More Novel in a Paragraph: Yes

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Valentines come in many shapes sizes and forms....

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Yes

Davoni doesn’t answer. No matter what the therapist asks him, he grins, shrugs, says “I don’t know.” This was his response when she asked him if he missed his mother, when she asked how he felt when his foster mother told him in front of his whole first grade class that she didn’t want him anymore, what he thought when his head got shaved and the next day he started a new school in a new home. The therapist told Davoni that she is going to pay herself a nickel every time he says “I don’t know." “Oh another nickel—that’s fifteen cents so far today!” she says and they laugh together, the way they sometimes laugh when they are walking to the lunch room and while they are holding hands, they tickle each other’s palms.

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He has only cried in front of the therapist once, mournful tears on the last day of kindergarten after his teachers kept showing him his special music award, telling him how great it was. But later, in the library, when the therapist asked him about it, he began to cry and couldn’t stop. Finally he sobbed, “It should have been in spelling, not music. I didn’t try in music.”

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Last week he cried like that again, this time because he scratched someone in his after school program and was suspended for five days. The teacher aide told the therapist he cried so hard he couldn’t talk. She said he seems like a good child, smart, said that she understands that he is in a new school, new teachers, new foster family, new faces, new rooms, new rules.

“Do you fall asleep okay in your new room?” the therapist asks him.

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“I dunno.”

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“Oh! Another nickel!” He laughs. They both laugh.

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“Devoni,” the therapist puts a hand on his head, rubs his stub of hair. “About scratching that kid at after school, I can teach you how to use your words instead of your hands. I think that will help alot, what do you think?”

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He looks up.“ I dunno.” She looks at him. He smiles. “Yes,” he says.

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Find someone to be your valentine. They don't need to even know. ♥

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Love

kj