The Valentine Box (The Box Books #3)

4th Grade

4th GRADE

February 14

Taylor

“ R eady?” Dad asks from behind the wheel of his beat-up Dodge pickup. His work truck, he calls it.

“No.” Next to him, I keep my eyes straight ahead, on the stupid slush-covered road leading to the stupid school. I woke up hoping classes would be canceled today, but it didn’t snow enough.

“Taylor,” he says in that sensible, soothing way of his. I’m getting pretty tired of that, though. He promised me everything would be fine here, but he was wrong. Why did he have to take a stupid new job in stupid Sweetwater, Kentucky?

“I hate it here,” I inform him.

“So you’ve said. A lot.”

“I want to go back to Cincinnati.” Where life was easy and everyone was nice and I fit in. Where my red hair and freckles were just…red hair and freckles, and not some reason for other kids to treat me like a freak. We’ve only been here a week, but every day walking into Sweetwater Elementary feels like a brand new nightmare to navigate. I never knew I was so weird until the horrible kids in my class made it so clear to me.

“I know you do, sweet pea,” he tells me. “And your mom and I are sorry you had to change schools in the middle of the year—we know that’s not easy. But it was an opportunity we couldn’t pass up.” My dad is a carpenter—and a good one, everyone says—but he’s been unemployed since the company he worked for went out of business right before Christmas. Now he’s going to build homes at a development half an hour away. We live in a little house not nearly as nice as our old one in this dingy little town along the Ohio River. Every time I see that river, all I can think about is that it leads home, to Cincinnati. But I’m stuck here, in Sweetwater, where half the shops on Main Street are empty and all the kids are mean.

“Tay, look!” Dad says, leaning forward to peer out the windshield as he points. “A heart cloud.”

I look, but struggle to make it out. “Sort of.” Dad sees hearts everywhere—in the sky, in trees, in mud puddles, you name it. He claims to see a heart-shaped cloud about every other day. This one is a reach at best.

“Speaking of hearts,” he says, “take a peek in the sack.” He gestures toward the brown shopping bag sitting on the seat between us.

I’ve been aware of the bag the whole time we’ve been in the truck. And I’ve heard my parents whispering about a “Valentine’s Day surprise” for me. Is this it?

I reach inside and pull out…a heart-shaped box. It’s about a foot wide, covered with beautiful carved designs, and the natural wood is a mix of colors from off-white to brownish to almost pink. On top is a narrow rectangular slot.

“It’s really pretty,” I say in awe. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever held anything so wonderful in my hands, the wood soft and smooth beneath my fingertips. “Did you make it?”

“Yep. It’s cedar. It’ll last forever, and it smells good.”

I bend down to take a whiff. “Oh, it does.”

“It’s to collect your valentines in at school.”

I’d noticed that Mom and I didn’t decorate a shoebox for that this year. She’s been busy unpacking and getting us settled, and I’ve been too depressed to care. I was okay with it being overlooked. “I’m not sure I’ll get any,” I confess.

At this, he leans over and gives my knee a reassuring pat. “Of course you will. You wrote them out for the other kids, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” I say grudgingly. “Mom made me.” Normally, it’s an activity I enjoy, but this year, who cares? Mom picked up a box of them featuring cartoon cats and dogs. They say things like Have a purr-fect Valentine’s Day! and You’re a pawsome friend! and Woof you be my Valentine? I signed my name and addressed them to the list of kids the teacher sent home, but I’m almost embarrassed by it. I want to make friends, but so far I feel surrounded by enemies.

I study the box some more, running my fingers over the carved parts. “It looks like something you’d buy in a store, but better.” I guess this is my way of telling him how talented I think he is. It’s pretty amazing to me that my dad can make stuff like this. He’s built a lot of shelves and other stuff for our family, too, but I think this is the coolest thing he’s ever created. “How do you open it?” I ask, studying it.

“The top slides off. But you have to flip the little metal things on the bottom.”

I turn it over. “Oh, I see.” It’s not obvious, which somehow adds to the beauty. It’s like the box has a secret. I wish I had secrets. I wish I was mysterious and special enough to have secrets. But everything about me is plain to see. Curly red hair. Orange freckles. Glasses. It’s confusing how I never knew everything about me was so unappealing until a few days ago, but now I feel the awkwardness just dripping from me.

When Dad pulls up in front of the one-story 1960s-style school, my stomach churns. I’d give anything to be back at home with Mom right now.

“Have a good day, sweet pea,” Dad says with a smile. He’s handsome, my dad. Dark-hair, loving eyes, a lean-but-rugged build. I wish I could make him understand how horrible it is in there, but his face is telling me to be brave. I want to be that: his brave girl, a daughter who makes him proud.

