Karen's in Love

  Pamela’s mother and father brought in the birthday cake. We sang “Happy Birthday,” and Pamela made a wish before she blew out the candles. I leaned over to look at the cake. It was the fanciest one I had ever seen.

  I kept waiting for Ricky to do or say something mean to Pamela. After all, we had agreed to jinx Pamela’s party. But Ricky had been … well, he had been nice to Pamela. He had told her he liked the juggler. He had told her he liked the artist. (The artist made Ricky look like Darth Vader.) He had told Pamela the cake and the goody bags were neat. He had even told her that her dress was pretty.

  I was gigundo mad. I did not talk to Ricky. I stuck with Hannie and Nancy.

  Oh, well. There was still the snake to look forward to.

  Purple Suspenders

  When we had eaten the cake and ice cream, Mrs. Harding said, “Okay, boys and girls. You may now look inside your goody bags.”

  I wondered if Mrs. Harding always talked like that.

  I did not bother to wonder for long, though. Goody bags are exciting. We reached for ours quickly. The blue bags were for the boys. The red bags were for the girls. So I untied the gold string on my red bag. I reached inside. I could not believe what I found there. In my bag was:

  — a page of stickers (fuzzy ones)

  — a little clipboard with papers on it (The stationery had rainbows at the top.)

  — a pencil with an eraser that looked like a slice of birthday cake

  — some candy

  — Silly Putty (When I opened the egg I found bright yellow Silly Putty.)

  — some beads and strings for making jewelry

  — a one-dollar bill. That was at the very bottom of the bag. A whole dollar! (The bracelets I was giving Pamela only cost a dollar. Uh-oh….)

  In the boys’ goody bags were:

  — a little paddle ball

  — a blow-up plastic crayon (The crayon would get huge!)

  — a pocket puzzle

  — Silly Putty

  — some candy

  — a pencil with an eraser that looked like a helicopter

  — and a dollar.

  Whew! Nobody could believe the goody bags. They had more stuff in them than we’d ever seen in any goody bag.

  I looked at Ricky, who was across the table from me. Ricky was gawking at all his goody-bag stuff. Then he looked at Pamela. He smiled at her.

  Now that Pamela had given us presents, it was time for her to open her presents. We sat on the floor in the living room. Pamela sat next to the pile of gifts. She began ripping into them. Everyone had brought pretty nice presents — games and toys and things. I began to worry about my bracelets. Maybe I could snatch them away. Maybe Pamela would not notice that I hadn’t brought a present.

  Too late. Pamela reached for the bracelets at the same time I did. She took off the wrapping paper. She looked at the plastic bracelets. “Gee, thanks,” she said to me. She tossed the package aside. Only Ricky’s present was left. I sat up straight.

  The snake! Ooh. I bet Pamela would scream.

  Pamela unwrapped Ricky’s gift. I wriggled with excitement. She lifted the lid off of the box. Inside was … a pair of purple suspenders.

  “Ricky!” cried Pamela. “These are great! I can wear them with my blue pants.”

  Ricky grinned. Pamela grinned back.

  I nudged Ricky in the ribs. “I thought you were getting her a snake,” I whispered.

  “My mother wouldn’t let me,” Ricky whispered back.

  “Traitor,” I muttered. I did not believe him. “Why did you have to get her something so nice?”

  Ricky just shrugged.

  Ooh. Boo.

  By the time the party was over, I felt terrible. I was the only one who had given Pamela an awful gift. In return, I had gotten a wonderful goody bag, a silver balloon (it was tied to the back of my chair — we all got one), and some yummy cake. Plus I had seen a juggler and had my face made up like a cat.

  I was a terrible person.

  Well, not really. But I felt like one that day.

  Ricky and Karen

  “Hi, Karen!”

  That was Ricky. It was the Monday after Pamela’s birthday party. My classmates and I were gathering in Ms. Colman’s room.

  I heard Ricky, but I did not answer him. I had decided he liked Pamela better than he liked me. He had a crush on Pamela.

  “Karen? Hi,” Ricky tried again.

