{"id":64634,"date":"2026-02-14T09:00:27","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T14:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=64634"},"modified":"2026-02-13T10:56:38","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T15:56:38","slug":"the-spitball-valentine-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=64634","title":{"rendered":"Valentine’s Day Story #2: The Spitball Valentine"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the 6th grade, I was passionately in love with a boy named Andrew Wright. My love for him began to blossom tentatively in the fifth grade, but the sensation exploding in sixth grade was real<\/em> love, no more kid’s stuff<\/em>. I could sense the difference like night and day. I didn’t love Andrew Wright because he was cute, or because he was really funny and would crack jokes in Sunday School, or because he picked me to be on his baseball team (although all these things were true). I loved him because he was the epitome of all that was good and right in the world.<\/p>\n

We grew up in the same neighborhood, and hung around together since we were little kids. We went to the same church and made our first communions together. We were on the same school bus, we would play tag or baseball in the summer twilights or the two of us would take turns re-enacting Carlton Fisk’s famous homer from 1975, as our mothers called us impatiently in to dinner, we would sneak into the backyard of the house diagonally across the street from mine and pick the raspberries growing there in the side yard, running away at the slightest movement from inside.<\/p>\n

It was all very unrequited. We were eleven years old. Half of the fun was just being in love with someone. Nothing ever had to be done about it.<\/p>\n

That winter in 6th grade, Andrew and I spent all of our time after school, and on weekends, skating on the frozen pond in the woods near our houses. He would steal my hat, and I would chase him to get it back. We would wrestle for it, sometimes rolling around on the ice, I would get it back, and then he would chase me. It was a private thing we did. We didn’t reference it when we were in school. We didn’t say to each other, “Let’s keep this a secret.” I guess when you’re a kid you understand these things. We became very close, in an unspoken way, in an outdoor<\/em> way. Our true milieu was on the ice, the grey wintry woods around us, chasing each other on skates, laughing, freezing cold, the bare trees above.<\/p>\n

In February, there was a big Valentine’s Day ceremony in our sixth grade class. The custom was to buy Valentine’s Day cards in bulk, the ones with cartoons and silly rubber-stamp sentiments (2 good 2 be 4gotten<\/em>), and just sign your name. You’d write a card to everyone in your class. So that year, each kid was called up, the cards passed out, and everyone hovered over their pile, fluttering with sixth grade romantic feelings and alarming hormone surges. <\/p>\n

Of course, once I settled down with my pile, I searched for Andrew’s card immediately, trying to play it cool in case anyone looked at me, womanly wiles already kicking in. You know, no biggie, whatever, just lookin’ at my Valentines, not looking for one in particular, heck no!<\/p>\n

By the time I got to the bottom of the pile, my heart was a tiny hard ball bearing. There was no card from Andrew Wright in my pile. How could<\/em> he? How could he have not<\/em> written me a card? After all we had shared? After the frozen pond?<\/p>\n

It was my first taste of that particular brand of dread, something I perceive now as adult in nature. My feelings for him were clearly not reciprocated. How could this possibly<\/em> be? And, worse, what will I do now<\/em> with all of this feeling<\/i> I have for him?<\/p>\n

It was an entirely new sensation to me, dreadful in its relentless clarity.<\/p>\n

I thought I might have to get up and leave the classroom, abuzz with conversation and laughter and gossip, everybody wandering from desk to desk. There was a pile of cards in front of me, but not one from the boy I loved. I needed to get away and be really really sad<\/em> for a minute, maybe even cry, away from my classmates. Nobody must see my grief. Andrew must never ever know how much I hoped for a Valentine from him.<\/p>\n

But then, suddenly, Andrew Wright, on his way somewhere else, walked by my desk and, without stopping or saying a word, dropped what looked like a tiny spitball in front of me. He kept going, didn’t look back. Nobody looking on would have perceived what happened. It was a sly gesture, meant to appear invisible, a camouflage.<\/p>\n

Disbelieving, I opened up the spitball.<\/p>\n

It was not a store-bought card. It was not a rubber-stamp Hallmark he just signed his name to. It was not generic. It was not, in short, like the card I gave him. (Even then, the intensity of my emotions was such that I felt the need to protect people from it, even the boy I loved. It would be “too much”, right?)<\/p>\n

What he dropped on my desk was a tiny piece of white construction paper, ripped off the corner of a larger sheet, and on it was his message in smudgy #2 pencil:<\/p>\n

Dear Sheila
\nYoure a good kid and a good story writer.
\nAndrew<\/i><\/p>\n

Even though I was a child, I knew<\/em> the enormity of what had just happened:<\/p>\n

— He couldn’t have given me a cutesy Hallmark Valentine and just signed his name, as per tradition. It wouldn’t have been right. In his young boy’s heart, he knew we were closer than that.<\/p>\n

— He needed to express how he felt about me privately<\/em>. He couldn’t have put the spitball in with all the other cards to be passed out. It would have been a disaster if other kids in the class saw his message. Our frozen-pond twilights were in the card.<\/p>\n

— In the note, he didn’t talk about how cute I was, or how he liked my freckles, or any “part” of me. He talked about my qualities<\/i> and my talents<\/i>, and how he liked those<\/em>. We were on the cusp of young adulthood, still little kids, but with adolescence breathing down our necks. In the years to come, much of the attraction of another human being would be pheromonal<\/i>, and chemistry-driven, based on the overwhelming desire to roll around on a bed with that person. Andrew’s note pre-dates those desires. He probably wouldn’t have written such a note a mere year later, when we were in 7th grade. But here? He likes me because I am a “good kid”, and he likes me because I am a “good story writer.” I did not realize at the time what a gift this would be, to have someone perceive ME, in that way. <\/p>\n

— He didn’t use an actual “card” at all. It would not not have been right for us, he knew that, so he made the bold move to go personal. He addressed me. Directly.<\/p>\n

The note from Andrew, written before I wore a bra or knew about things like cramps or heartbreak, written during the bleak tail-end of the 1970s, is still the most romantic I have ever received.<\/p>\n

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\nThank you so much for stopping by. If you like what I do, and if you feel inclined to support my work, here’s a link to my Venmo account<\/a>. And I’ve launched a Substack, Sheila Variations 2.0<\/a>, if you’d like to subscribe.<\/em> <\/small><\/p>\n