From: Date: Tue, 10 Mar 1998 21:26:51 Subject: New Valentine's Surprise VALENTINE SURPRISE By Jkinbote kinbote.j@usa.net CATEGORY: VA RATING: G SPOILERS: None KEYWORDS: Pre X-files SUMMARY: Valentine's Day angst for little Fox. DISCLAIMER: Fox, Samantha and Mr. And Mrs. Mulder are the properties of Chris Carter, 1013 Productions and Fox Television. I am only borrowing them for 3 minutes . Feedback can be sent to kinbote.j@usa.net. Please be kind and gentle. This is my first time. .................... February 13, 1970 Greer Street Martha's Vineyard Fox got off the bus. He didn't wave at his friend Scott. He was already in the third grade and you didn't wave goodbye to your friends because it wasn't a neat thing to do. It was bad enough being in third grade and being smaller than your classmates. He didn't want to be called a baby by the other kids. He was the only one who got off at this stop. He sang "Ninety nine bottles of beer on the wall" as he walked home. There was quite a ways until his house. They lived at the end of the street. He wished there were other kids his age living on their street, someone he could play with on cold winter days. The only other kid in the area lived two houses away and he was a big kid, already in junior high. Todd Bradley was in eighth grade this year , but Fox remembered last summer, Todd taught him to play basketball. Instead, Fox was mainly stuck with a real baby, his sister Samantha. She was four years old AND a girl. Most times, she was fun to play with, but you couldn't push her around or wrestle. Mommy always got mad when he did that. Sometimes, she could play football. Fox didn't really have a football, unlike Scott. They just pretended that the multicolored ball from Mr. Benadum's store was a football. Because he was older and could boss Samantha around, they mainly played what he wanted to play. But sometimes, he felt sorry for her and occasionally, very occasionally, he would play her games, but he drew the line at tea parties with her Teddy. He'd never stoop that low. Fox was already at "eight-five bottles of beer on the wall" when he finally reached their front gate. It had a faded 62 on it and Daddy said he was going to touch it up with some paint come spring. Sometimes, when he took his time, Fox would reach numbe r eighty. If he was in a hurry and needed to go to the bathroom, it would only take a hurried "ninety-five bottles of beer on the wall" and he'd already be home. But eighty-five usually meant that he was walking at his usual pace. Fox went up the walk and stamped his feet on the porch to loosen the snow and mud from his tennis shoes. The porch wrapped around the whole house and he made his way to the kitchen door at the back. He found Samantha already waiting for him by the door. "Hi, Fox," Samantha said. "Hi, Sam," Fox said. He carefully checked his feet before stepping into the kitchen. He shook off the snow from his coat and hung it up in the coat closet. It was new for this winter and Mommy told him many times to take good care of it. He didn't lik e the coat much. It wasn't like the newer and better jackets like the other kids'. Down jackets were the best. They were all puffy and shiny and came in bright colors. Instead, Fox was stuck with a navy blue coat with a fur-edged hood. "Let's play," Samantha said. She was pulling on his arm. "Wait, I'll say hello to Mommy," Fox answered, shaking her from his arm. He found Mommy in the front room writing a letter at her desk. "Mommy, I'm here," Fox said. "Did you wipe your feet before you entered the house?" she asked as Fox planted a kiss on her cheek. "Yes, Mommy," Fox said. Samantha followed him to his room. She always followed him everywhere in the house, but especially when he came home from school. It drove him nuts sometimes. "What d'you do in school, Fox?" she asked. She fooled around with his book bag while he changed from his school clothes to jeans and a sweater. He took off his tennis shoes, too, but kept his tube socks with the blue and red stripes on his feet. Samantha still wasn't sure what Fox did at school, but it seemed to be important. Fox checked to see if the coast was clear before he shut the door to his room. "Look what I did at school today." Fox took out his notebook and flipped a page before showing Samantha. "Don't tell Mommy and Daddy about this," Fox admonished. Samantha's eyes widened at the pretty things in Fox's notebook. "It's for tomorrow, Valentine's Day and I made Valentines for Mommy and Daddy." "Valentimes?" The red stiff paper looked important so she knew enough to be careful with it when she took it in her hand. "ValenTINES, poop head." Fox regretted calling her a poop head at once, but she didn't even notice. It made Fox wonder if he called her poop head too often that the insult had lost its sting for the little girl. He was happy that Samantha seemed suitably impressed with the red hearts he made in art. He hadn't mastered the use of scissors yet and Mrs. Murphy had to help him cut the paper into hearts. But he pasted the doily on Mommy's card and the colored paper on Daddy's all by himself. And he wrote lots of XXXX's inside. Fox had to tell Samantha about Valentine's Day because she was a baby and didn't know about things like that. He promised her that he'd help her make Valentines for Mommy and Daddy, too. After a snack of milk and cookies, Fox and Samantha had to look for paper around the house. It was a secret from Mommy, too, so they couldn't ask her for help. Fox already knew that he had enough crayons and glue in his room. It had to be good paper, n ot any notebook paper. Something without lines. When Mommy started fixing dinner, Fox knew it was the best time to search around the house. Daddy had some nice paper on his desk. Although it was a very bad thing to do, it was the only place to look for Samantha's paper. Mommy's desk in the front roo m