So I just say, “Okay,” then struggle to gather up the gazillion things I’m toting inside: a Camp Snoopy lunchbox, a container of cookies Mom insisted we make last night, and my new valentine box.

But before I get out, I look over and say, “Thanks for the box, Daddy. I love it.”

We’re at the valentine-trading part of the day, so kids are up from their desks, moving around the room. Me, though, I’m sitting down, with the idea of dropping mine into boxes at recess time—if I can figure out who sits where, because I only know a few kids by name so far. One of them is Mitchell Dover.

So far, what I know about him is that he’s constantly pushing his thick brown hair out of his eyes, and he’s a terror on the dodgeball court—which I learned in gym class, cowering in a corner. He walks over to my desk and drops an envelope inside my special new box, eyeing it closely.

The teacher, a blonde woman named Mrs. Harmon who wears lots of sweaters that look alike, has stepped into the hall, where she’s talking with the principal. I can hear them laughing. I haven’t decided yet if she’s an ally or another enemy. She should be an ally, but everything feels upside down here and she hasn’t seemed very nice to me so far, for no reason I can figure out.

Mitchell Dover picks up one of the pink-frosted sugar cookies from the plastic container next to my box. “You make these?” he asks.

“Yes, with my mom.”

Looking me squarely in the eye, he crushes the cookie into crumbs in his fist, letting them fall all over my desk, the valentine box, and the other cookies. It feels like he squeezed the life out of me , though. I’m stunned, gaping at him, wondering why he just destroyed something I worked hard on. It stings, and a heavy lump grows in my throat.

That’s when he pulls a thick, black marker from his pants pocket, yanks off the cap, and scribbles all over the top of my heart-shaped cedar box. I yank the box away, hugging it to my chest as I yell, “Stop it!”

“ Stop it ,” he mimics me in a babyish voice, then laughs.

Glancing down, I see that the wet ink has stained my new top, white and speckled with red hearts. It’s ruined. My eyes hurt and my throat burns and I’m trying desperately to hold back tears, but they’re rolling thick and heavy down my hot cheeks anyway.

“Are ya gonna cry, little baby? Wah, wah. Cry, little baby, cry.”

Mitchell Dover laughs and points at me, drawing me to the attention of anyone who hasn’t yet tuned in. Some kids laugh along with him while others just stare. But more are laughing than not and no one is coming to my rescue. Not that it would help now anyway. My top is destroyed, and so is the beautiful box my father made for me.

Directly to my right sits another of the few kids I know by name so far, Luke Montgomery. Sandy-haired and lanky, I’ve already figured out he’s popular, and sporty. Kids talk about him quarterbacking peewee football and I heard him telling his friends about the baseball glove he got for Christmas. His father is our new family doctor, so I guess he’s rich. From the corner of my eye I see him watching me.

Even as Mitchell Dover retreats across the room, all smug and proud of his hatefulness, even as other kids get back to the business of valentines, the good-looking little boy in the row of desks next to mine keeps watching me and it only embarrasses me all the more. Doesn’t he have anything better to do? Doesn’t he need to hand out valentines?

Luke

Mitchell’s a jerk. What did that girl ever do to him? I feel sorry for her, and there’s a part of me that thinks I should step in to help her in some way, but another part of me knows that would only make me the next target.

Still, she keeps crying. Crying and crying. Her shirt’s all messed up, and so is the cool box she brought in.

“Listen,” I lean over to say, trying to be quick about it, “don’t bother telling Mrs. Harmon. She’s Mitchell’s stepmom. He won’t get in trouble—she’ll just turn it back on you some way.”

She looks up at me through her tear-stained glasses, but says nothing, maybe because I’ve just made her situation even worse.

“Hi, Luke.”

I flinch, then look up to see Jasmine Dupree drop a white envelope in the shoebox my mom covered in red wrapping paper last night. “Hi, Jasmine.”

“You playing little league this spring?”

I just nod. She’s been in my grade since kindergarten, but lately she won’t leave me alone. She and I were elected to represent the fourth grade at the fall festival in October, so I had to walk with her across the stage, and she kept leaning on me. She has long, blonde hair, almost to her waist, curled under at the ends.

“So is my big brother,” she goes on, “so I’ll be at your games.”

“Okay.”

“Happy Valentine’s Day,” she says.

“Thanks.” What I really mean, though, is: Go away. She just bugs me.

“All right, everyone, it’s time for recess,” Mrs. Harmon says, stepping back in the room. If she’s noticed the crying girl with black ink all over her top, it doesn’t show. “Finish up with your valentines, then find your coats and line up next to the door.”

