My Secret Valentine

 I slammed my notebook of dreams shut at the mention of my name. Several sets of eyes stared back at me, waiting for a response. I shoved
my pen behind my ear and smiled, clasping my fingers together on the desk, pretending like I’d been paying attention the whole time. Not that anyone would
believe me.

“Sorry, what was that again?” My fingers itched to open my notebook and keep going before the dream disappeared, but it was no use. It had been such great story material too.

Mr. Reynolds, the school newspaper editor frowned at me from across the table. “I see you weren’t paying attention. Again. If your head wasn’t always in the clouds, you’d actually get the good stories for the paper and not just fluff.”

“What fluff do you have for me this week?” I held back an eyeroll. Even if I had been paying attention, they would have given the good stories to Ellie. Of course, it helped that Ellie was Mr. Reynolds’ daughter, but just once I wanted something other than the weekly events or what we were having for lunch.

“The school dance. Keep it simple. Where and when it is, how much the tickets are, and that it’s formal. Nothing else.” Mr. Reynolds shot me another look. “Once you get that done, I’m sure I’ll have something for you about scholarships or something.”

Ellie hid a smile behind her hand. “I’m sure she’ll have plenty of time to write. No date.”

Mr. Reynolds shot her a dirty look and turned back to me. “Could you cover the basketball tonight as well?”

A thrill shot through me. I never got sports. I nodded, swallowing my smug comeback to Ellie. This was one reason I loved Mr. Reynolds. He may have thought my head was in the clouds, but he also didn’t like when people were awful to each other—including his own daughter. Basketball was supposed to be
her assignment, and judging by the gasp of insult and glare she shot toward me, there would be retaliation.

The bell rang and all the students stood at once as they gathered their things and rushed off to their first period classes. Mine was only a few classrooms down, so I took my time leaving. No reason to give anyone—Ellie—the chance to come after me. Besides, I had an idea I wanted to pass by him and wanted no
witnesses when it was shot down.

“Mr. Reynolds?” I hugged my dream journal to my chest, attempting to draw comfort from it. After all, it was last night’s dream that gave me the idea.

“Yes?” He looked up from his paperwork.

I bit my lip. I probably should have kept the idea as a story idea, but it was too late. “Do you think I could spice the dance article up just a little? Add more than just the date and time?”

He folded his arms on the desk. “I believe I told you to stick with those things.”

“I know. And that will be in there. I just wanted to do a little more with it.” I could still get out. Maybe just ask a question about the price or whatever.

“Like?”

I paused. Nope. Too late. I was going to do it because this was my one shot. “What if . . . I put in a section where people could ask their dates to the dance? Something like that.”

“We don’t have classifieds in our paper.”

“I know. And I’m not saying we should.” I paced in front of him. Now that the idea was out, I couldn’t help but keep going. “It wouldn’t be classifieds, really. Just a way for people to ask their date without having to actually do something
huge. It’s gotten so out of hand lately, and I thought this could be a way for those who are a little shy to ask those who maybe . . . aren’t so shy.”

Mr. Reynolds stared up at me for a moment, tapping his pen on the desk. “Fine.”

“Really?” I held my breath, hoping I hadn’t heard wrong.

“Against, my better judgement, yes. I’ll give it a week. If it bombs, or if people start sending in inappropriate requests, we stop.”

I nodded, grinning. “I understand. I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen. Thank you, Mr. Reynolds.”

“Come back during lunch and we’ll get your email set up.” Mr. Reynolds went back to the paperwork in front of him.

“Uh, what?”

He looked up. “I highly doubt you want to give your personal email for people to send the requests to, and I certainly don’t want to bog down the newspaper email with it. I’ll have the password so I can check in now and then, but otherwise, it’s yours.”

“Thank you.” I turned toward the door and stopped. “Can I get a pass to class?”

He scribbled on a paper and handed it to her. “And Alayna? This better not
interrupt your regular work. I still expect the report from tonight’s game and the ad with the date and time on my desk tomorrow.”

“Got it.” I snatched the paper from him and hurried out into the hallway so I could finally let out a whoop. I jumped up and down just as one of the basketball players walked past me in the hall.

He looked back at me with raised eyebrows, but kept going. My face burned as I hurried to class. Even the embarrassment of getting caught doing my victory dance wasn’t enough to shake the excitement of having my idea accepted. Finally.

Heather raised her eyebrows and leaned close. “What took you so long? And what’s up with that grin? Did you finally get asked?”

I shook my head as I took my notebook out of my bag. “Even better.” 

The glare from Mrs. Wilkinson was enough to quiet both of us down as class got under way. There were only a few months left of the school year and she seemed to take it as her personal duty to shove as much information in our senior brains as she could before we entered the ‘real world.’

Too bad not everyone enjoyed marine biology as much as she did. Not that I didn’t like the class. It was interesting and I’d scored high on all my tests. I just wished teachers wouldn’t take their classes so seriously. Except my writing class. That one I took very seriously.

Between notes on bottom-feeding animals and the food they eat, I jotted down my plans for the proposal column. Although . . . that wasn’t a good word for it. I’d have to think of something else.

“Miss Lopez. If you’re done drawing hearts in your notebook, I would appreciate it if you would hand in your homework, along with those behind you.”

I blinked and stared down at my paper. I hadn’t realized I’d been drawing them around my notes. “Sorry.”

The class snickered. I chose to ignore them and took the papers from behind me to hand to Mrs. Wilkinson.

The teacher raised an eyebrow. “And yours?”

“Oh! Sorry.” I ripped my assignment out of my notebook and added it to the pile. Maybe paying more attention to class would be a good idea. Especially since the next
few empty pages of my notebook now had imprints of hearts on them. Whoops.

When the bell finally rang, I held back so people could leave without making snarky comments. I was safe in the room where the teacher sat grading.

“What’s with you today?” Heather leaned over. “I’ve seen you clock out mentally before, but this is a whole new level.”

“My assignment for the paper.” I handed Heather my notebook as we left class and headed for math. “I was trying to think of how to make it work right and how to avoid the jerks who try to ruin it for everyone.”

Heather was silent as she read through it. “This is awesome. And could go so wrong. You sure you want to do this?”

“Do what?” Max joined us as we walked down the hall. He’d been my best friend since kindergarten, and thankfully stuck around even after Heather moved in when we got to junior high.

“Commit social unrest via a newspaper article.” Heather handed him my notebook.

He read through it. “You came up with this?”

“Well, kinda. It was from a dream—”

“Knew it.” Heather rolled her eyes. “You and your dreams are going to get you into major trouble someday.”

I glanced over at Max and grinned. “They already have. More than once.”

It wasn’t my fault Max loved to reenact the crazier ones with me. We’d broken arms, sprained ankles, and maybe possibly wrecked my mom’s car during grade school. It was usually Heather who stopped us now. Well, that and my dream
journal. It had been my mom’s idea after the whole car wreck thing to write my dreams down. That way I could use them for my books instead of getting one of us into serious trouble. Again.

“Yeah, yeah. See you two later.” Heather waved and walked into her English class.

Max and I continued to math together. He handed back my notebook. “Honesty time?”

“Yeah.” It was our way of making sure we weren’t about to do something stupid. Another trick that had come from that day.