The Candy Smash (15 page)

Dear Friend in 4-O,

I feel terrible. I did something I'm not supposed to do. Nobody knows. Every day I feel bad. I keep waiting to get caught. What should I do?

Signed,
Guilty in the Fourth Grade

 

Dear Guilty,

You're never going to feel better until you confess. Go to a grownup you trust and tell the truth. I guarantee you'll be happy you did.

 

Megan folded the paper and handed it back to her teacher. "I've decided to take my own advice. Mrs. Overton, I'm the one who handed out the candy hearts. I know I shouldn't have done it, but it was Valentine's Day, and I thought it wasn't such a bad thing to do."

Jessie looked around at her classmates. They were all frozen in their seats. It wasn't every day that someone admitted to being guilty of a crime.

"And also," continued Megan. She took a big breath. "I wrote something on one of the doors in the bathroom. I tried to clean it off, but I couldn't get it all. I'm
sorry!"
And then she exploded in tears. Great big, sloppy, wet tears. Jessie had never seen anyone cry like that before. It reminded her of a nature video she'd watched of a river dam breaking in a torrential rainstorm. Whoosh!

Mrs. Overton wrapped her arms around Megan and didn't seem to mind one bit that Megan was sopping the front of her shirt with tears and snot. For Jessie, that was proof that Mrs. Overton was a good teacher.

The rest of the class did their best not to watch. They looked at the floor or their own feet or their desks. Jessie looked up at the photo of Langston proclaiming,
TO ERR IS HUMAN, TO FORGIVE, DIVINE
.

When Megan quieted down, Mrs. Overton handed her a box of tissues and sent her to the nurse's office for a wet washcloth and to have a few quiet moments.

"Well," Mrs. Overton said. "Let's go sit on the rug." Everyone scrambled over to the rug, happy to leave behind the uncomfortable scene they'd just witnessed. Mrs. Overton settled into her rocking chair.

"First," said Mrs. Overton, "whose newspaper is this?"

Evan and Jessie both raised their hands.

"I wrote it," said Jessie, "but it's Evan's copy."

"We were
all
supposed to get copies, not just Evan," reminded Carly.

"Yeah, you promised, Jessie!" Most of the kids nodded their heads.

"Doesn't the paper belong to all of us, since we're the ones who answered the survey questions?" asked David.

"I can't hand it out," said Jessie. "I put stuff in there that I shouldn't have."

"Stuff that isn't true?" asked Mrs. Overton.

"No, it's all true. Every word of it. It's just that there's a poem I put in that I didn't get permission to publish. So that's copyright infringement. And then there are names of people—and feelings might get hurt..." Jessie's voice trailed off. She was still unclear about the feelings part. The copyright law she understood, but the rest was a little muddy in her mind.

"So can't you tell us the results without using anyone's names? Just make it anonymous?" asked Salley.

"Yeah, and drop the poem," said Ryan. "Who cares about a poem?"

"I care about poems!" said Mrs. Overton. "But you can only publish a poem when you have the poet's permission. I guess you learned that the hard way, Jessie."

Jessie nodded. She felt sad and defeated. Her blockbuster had turned into a failure.

She looked at her teacher, sitting in her chair, the easel beside her. Mrs. Overton had begun reading the newspaper. She finished page one and turned to the back page. And kept on reading. It looked like she couldn't put it down.

"You did a wonderful job, Jessie," said Mrs. Overton, folding the newspaper in half. "You're not only a good investigative reporter and a forceful writer, you also know how to choose excellent poetry." She looked at Evan when she said this, and Jessie saw a smile dance across his face.

"Maybe..." said Jessie. "I could write a new edition? One that doesn't use anyone's name?"

Mrs. Overton rested her chin on her hand and rocked back and forth in her chair. They knew that this was her thinking pose, and the best thing to do was to keep quiet. She tapped her chin several times with her index finger, and then asked Jessie, "Will you include pie charts in the new edition?"

"Yes!" said Jessie. She just loved pie charts.

"And some poems?"

"A whole page," promised Jessie. "But only if the authors say it's okay."

"Then you may rewrite your paper, but you have to show it to me
before
you hand it out. Understood?"

"Absolutely!" said Jessie.

The results are in for the most exciting survey on love ever conducted in the fourth grade at Hillside Elementary School.

First, did you know that more than half of fourth-graders have had a crush at some time in their lives? This reporter was very surprised to find that out. But if you haven't had a crush yet, don't worry. You're not alone.

In 4-O, most of the kids have crushes now, and almost all those crushes are with someone in 4-O! So I guess if you fall in love, you're probably going to fall in love with someone in your own class.

Here is the most shocking statistic of all: Out of all the people who are in love in 4-O, not one of them has told the other person! It is very unusual in surveys to get an answer that equals 100%, but this one does. Flow come no one is telling the other person that they're in love? That is a mystery that can't be answered by this reporter.

How to tell your crush that you like them? Nobody seems to agree on this. The class is pretty evenly split: say it to their face, have a friend tell, write a note. One person in the class says that they just hope the person figures it out. (Note from this reporter: That is a very bad way to communicate!)

So there you have it. Shocking, never-before-reported results on how the students of 4-O feel about love. Remember: You read it here first in
The 4-O Forum
!

 

 

 

 

On Monday, Valentine's Day, everyone in 4-O learned the truth about who has been giving out those candy hearts with mysterious messages written on them: Megan Moriarty! That means that Megan is officially the "sweetest" student in the whole fourth grade.

We caught up with Megan on the playground, and she agreed to answer some questions for
The 4-O Forum.
Here is the exclusive interview!

 

Q:
What gave you the idea to give candy hearts to your classmates?

A:
I always put candy in my valentines. Usually I put mini chocolate bars in because they're flat and they fit inside the envelope better. But when Mrs. Fletcher told us that we weren't allowed to hand out candy I got kind of mad and I decided I was going to do it anyway. I know it was wrong to break the rule, but I don't think it's a very good rule.

 

Q:
How did you make the candy hearts?

A:
That's easy My uncle has a candy factory and he makes those personalized messages on candy hearts all the time. People give them out at weddings and birthday parties, so he's got this special printing machine that does it. You just type in the message and you can print out as many boxes as you want. The only tricky part is the message can't be more than two lines long and you can only have nine letters per line. So all the messages have to be really short.

 

Q:
How did you get the candy hearts in our desks?

A:
That was the hardest part. I had to hand them out when the classroom was empty, so before school or after school or during recess. It was easy on the day Mrs. Feeney was there, but really hard with Mrs. Overton. She's sharp! Lucky for me, she's busy, too. But that's why I didn't hand out any hearts on Tuesday or Wednesday I didn't have a chance.

 

Q:
Are you sorry you did it?

A:
Honestly? Yes and no. I'm sorry I broke the rule. I know you're not supposed to break rules. But it's Valentine's Day! It only comes once a year. And candy is part of Valentine's Day At least it is to me. And I think almost everyone really liked the hearts and the messages. I tried really hard to think about what was special about each person in the class. Everyone has a talent and I wanted to make them feel good about that. I wanted to say, "Hey, you're really great just the way you are!" So that's why I wrote special messages. Because Valentine's Day is about love, and part of love is liking yourself. I wanted everyone in 4-O to like themselves for a day.