  I turned to Nancy. “Andrew learned to add up the dots on dice yesterday.” I told her. “We were playing a board game. He is really smart.”

  “Karen,” said Ricky. “Did you hear me? Why won’t you answer me?”

  Hannie and Nancy looked at Ricky and me. They knew why I was not answering. They knew that I was mad at Ricky. But they did not want to join the fight.

  I sat down at my desk.

  “Hello, boys and girls,” said Ms. Colman’s voice.

  It was time to begin our day. I was saved.

  Ricky sat at his desk, too. I could tell he was puzzled.

  Later that morning, Ms. Colman gave us spelling words. When we were finished she said, “Okay. Please switch papers with a neighbor. Check each other’s spelling.”

  Ricky and I usually switch. So Ricky passed his paper to me. But I passed my paper to the kid behind me. “I am not talking to you, Ricky,” I said.

  “You are right now,” he pointed out.

  I ignored what he said.

  “You’re a traitor,” I told him. “You did not do one mean thing to Pamela at her party. You promised you would. But you were nice to Pamela. You didn’t even give her a snake.”

  Ricky snatched his paper off of my desk, He passed it to Natalie Springer.

  “So what?” was all Ricky replied.

  * * *

  On the playground that afternoon, Ricky said, “Come on, Karen. Play dodgeball with us, okay? We need another player.”

  Of course I did not answer Ricky. Ricky looked surprised. Then he looked hurt.

  After recess, Ms. Colman said, “Time to choose partners again. I want you to work together to write a poem. Working together to make something is called ‘collaboration.’ And you need to cooperate. Your poem does not have to be long, and it does not have to rhyme. You have fifteen minutes to work.”

  I turned away from Ricky again. He could work with Natalie for the rest of the year. I did not care. But guess what. I heard Ricky say, “Pamela? Want to work with me? I have a good idea for a poem.”

  I jerked my head around. Ricky was looking at me. He smiled.

  And Pamela answered, “Sure, Ricky.”

  So. Ricky did have a crush on Pamela.

  My partner and I wrote our poem. We finished early. Then I wrote another poem by myself. It went like this: “To Yicky Ricky from Karen. Ricky and Pamela sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Pamela with a baby carriage.”

  I folded the note in half and left it on Ricky’s desk.

  When our fifteen minutes were over, Ricky went back to his desk.

  He saw the note.

  He opened it up.

  Then he turned to me and stuck out his tongue.

  I stuck out my tongue at Ricky.

  So Ricky wadded up the note into a tiny ball. Then he put it into his mouth. Ew. Now it was a spitball.

  Ricky threw it at me when Ms. Colman was not looking.

  I had a feeling that Ricky and I might not get married after all.

  Hearts and Flowers

  I knew just how to cure the Wedding Blues. (That was Kristy’s name for the way I was feeling about Ricky.) I would cure the Wedding Blues by making valentines for the people in my two families. I would help Andrew make his, too.

  One afternoon at the little house, I got out red and white construction paper. I found a package of doilies. Then I found cotton balls and yarn and glitter and scissors and glue. Mommy spread newspapers on the kitchen table.

  “Go to town!” she said.

  “To
town?” repeated Andrew.

  “She means have fun,” I told him.

  And we did. First I started by making a regular valentine. I cut out a red heart. Then I got an idea.

  “Mommy?” I said. “Do we have any old magazines? Ones that we’re going to recycle?”

  “Yup,” said Mommy. She brought us a stack of them.

  “Oh, goody! Thank you,” I said.

  I found pictures of flowers in one magazine. I cut them out. I glued them around the edge of the heart.

  In the middle of the heart I wrote: “Sam, Sam, Sam. The love of my heart. I hope that we will never part.” I knew Sam would think the poem was funny.

  “Karen, help me,” said Andrew then. “I can’t make a heart.” He held up what he had just cut out of a piece of red paper. This is what it looked like:

  “That isn’t bad, Andrew,” I said. But I did help him make a better heart.

  “I can’t wait for Valentine’s Day,” said Andrew.

