Shengliver’s Note: Is Peter’s heart bleeding?

On Christmas morning (Christmas is not a big thing in China), I was in the classroom working on my maths papers. Suddenly a boy from another class came to the door and gestured for my deskmate Jack to go outside for a chat.

At first, I did not think anything special would happen, but when Jack returned, to my disbelief, I saw in his hand a postcard with a red rose attached to it. Wow, that will be some juicy gossip, a boy and a boy, I thought.

Strangely enough, Jack came straight to me and, with a wicked smile on his face, handed the card to me. According to Jack, the card plus the rose was a gift to me from my former classmate Peter. Peter, who is in the same class as Jack’s friend, had asked the boy to pass the gift first to Jack. Jack, my deskmate, was just doing his friend a favour.

Curious, I picked up the card to see what was on it. Astonishingly, it was from one of my middle school classmates called Peter. On the card was his confession of love. Oh, my God! He should have taken so much trouble to have his message conveyed. It was relayed across several people, first from him to Jack’s friend, then to Jack, and finally to me. It was the first time I had ever received a romantic message from a boy. I had thought nobody would feel affection for such a silly girl as me. Instantly I blushed. It was so embarrassing.

After my heartbeat came back to normal, I went over the words on the card again. To my displeasure, the boy had made a stupid mistake with my name. Three Chinese characters make up my name. He had got the last one wrong. How careless he was! I flew into such a fit of rage that I trashed the card then and there.

My experience shows, boys, that if you want a girl to be your sweetheart, you should learn how to write or spell her name correctly first.