October 2023 Flash Lit 10 - Go Big or Go Home

“Who cares for you?” said Alice, (she had grown to her full size by this time.) “You’re nothing but a pack of cards!” Alice in Wonderland, Chapter 12

 

 

 

“How many do you want?” Vi asked.  “They’re a dollar apiece.” 

 

She tapped a foot in a perfectly white shoe with laces striped red and white, school colors.  Al thought they looked like candy canes.  Did they make shoelaces in flavors?  He was getting distracted.

 

“Helloooooo…” Vi said.  “Simple question:  how many?”

 

Al fidgeted.  He didn’t know.  How many would make Rina happy?  He imagined a graph with number of carnations on the X axis and Rina’s happiness on the Y axis.  The line climbed toward the right, up and up and up.  He wondered why the infinity sign was curved when the infinite line of Rina’s happiness stretched up in one direction forever.  Distracted again.

 

“Doofus:  how much money do you have?” Vi asked.  She fervently hoped no one was noticing how long she was spending talking to this bundle of clothes with untidy hair.  She automatically checked that her ponytail was smooth.

 

Startled, Al checked his pockets.  “Um… a hundred bucks.”

 

“Then send a hundred and be done,” she said.  Not like he was going to do it or anything.  Vi doubted he had even one person to send a carnation to.

 

“OK,” he said.  He held out the bill, still crisp from his birthday card from his grandma.

 

Vi refused to react.  She said, “Thank you.”  Then she counted out a hundred of the little cards.  “Write whatever you want on the front and put the name of the person you’re sending to on the back and their third period class.  That’s where the flowers get delivered.

 

Al panicked.  He’d have to say something on the cards?  What could he possibly say?  But he couldn’t just send blank cards.

 

Vi had had enough.  “Just fill them out and turn them in to the box in the office by Friday.  Flowers get delivered the next Friday before the homecoming dance.”  She hurried away to join the rest of the cheerleading squad, telling them all about how weird Al was while swigging diet Coke.

 

Al, for his part, took the cards to the library and spread them out on the table.  He did the easy part first, writing Rina’s name, Geometry, Mr. Norton on the back of each one.  Then he wrote on the front of the first card:  “Dear Rina, this is what I like about you:  1. Your smile.”

 

Number 2 was the way she smiled when someone said something funny.  Number 58 was the smell of her hair.  Number 92 was the way she pronounced the word pickle, like it was sharp in her mouth.  On the last card, he wrote:  “100. Everything.  From:  Al.”

 

He put the sheaf of cards in the box wrapped in heart paper in the office.

 

The next Friday, Rina, her arms overflowing with carnations, stopped by his desk on the way out of geometry.  “Wow,” she said.