those little candy hearts that said "Hot Baby!" and "Be Mine!" The holiday went underground in middle school. No parties. No shoe boxes with red cutout hearts for your drugstore valentines. To tell someone you liked them, you had to use layers and layers of friends, as in "Janet told me to tell you that Steven told me that Dougie said Carom was talking to April and she hinted that Sara's brother Mark has a friend named Tony who might like you. What are you going to do?" It is easier to floss with barbed wire than admit you like some- one in middle school. I go with the flow toward my locker. We are all dressed in down jackets and vests, so we collide and roll like bumper cars at the state fair. I notice envelopes taped to some lockers but don't really think about it until I find one on mine. It says "Melinda." It has to be a joke. Someone put it there to make me look stupid. I peer over my left shoulder, then my right, for groups of evil kids pointing at me. All I see are the backs of heads. What if it is real? What if it's from a boy? My heart stops, then stutters and pumps again. No, not Andy. His style is def- initely not romantic. Maybe David Petrakis My Lab Partner. He watches me when he thinks I can't see him, afraid I'm 108 going to break lab equipment or faint again. Sometimes he smiles at me, an anxious smile, the kind you use on a dog that might bite. All I have to do is open the envelope. I can't stand it. I walk past my locker and go straight to biology. Ms. Keen decided it would be cute to review birds and bees in honor of Valentine's Day. Nothing practical, of course, no in- formation about why hormones can make you crazy, or why your face only breaks out at the worst time, or how to tell if somebody really gave you a Valentine's card on your locker. No, she really teaches us about the birds and the bees. Notes of love and betrayal are passed hand over hand as if the lab tables were lanes on Cupid's Highway. Ms. Keen draws a pic- ture of an egg with a baby chick inside it. David Petrakis is fighting to stay awake. Does he like me? I make him nervous. He thinks I'm going to ruin his grade. But maybe I'm growing on him. Do I want him to like me? I chew my thumbnail. No. I just want anyone to like me. I want a note with a heart on it. I pull the edge of my thumbnail back too far and it bleeds. I squeeze my thumb so the blood gathers in a perfect sphere before it collapses and slides toward the palm of my hand. David hands me a tissue. I press it into the cut. The white cells of paper dissolve as the red floods them. It doesn't hurt. Nothing hurts except the small smiles and blushes that flash across the room like tiny sparrows. I open my notebook and write a note to David: "Thanks!" I slide the notebook over to him. He swallows hard, his Adam's apple bouncing to the bottom of his neck and back up again. He writes back: "You are welcome." Now what? I squeeze the 109 tissue harder on my thumb to concentrate. Ms. Keen's baby bird hatches on the board. I draw a picture of Ms. Keen as a robin. David smiles. He draws a branch under her feet and slides the notebook back to me. I try to connect the branch to a tree. It looks pretty good, better than anything I have drawn so far in art. The bell rings, and David's hand brushes against mine as he picks up his books. I bolt from my seat. I'm afraid to look at him. What if he thinks I already opened his card and I hate his guts, which was why I didn't say anything? But I can't say anything because the card could be a joke, or from some other silent watcher who blends in with the blur of lock- ers and doors. My locker. The card is still there, a white patch of hope with my name on it. I tear it off and open it. Something falls to my feet. The card has a picture of two cutesy teddy bears sharing a pot of honey. I open it. "Thanks for understanding. You're the sweetest!" It is signed with a purple pen. "Good Luck!!! Heather." I bend down to find what dropped from the card. It was
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