I quickly circle past Jasmine to connect with my buddy, TJ, ready to get up a game of basketball as soon as we hit the playground. But then I see Mrs. Harmon zero in on the new girl, walking over and bending down to talk with her. I hope the girl takes my advice—Mitchell can get away with anything in this class and he knows it. In fact, he’s watching the whole thing and looking cocky as ever. It kinda makes my skin itch.

A minute later, the whole class is in line, zipping up coats and pulling on hats and gloves—all except the new girl. And that’s when Mrs. Harmon announces, “Someone has defaced Taylor’s box and shirt, but she’s refused to tell me who, apparently afraid of retribution. Would the culprit like to come forward and take responsibility, or does the whole class have to be punished?”

This brings about a lot of moaning and groaning, but no confession from her stepkid.

“All right then,” she says. “I’ll use recess to think about how we’re going to deal with this situation.” Then she switches her gaze back to the girl. “Though this would be a lot easier if you’d just tell me who did it.”

Even now, it gets turned back on her, like she’s done something wrong. Talk about a no-win situation.

Mrs. Harmon looks irritated, and there’s a part of me tempted to just come forward and say what I saw. But every time anyone tells on Mitchell, nothing happens besides getting on her bad side.

“All right, out you go,” she says, shooing the whole class. “Taylor, you may stay here and collect yourself.”

As we reach the door and exit onto the playground, I hear Mitchell Dover say to a group of kids, “That girl’s so stupid. Like a little mouse, afraid of everything. Guess I can do whatever I want to her. I rule this school.”

Without planning it, I step into his path and he bumps up against me. I don’t move away as we make eye contact, and he warns, “Watch it.”

“She didn’t speak up,” I explain, “because I told her you hide behind your new mommy’s skirt.”

I watch his pale face turn beet red. “You take that back, Montgomery.”

“Who’s gonna make me?”

But instead of giving him time to answer, I follow the gut instinct to shove him to the ground.

Taylor

As I sit down to dinner with my parents, they’re both outraged on my behalf, and Dad wants to go to the school and demand a meeting with the teacher. I’m begging him not to, explaining it can only make things worse, and Mom is saying, “But we can’t just let things like this go unchecked or they’ll keep happening.”

“I don’t think that boy will bother me again,” I inform them quietly.

“Why’s that?” Mom asks.

“Another boy beat him up at recess. The same one who was a little bit nice to me and told me about the teacher being that boy’s stepmom.”

At this, my parents’ eyes get even bigger, and I can tell they’re not sure how to respond. And they don’t have to. I already know fighting is bad, but I also know it’s the nicest thing anyone’s done for me since I set foot in this town.

Of course, I have no guarantee that’s what the fight was about—all I know is that both boys were hauled back in by their shirt collars with bloody noses and torn clothes. But as they stood outside the classroom getting yelled at by the principal, Luke Montgomery looked in through the doorway at me and our eyes met across the room. Until the principal yelled at him louder, for not listening, and he turned away.

Now my gaze lifts to the cedar box sitting on our kitchen counter. “I’m so mad about the box,” I say, the very sight of it nearly pushing me to tears all over again. It’s been a rough day. “I know you worked hard on it, Daddy, and I loved it.”

He reaches out to squeeze my hand, currently clenched stressfully-tight around a fork. “We can fix it, sweet pea.”

I blink, stunned, loosening my grip. “We can?”

He nods. “A little primer and paint’ll work wonders. It won’t look exactly the same, but it’ll still be nice, just in a different way. You can pick out whatever color you want.”

I nod, relieved and liking the idea. “Good. I’m gonna keep it forever.”

After dinner, as I sit doing homework at the table, I see Mom eyeing me from where she’s working at the kitchen sink. She has red hair, too—but it’s prettier, straighter, and darker than mine, falling just to her shoulders. All red hair is definitely not created equal.

Finally she asks, perhaps cautiously, “Do you want to open the box and go through your valentines?”

All things considered, I really don’t. But she adds, “It’ll cheer you up.”

Mostly, it doesn’t. It’s just a bunch of silly little cards, all signed by people I don’t know—and those are the good ones. The bad ones are the few left un signed, on which kids actually took the time to write out mean messages.

You’re ugly.

You walk funny.

You look weird.

It’s hard to keep going, but for some reason I do. Maybe there’s one I’m specifically waiting to find.

And just when I start to think maybe there isn’t one from him, I open the last envelope in the bottom of the scribbled-on box and there it is.

To Taylor Mulvaney. From Luke Montgomery.

That’s all it says, in tidy blue ink.

Looks like his mother bought him the very same package of valentines as mine. I study a familiar cartoon dog with a circle around one eye and the words up above: Woof you be my valentine?

I know it’s random, just the card in his hand when he reached my name on the list, but I still can’t help thinking: Maybe I woof.