didn't have large pieces of paper; it only had those small pink dainty stationary things that women used. It was very naughty to root around in Daddy's desk, because Daddy always said they should never go fooling around in his study. There were a lot of important papers there and it was private. Fox wasn't sure what his dad did. He knew that Daddy sometime s didn't go home for days at a time and he went to a place called DC where he sometimes made long distance calls to Mommy. The calls he made from DC sounded far away and sometimes the line would go dead or was crackly. And when you talked to him, you ha But at the bottom drawer of Daddy's desk, with Samantha as a lookout in case Mommy decided to stop cooking, Fox found just the right kind of paper. They hurried back to Fox's room and shut the door behind them. Fox had to sneak out again to get the scis sors from Mommy's sewing basket. Then with his tongue sticking out from one side of his mouth for better concentration, Fox folded both papers carefully and cut it just like at school that morning in art class. Even if he wasn't very good with using scissors, Fox was good at remembering things. It was one reason why he was put in third grade instead of remaining in second grade like the other kids who were eight years old. He remembered the way the paper had to be cut just so and when it was laid out, it was shaped just like a heart. Once the hearts were cut out, Samantha laid on her front on the floor and colored her hearts. She said Mommy's was going to be red while Daddy's heart was purple. She couldn't write yet but Fox assured her it was going to be okay. Even if she couldn't write "Happy Valentine's Day", she could write a few X's which meant kisses, Fox solemnly told her. Fox remembered feeling sorry for Margo Kubicki who sat behind him in art class. She only made one card, for her mom because her mom and dad were divorced. All the other kids made two cards, but it was too late for Margo to make one for her dad and send it by mail. Her dad now lived in California, where it hardly ever snowed, but it was still too far away. Even if Mrs. Murphy told her she could make her dad a Valentine, Margo didn't want to and that was that. Samantha was so engrossed in making her Valentines that they weren't making any noise like they usually did. It made Mommy suspicious and she asked twice through the door if they weren't getting into trouble. "No, Mommy, we're just playing!" Fox called out. "We're playing quiet!" Mommy laughed and left them alone. Samantha colored in her hearts carefully and only tore one tiny bit from Mommy's card, too tiny to be noticed. By the time she finished, Fox heard Daddy's car pulling up in the driveway. Daddy spent the whole week in DC. He left on the ferry last Monday morning and returned only tonight. "Hurry, Sam!" Fox said anxiously. They stashed the crayons and the scissors and the glue and Fox carefully placed Samantha's Valentines in his notebook, too. "You promise not to tell?" Fox reminded her, before Daddy walked in the house. "Yes, Fox, it'll be a surprise," she said. She sometimes found it hard to keep secrets especially from Daddy. She ran out of his room, and Fox heard her shriek in welcome. By the time Fox was downstairs, too, Daddy had Samantha in his arms and they were laughing together. Mommy was laughing, too. She was even kissing Daddy. Yuck! Everyone liked it better when Daddy was home. "Were you good when I was gone?" Daddy asked. Although he addressed the question to both of them, Daddy was looking at Fox with his sharp eyes. The eyes which made Fox feel small inside. "Did you listen to your mother?" "Yes, sir," Fox mumbled. Sometimes, he thought he was good, but his mom would remember some mischief and tell Daddy about it. Fox was pretty sure he was good this week, but he never can tell. Dinner was okay because Fox didn't spill anything from his plate. Although meatloaf wasn't really his favorite, he thought hard about all the hungry kids in China and how he wouldn't want them to eat this meatloaf. He was sure it would take three weeks for the mail to get there and by that time, the meatloaf would be really bad. So he finished up all the food on his plate. Then after dinner, they watched "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In". He couldn't get all the jokes, but he still laughed because Daddy found it funny. But he didn't like the "Tom Jones Show", despite it being Mommy's favorite show. It was time for bed anyway and Fox and Samantha dutifully went to their rooms for the night. Fox was allowed to read in bed until eight thirty and he was doing that when he heard Daddy's roar from his study. Fox quaked when he heard Daddy's angry voice. He was going to get it. It was clear that Daddy found out about them rifling through his de sk. It happened so fast. Daddy came into the room and pulled him out of bed, making his arm hurt. "You went through my desk, didn't you?!" Daddy yelled. "Yes, sir," Fox said. It was no good to lie. It would just make it worse. "How many times do I have to tell you never, EVER, for you kids to enter my study?" Daddy yelled again. Daddy gave him three hard whacks on the fanny. It hurt, too. A lot. At first, Fox tried not to cry into his pillow, but he did anyway. It made Daddy madder. Last night, before going to bed, he'd said his evening prayers and he prayed that Daddy wouldn't get mad at him. But like always, Daddy got mad anyway. In Sunday school, they said God always listened to good kids. Fox guessed he wasn't good enough for God to listen to. The next morning, on Valentine's Day, Daddy made a big deal out of Samantha's Valentines over breakfast. Fox was too embarrassed to show his. Not after last night. Instead, he placed his cards on each of his parents' nightstands. After all, no one liked bad kids' Valentines. THE END Feedback! Feedback! Send to kinbote.j@usa.net