Valentine courtesy of ClassroomClipart.com

Cynthia Buttons had a crush on Tommy Tomorrow. It was mostly a secret. This Valentine’s Day she wanted to give him the biggest hint of all. She would give him an extra special Valentine’s Day card.

Her Mom bought a set of Valentine’s Day cards with delightful cartoons on them. Cynthia sifted through the cards and picked out one that said something extra special for Tommy. It asked “Will you be my Valentine?”

She was hoping she would get an answer to this question, especially after she spent so much time picking out just the right stickers to go with it. She chose heart stickers of various sizes. She even found a squishy plastic sticker that said “Be Mine” on it. She had a sticker that looked like a lipstick kiss mark, but she thought it was a bit much for her first serious Valentine to Tommy, so she didn’t use it.

After she decorated her card, she carefully placed it on top in her bag of Valentines to take to school the next day on Valentine’s Day. She didn’t want to be too obvious, so she handed out other people’s Valentines first. Then at one point, she dropped off Tommy’s special Valentine, from the top of her card pile, on his desk. The envelope didn’t have his name on it. She only put her name on all her Valentines. She would be his secret admirer. He would think he accidentally got such a special card from her. She couldn’t wait to see the look on his face when he saw her special Valentine to him.

About a half hour later, she kept craning her neck to catch a glimpse of her Valentine on his desk. But something had gone terribly wrong. There was just one of her plain cards on his desk, not her very special Valentine. She looked in her bag. There were no more Valentines in there. Where did her special Valentine go? She thought she had it all planned out perfectly. Did it fall on the floor? Did she leave it at home?

She got up and walked around the room, without telling anyone why. She was looking for her Valentine on people’s desks. Then, to her horror, she found it. Pete Moss was holding it up to his face, examining it closely, and turning it all around.

“Did you give me this card?” he asked her as his eyes met hers.

“Yes, that is one of my cards,” Cynthia said, “but I was thinking of giving it to someone else.”

“Who?”

“It’s okay. You can have it now.”

“You want it back?”

“No. I just decorated it for Valentine’s. You can have it. I hope you like it.”

“Yeah, it’s a great card. Thank you for all the stickers.”

“You’re welcome.”

Cynthia felt a little embarrassed, but hoped it was not too obvious. Did Pete now know she had a crush on someone in the class? At least it was Pete. He was pretty quiet. He wouldn’t talk about this incidence too much to anyone else. Cynthia felt it was meant to be. It wasn’t very ladylike of her to throw herself at Tommy with a Valentine like that anyway. She was happy it worked out the way it did in the end.