I made Miss Stollery a present for Christmas. I glued a rock onto a piece of wood and hammered in a nail. I was eight years old. It wasn’t art but it was from the heart. I put it into a purple box. I looked at that box, thinking it wasn’t right. It wasn’t what I wanted. I got out a big marker and wrote her name on it. And that wasn’t enough. So I wrote “I love you” on the box. I wrote it big. I LOVE YOU. But it was in red and the box was purple. I couldn’t see it. And so I wrote it again. And again. And again. Until I’d written “I love you” all over it. I looked at it again and freaked out because I didn’t want anyone else to know about how I felt. I crossed one of them out. And that looked stupid. I looked at it again and didn’t think anyone could see the words.That’s really what I thought. And so I took the box to school and placed it under our Grade Two Christmas tree. I looked at it and knew that everyone could see the “I love you’s”. And she saw them too and looked at me like I was a lost kid. I hated that. She was supposed to kiss me. And then she opened it. The rock had fallen off the piece of wood.