"I want you all to make a Valentine
for someone special today."
The teacher enthusiastically said.
With craft paper, paper doilies, white paste,
a pen, and child's craft scissors,
to work we went with designs
rambling around inside innocent heads.

Valentine's Day was that day
and hurry we must. The room as
silent as it had ever been.
Little creative minds
diligently intent on their task.
Bobby Baker cut his paper into
the shape of a heart, glued it onto
the doilie and wrote:
Marsha Ann
Will You
Be My Valentine?

When the time came he
handed it across the aisle to me.
I didn't care that he misspelled
my first name, and left the "e" off
the end of the second, 'cause
that day, I knew
Bobby Baker loved me.

Suddenly a mean boy grabbed my
treasured Valentine, ran around the room
yelling over and over
(please someone make him stop)
"Bobby Baker loves Marcia Anne
and he don't know how to spell."
Over and over he yelled it until the teacher
put him back in his seat... kerflop!!!
Then Bobby Baker looked at me and said,
"You're stupid! You're ugly! I hate you!"
while the others mimicked him with much glee.

But I didn't care what they said,
or how many times they said it, 'cause
on that special Valentine's Day
my wish had come true and,
I knew... if only for a little while
Bobby Baker loved me.

© Marcia Miller-Twiford