Star spent the whole afternoon in her bedroom, which was in a tower she made on the left side of the house, writing away in front of her heart-shaped mirror. She wanted to finish by the end of the night in order to help Marco write his Valentine.
That night, Star read her last Valentine out loud, it was a pink heart for her faraway flying unicorn head friend, Pony Head, whom was serving time at the horrible St. Olga's Reform School for Wayward Princesses.
Dear Pony Head,
Whassup? I have a blast every time we get to hang out! I miss you sooooooooooo much… I wanna come see you and make you a bunch of chocolate cupcakes with lots of pink and green frosting and fireworks! I also hope you, me, and Marco can get together again so we can go to a Scum Bucket concert!
Lots of love,
Star
Star smiled as she finished, but wasn't so sure.
"Hmm...maybe the Soda Fountains? No, the Land of Sugar! Umm...the Rainbow Roller Coaster!"
Star had too many dimensions to choose from.
"Hmm...I think she'd rather chill at the Bounce Lounge. The place where she can chill and party!"
Star was able to make the change and then drew Pony Head on the right corner, with big eyes looking to the right and a smiling mouth with a tongue wagging. Then, she took her wand and blasted glowing yellow star-shaped glitter on the borders, just like Pony Head's own.
"Perfect," Star said, then licked the envelope closed.
Star repeatedly called Marco as she slid down the stairs. When she came down the railing, she slid down the floor and to the dining table, and stopped right in front of Marco.
"Woah...woah…Star! What's up? Do you need more help on your Valentine's?" Marco said, wearing a white chef's hat and holding a large plate of his super awesome cheesy awesome.
"Actually Marco, I'm finished with the Valentines! Now we can work on yours!"
She showed Marco her the basket full of valentines and then saw the nachos.
"Ooh! Your nachos!"
Marco saw the Valentines and his jaw dropped and the nachos crashed onto the floor.
"You dropped the nachos," Star said, still smiling.
"So, you're all done?" Marco said, taking off his chef's hat. He was shocked that his friend was able to finish all of her cards in time for Valentine's Day. But now that meant he could help him write a Valentine to Jackie.
"Yup!" Star proudly replied.
"Did you rush through them just so you could help me?"
"Nope!" Star said, "every word is from the bottom of mah hearts!" She poked the two hearts on her cheeks and they glowed light pink. "Oh, I can't wait for tomorrow, Marco! When I get to fill everyone with love! And I can't wait to see YOU show your love to Jackie, homie! I'm so ready to help you now! I've had 49 Valentines worth of experience! You can use this Valentine for Jackie!
Star showed Marco a lace valentine that was in a pinkish-peach color.
"It's called rose gold and Sabrina told me to save it for a special someone."
Just looking at such a pretty Valentine made chills go down Marco's spine.
"No, no, no," Marco said, "I'm not ready!"
Marco started to walk to the backyard and Star followed him.
"Come on, Marco," Star said. "Why aren't you ready? What're so worried about? Don't you want to be with Jackie?"
"I do!" Marco said as he opened the sliding door and they both went to the backyard. "Just...just...its hard to say," He turned to Star stammering. "I mean...I've only just started talking to Jackie and then out of nowhere this valentine comes! I mean Star, I don't even know if she likes me! What if she takes it as me asking her out? What if this turns her off? What if-"
An unpleasant surprise made them scream.
"Ha ha ha ha! Star Butterfly! We meet again!" It was Ludo, the short green round-headed warty monster in a dark green cloak with a large beak and a bull skull crown. He brought his army of monsters to steal Star's wand to get his big boy body, take over the universe, and become a lifeguard to perform CPR on some cute pixies.
"Ludo! What are you doing here?" Star said, angrily.
"Buff Frog saw you were busy this evening! And people like YOU aren't at their best when they're busy!"
The large green frog monster showed his black binoculars.
"Well, I'm all done now!" She turned to Marco and said to him in a low voice, "Well, we were just starting to work on your Valentine…"
Ludo became enraged. "What! Why are you guys so slow?"
"Well, I was sharpening my claws and I could never get them as sharp as I wanted them to be until now!" the red crustacean monster in purple pants Lobster Claws said.
"And do you guys know how hard it is for a chicken to use the restroom!" a big egg-shooter named Big Chicken angrily clucked in his chicken language.
"I have no idea what you said," Ludo said. "I don't speak chick-"
Ludo realized he was going off-subject. "Now we're getting distracted! Get the wand!"
Ludo and his monsters started charging.
"Ready to kick some monster butt, Marco?" Star asked Marco as she pushed on the ball on top of her wand, making a cocking sound like a gun.
"You know it, Star!" Marco said. He was a green-striped karate student at the local strip mall dojo.
The two sides started charging toward each other.