  “Me, neither,” I replied. “And remember. We get two Valentine’s Day celebrations with our families. On the real Valentine’s Day, we will have a special breakfast here at the little house. Then that night we go to Daddy’s. And the next day we have a party at the big house.”

  “Yup,” said Andrew happily. He had just cut out a very good heart.

  I wrote another poem: “Roses are red. Grass is green. I love you, David Michael, even when you’re mean.”

  Already I felt better.

  Picky, Yicky, Sticky Ricky

  Maybe I felt better at home. But I did not feel better at school.

  When Ricky and I first started our fight, we were the only ones fighting. Nobody else wanted to be part of it.

  Ricky and I thought up all sorts of mean things to do to each other. And Ricky did the first mean thing. He was the one who brought ink to school with him. He spilled it all over a picture I was coloring one morning.

  “Oops,” said Ricky. “Sorry. It was an accident.” He smiled at me.

  “Was not!” I cried.

  “Oh, well.”

  So later on in the day, I did something I really should not have done. I chewed up a piece of gum. Then I stretched it out and stuck it around in Ricky’s desk. That was bad enough. But here is the worst thing. Ms. Colman says we cannot have gum in school. But I had a piece anyway, and I chewed it, and I messed up Ricky’s desk. I did it while he was in the bathroom. Ms. Colman did not see. She was busy helping Bobby Gianelli with something.

  When Ricky came back, the first thing he did was reach into his desk. I think he was looking for his math book. When he pulled his hand out, long strings of gum came with it.

  I wish I had had a camera so I could have taken a picture of the look on Ricky’s face when he saw the gum gooing away from the inside of his desk. First he looked surprised. Then he just looked disgusted.

  “Gross!” he said, but not too loudly. We both knew that we did not want Ms. Colman to see what was going on. We would not tattle on each other. Our fight was private.

  Ricky put his hand back into his desk. Then he pulled it out again.

  More gum.

  Ricky glared at me. “Karen — ” he started to say.

  “Oops,” I interrupted him. “Sorry. It was an accident.” I smiled at Ricky.

  “Was not. You did that on purpose. Gum doesn’t accidentally get — ”

  He stopped talking. Ms. Colman had left Bobby. She was heading for her desk.

  Ricky tried to rub the gum off of his hand before Ms. Colman saw it. He was lucky. He got it all off. But later, it took him forever to clean out his desk.

  “Picky, yicky, sticky Ricky,” I whispered to him.

  “Rotten Karen,” was all Ricky could think of to say.

  “That doesn’t rhyme,” I told him flatly.

  The next day, Ricky mashed a banana inside my desk. Then Hannie and Nancy got mad. They started calling Ricky “Sticky Ricky,” because of the gum.

  The boys joined the fight. They were on Ricky’s side, of course. The boys did not have a good nickname for me. They were too dumb to think of one.

  Guess who else joined Ricky’s side. Pamela, Jannie, and Leslie.

  When we were on the playground one day, Nancy and Hannie and I stood in a row. We linked our arms. We sang, “Sticky Ricky! Sticky Ricky! Picky, yicky, sticky Ricky!” Then we stuck out our tongues at him.

  Ricky was playing catch with Bobby and Hank. The boys stopped when they heard our song. They turned to look at us. So did Pamela and Jannie and Leslie.

  “Four-eyes!” Ricky yelled at me.

  “You’re a four-eyes, too!” I called back.

  “Well, I’m not,” said Pamela. “Four-eyes! Four-eyes! Karen is a four-eyes!”

  It was not a good week at Stoneybrook Academy.

  I was very glad when it was over.

  Ricky’s Card

  After that awful week with Ricky, I decided something. I decided I did not want to be mad at him anymore. But I could not just give up. And I could not apologize to him. Sometimes Daddy calls me a fighter. He does not mean that I hit people. He means that I do not quit easily.

  Still, I wanted to quit the fight with Ricky. I wanted to be friends with him. We used to be friends, and that was nice.

  Plus, we were engaged.

  And Valentine’s Day was coming up.

