anything.