"Super adorable fox attack!" Star shouted and the wand unleashed a whole bunch of big-eyed golden fox babies.
"Awww…" The monsters said, adored.
The foxes then growled at the monsters and glared at the monsters with their big ferocious golden eyes. All of the monsters screamed and ran for their lives, but the foxes caught up and chomped, clawed, breathed fire and cattle prodded the stuffing out of them.
"Hi-ya!" Marco karate-chopped Man Arm, the alligator monster with a Tiny human arm, Man Arm and poked the horned bear monster Bearicorn in the eyes.
Big Chicken started pecking Marco.
"Ow! Ow! Ow!" Marco shouted.
Marco then repeatedly punched Big Chicken's belly and then punched his beak.
A blue goat monster picked up Star and cackled. Star chomped his hand, making it scream and accidentally letting her go.
"Super sour lemon shower!"
Her wand shot out numerous lemons, splatting on and stinging many monsters' eyes on the left side of the lawn.
"Strawberry bubble gum blitz!"
The monsters were then trapped on the right side with sticky, bubbling pink gum.
Ludo couldn't stand to see his monsters be taken down with the most pathetic things.
"Are you monsters easily defeated by lemons and a litte gum?" Ludo shouted, as he tried to get the gum off him. "Get her!"
All the monsters got up, dripping with lemon juice and tearing through the bubble gum.
The giant Three-eyed Potato Baby tried to punch Star on her tower, but she leapt back. As more and more monsters punched higher and higher, Star leapt backwards higher and higher like a ninja. She then jumped from the tower's roof and released her next spell.
"Slimy Peanut butter bombs!" Star called, "Extra crunchy!"
Her wand blasted waves of peanut butter with jagged pieces of peanuts in them. Most of the monsters screamed as it splashed all over them.
"So slimy! So slippery!" shouted Lobster Claws.
"I'm allergic to peanut butter!" Buff Frog shouted in his thick Russian accent. He couldn't stop scratching the red splotches on his green skin.
Just as Star came down with her left leg stretched out, the red-eyed mace-armed Spikeballs was coming to smash her with his spiky arm.
As Marco swiped and kicked a purple flower monster in the face and punched a fly monster in the stomach, he saw Spikeballs was going to crush his friend. He jumped and kicked him away.
Star turned around to see Spikeballs getting thrown to the ground. Then she saw Marco do tricks she had never seen before. Marco ran to the shed at the back of the yard and picked up and red and green rakes from his dad's rake collection and spun them around. The goat monster tried to hit him, left and right, and whacked his head with the green rake. The monster dizzily fell to the ground. He whacked and struck some more monsters. Then, when Bearicorn pounded the ground, causing it to crack open, Marco slid away and threw the red rake at him, pinning his head to the shed.
"Da-ha-ang Marco!" Star said, as she blasted monsters. "You're getting even better at this karate thing. And I thought it was just about smashing wood."
"Hi-ya!" Star shouted as she unleashed rainbow lasers from her wand that sliced large cactus in half. The top half smashed the muttering gray demon, Emmitt, who muttered in pain.
"Yeah well, Sensei taught me that and he said it would help in getting my blue belt!" Marco said, as he punched and kicked monsters jumping at him. "I'm one step closer to kicking Jeremy Birnbaum's butt!"
"Hi-ya!" Marco shouted as he punched Man Arm in the face.
For every monster that Star blasted with rainbows, Marco punched another behind her and Star would shoot pizzas at the three monsters behind him.
As a giraffe monster swung his neck down, Big Chicken fired some eggs, and Lobster Claws flung his claw down, Star spun past them, unleashing her "Killer Love Dove Gattling Gun" spell; making doves rapidly fire out of her wand and wouldn't stop pecking the monsters' heads.
"Ow! Ow! Ow!" many of them shouted and they tried to run from them.
"Make it stop!" shouted the purple flower monster, as he was getting his petals pecked out.
"You got it!" Star replied, as she unleashed her last spell. "Giant Mega Narwhal Blast!"
A giant blue narwhal fell from the sky.
"NO!" many of the monsters shouted.
"Look out, Marco!" Star shouted as she quickly pushed Marco out of the way, just as the whale squashed the monsters. Some were thrown onto the yard's cacti and the whale broke through all sides of the fence.
The monsters groaned in pain.
Marco and Star whooted and high fived each other.
She then walked over to Ludo, who was struggling to pull off the whale.
"Told ya I wasn't busy, Ludo," she told Ludo. "Y'know, maybe you should get busy trying to practice taking my wand!"
"Oooh! Burn!" Star and the monsters shouted.
"Shut up!" Ludo shouted. "It's you monsters that were so pathetic!"" Ludo shouted.
The monsters went back to groaning.
Star went up to the narwhal.