  “Valentine’s Day would be a good time to make up,” Hannie told me. Hannie should know. She’s already married. She’s married to Scott Hsu. (Scott does not go to our school.)

  “That’s true,” I said. “Anyway, I want to get a valentine from Ricky. I mean, after all, I like him, even if we are fighting.” (And maybe I love him, I thought.) “So, I just have to figure out a way to make up with him.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Hannie. “That’s always the hard part.”

  * * *

  One day, Mommy picked me up from school. Andrew was with her.

  “Guess what,” said Andrew, as soon as I opened the car door.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Guess.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Mommy is taking us to town. We’re going to buy Valentine’s Day cards.”

  “I thought that you and Andrew,” said Mommy, “would like to buy cards to give to your friends. You already worked so hard making your other cards.”

  “Goody!” I exclaimed. “I want those cards with jokes and riddles on them.”

  “I want animal valentines,” said Andrew.

  Mommy took us to the dime store. (Almost nothing in there costs a dime, so it’s a silly name.) Andrew and I chose our valentines quickly. We could hardly wait to get home and start signing them.

  When we did get home, Mommy found pencils and crayons for us. Andrew and I sat at the kitchen table. We spread out our valentines.

  “I’m going to give this kitten to Mandy,” said Andrew. He smiled to himself.

  “Andrew has a girlfriend! Andrew has a girlfriend!” I sang.

  Andrew did not pay attention to me. So I figured he really did have a girlfriend.

  I got to work on my own valentines. I chose each one very carefully. For Hannie and Nancy, I chose funny jokes that I knew they would like.

  Then I chose cards for Natalie and Hank, for the twins, and for everyone I wanted to give cards to — except Ricky. I looked over the cards that were left. None of them seemed quite right for him. And none of them were special.

  I remembered that I had thought of getting a present for Ricky. I did not think I should do that now. But maybe I could make him a really special card.

  So that is what I did. I got out all our supplies again — the red and white paper, the glitter, and even some lace. I cut out a huge heart. I glued lace around the edges. Then I decided that I should write the valentine message in glitter.

  But what should I write? I wanted to write: “I Love You, Ricky.” I did not think that would be a good idea, though. Pamela would laugh. So would a lot of other kids. Finally I just wrote: ?
??To Ricky. Love, Karen.”

  I was still taking a chance. Pamela might laugh at the word “love.” And, if Ricky were mad enough, he might laugh, too.

  I hoped I would not get embarrassed at our class party.

  U R 4 Me

  Valentine’s Day!

  Hurray! Gigundo hurray! Another holiday.

  Mommy and Seth fixed a very fancy Valentine’s Day breakfast for our little-house family. And I was dressed in a very fancy way. All in red. I put on a red dress, red tights, red sneakers, red bracelet, and even red stick-on earrings. It was too bad that neither of my pairs of glasses was red.

  Anyway, I ran into the kitchen and shouted, “Good morning! Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!”

  “Good morning, rosebud,” said Seth.

  “Rosebud?!” I repeated.

  “Yup. You’re all red, like a rosebud.”

  I giggled. Then I sat down at the table with Andrew.

  Here is what we had for breakfast: heart-shaped pancakes (Seth made them), cranberry juice, strawberries, and milk with red food coloring in it. A red-heart breakfast!

  The breakfast was like a party. In front of everybody’s place was a little basket. The baskets were red (of course) and they were full of candy — chocolate kisses and teeny hearts with messages printed on them. The messages said things like “Luv ya” and “My baby” and “Sweetie-pie.”

  Andrew’s favorite was “U R 4 Me.” I thought that was very clever.

  After we had eaten breakfast, Seth said, “Okay! Time for presents.”

  Presents! Yea!

  Mommy handed Andrew a little gift. Seth handed me a little gift. We tore the paper off of them. Andrew got a red Matchbox car. I got a pair of red barrettes.

  “Oh, thank you!” we cried.

  I put the barrettes in my hair right away. Andrew began vrooming his car along the table. Mommy and Seth let him do that until he ran the car into a glass of juice and knocked it over.