Happy Monday, everyone! Valentine’s Day is right around the corner. If you haven’t done it yet, you should check out Robbi’s post about all things Valentine’s Day, including a cool painting of St. Valentine himself and a nifty bronze statue of the mean emperor who was in charge of things when St. Valentine was busy inventing love.
Here is my story about Valentine’s Day.
Marbles in Love
by Matthew Swanson
There once was a marble named Benjamin who was in love with a marble named Monica, who was smooth and red and perfectly round. They lived together in a bag of 97 other marbles that were owned by some rambunctious children who treated them terribly.
Every once in a while, the children would take the bag out of their toy cupboard, dump the marbles on the floor, and do horrible things to them. Sometimes the children would throw the marbles up in the air, sometimes they would stick the marbles in their noses, and sometimes they would shake the marbles as hard as they could in a can to make a sound like a thunderstorm.
All this rough treatment left Benjamin feeling not very good about himself. The only thing that made him happy was seeing Monica. Every once in a while, he would end up near her when the marbles were put back in the back and stored in the toy cupboard, but more often than not, he got stuck next to Lenny and Roosevelt, who were still sticky from the time one of the awful children had dropped them into her milkshake.
One day, the youngest of the awful children took out the bag of marbles and started throwing them down the stairs, one by one. Apparently, there were no grownups or older brothers or sisters around to tell him not to. He shrieked with wicked glee every time he threw another marble. Benjamin watched as all of his friends disappeared down the stairs, wondering if he’d ever see them again.
Eventually, he felt the awful child’s grubby fingers grab him around the middle. He closed his eyes and tried to remember all of his happiest memories. Each and every one of them had to do with Monica.
The child lifted him high into the air and then threw him as hard as he could down the stairs. Benjamin felt himself going bump, bump, bump, as he bounced from one step the next. When he got to the bottom, he crashed into the wall, bounced across the living room, and rolled under the china cabinet, where it was very dusty.
He sneezed a few times.
After feeling sorry for himself for a few minutes, he realized that things weren’t so bad under the china cabinet. He could listen to the pleasant jazz music playing on the family stereo. No awful children could reach him and do horrible things to him. And there were no sticky friends crammed against him.
In fact, his new situation was not bad at all. The only thing he was missing was Monica. Thinking of her, he almost cried, but didn’t, because he was a marble and marbles can’t cry.
A moment later, he heard a crash and a bang and the sound of something rolling across the floor. He looked up and could hardly believe his eyes. There, mere inches away from him, was Monica.
She sneezed a few times.
“Gesundheit!” said Benjamin.
“Thanks,” said Monica, but it was clear that what she really meant was, “Gosh, it’s nice to be here with you.”
They chatted for hours and then took short naps and then they woke up and chatted again.
Benjamin was as happy as it was possible for a marble to be. He would have asked Monica to be his Valentine, but it was the middle of summer, and besides, marbles don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day.
Thanks so much for reading my story! Now, what sorts of Valentine’s Day stories are in your head? If any are swimming around in there, you had better let them out. And everyone knows the best way to get rid of a bothersome story is to get out some paper and let it leak out through your pencil.
Write your stories and post them in the comments below. Even though marbles don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day, there are plenty of people (and even some animals) who do.