"Thanks, narwhal," she said, smiling.
"Anytime, Star Butterfly," the giant narwhal said in a deep voice.
Star high-fived its fin.
"Master Ludo," Buff Frog said. "I can't feel my arms. "
The only monster who wasn't crushed was Ludo's salamander assistant in a black lawyer's suit, Toffee, who just came up to Ludo.
"Ugh, Toffee, can you get us out of here?" Ludo asked.
Star and Marco continued to celebrate in the house.
"Woo-hoo! We sure showed them!" Marco was punching the air, left and right.
"Got 'em right where it hurts!" Star said. "And you were so good with that karate!"
Star began imitating karate moves.
"Y'know, with fighting skills like that, Jackie would definitely want to go out with you!" she said.
Marco felt as it all the excitement stopped. "What?" He asked.
"How could Jackie not want a guy like you?". Star said. "You could fight for her! I mean, you saved me from getting crushed by that Spikeballs guy back there!" Star was trying to do a karate chop, but accidentally knocked over a lamp.
"Now I broke something on the floor!" Star said, smiling.
"This again?" Marco asked, as he used a broom and a dustbin he got from the closet to pick up the broken lamp and plate pieces and throw them into the trash.
"Marco, you're a great fighter! If Jackie ever got attacked by a monster or a bully, you would THE guy to save her!"
"Well…" Marco said. After throwing away the broken lamp pieces, he grabbed a spare plate of nachos from the refrigerator and into the microwave.
"Oh!" Star brought out a test with her wand. "You're also a great study buddy! Thanks to you, I got that "A" on Skullz's surface area test!" Star proudly pointed at the "95%" and the "A" on the top of the page. "Wait, now I'm forgetting again. I do the area of the part of the rectangle that sticks, then I...?"
"You multiply the sides of that square, then multiply the sides of the rectangle and add them up," Marco said.
Star gasped. "See! You got this!"
Marco took out the nachos from the microwave and tasted one. He was grossed out by the soggyness and begrudgingly swallowed it.
"Yeah, sorry Star," Marco said. "I think I left them in the microwave too long."
"It's OK!" she replied. Star shoved a handful of gooey, cheesy nachos into her mouth.
She gasped again. "Another reason Jackie would like you! You make good nachos, even when they're soggy!" She slurped the nachos hanging down her mouth like spaghetti and wass drooling cheese.
"Soggy nachos!" Star said happily, accidentally spitting cheese onto Marco's face.
Marco sighed. "I don't know."
He wiped the cheese of his face and handed Star a napkin. Marco was about to walk away when he saw Star's basket. He still couldn't believe Star was able to finish them in just a few days.
"You really did finish these in time for tomorrow? " he asked, as he pulled out a few.
"Yup!" Star replied.
He looked at the ones he picked up: Ferguson, Hope and Jackie. The last one confused him, was this the one Star saved for Jackie? He turned to the dining room table and saw his rose gold Valentine was still sitting there.
"You wrote your own Valentine for Jackie?" Marco asked.
"Of course. She's my friend, y'know," Star replied.
Marco realized something that made him eager to write to Jackie.
"If we did this as a friend thing, I think it would be OK." Marco said. Jackie would take it as better acquainting himself; but for Marco, it would be for love.
Star gasped. "Y'know what? Maybe that's what we should've done all along! Great idea Marco!"
But Marco then felt nervous again. "We'll probably be up all night!" he shouted. "We should've started earlier!"
"It's not too late, Marco! Pick a color!" Star said, showing her shiny pen box.
Marco was indecisive.
"Uhh…" He said, moving his hand around his seemingly infinite options. Black seemed really standard and pink wouldn't show well on the paper. It had to be something Jackie would like. He chose a sparkling light blue and his confidence came back.
Star and Marco spent the whole night at the dining table writing and erasing. They shared the plate of soggy, microwaved nachos as they worked. It started off hard because Marco didn't know where to begin, but Star suggested that he start with how Jackie looks cool. Star made suggestions and occasionally, Marco came up with something that gave Star feels. By midnight, they finished. Star handed him a pink envelope and Marco licked it closed. Star then added the heart-shaped candy stamp.
Both went upstairs exhausted.
"Well, we did it," Marco said, yawning.
"See, I told you we could," Star said, weakly smiling. "Well, I'm gonna call it a night. G'night, Marco."
"Night, Star."
Just as Star was about to enter her room, she turned around.
"Hey, Marco?"
"Yeah?"
"I just wanted to say I'm sorry for pushing you to write to Jackie," Star's smile turned into a sort of sad face. "I was only trying to help you."
Marco walked over to Star and put a hand on her shoulder.
"I know," Marco said. "But you were right, I really should do more than just say 'hi' to Jackie."
Star's smile returned.
