The Candy Smash

The fourth book in the Lemonade War series follows siblings Evan and Jessie Treski as they navigate clashing desires for privacy and publicity in their fourth-grade class during the week leading up to Valentine's Day.

Evan Treski reluctantly decorates a Valentine's Day shoebox in Mrs. Overton's class, known as 4-O, while his younger sister Jessie, who skipped third grade and now shares his classroom, produces flawless decorations that make him feel inadequate. Evan has a crush on classmate Megan Moriarty, comparing the spinning feeling she gives him to a car on black ice. That morning, Mrs. Overton reads the class an untitled E. E. Cummings poem with unconventional capitalization, spacing, and punctuation. Jessie declares the poem full of mistakes, but Evan feels excitement at its freedom. He interprets the poem as challenging the idea that rules must always be followed, and Megan identifies its subject as love. Mrs. Overton writes "WHAT IS LOVE?" (13) on the easel, launching a class theme.

Jessie publishes a classroom newspaper called The 4-O Forum and needs a compelling front-page story for her Valentine's Day edition. She aspires to be an investigative reporter like her father, a war correspondent in Afghanistan. After recess, students discover small boxes of personalized candy conversation hearts inside their shoeboxes, each bearing a message tailored to the individual student. Mrs. Overton denies leaving the candy and is alarmed by its unknown origin. Evan's hearts say only "FOR YOU" (26), a generic store-bought message he does not think much about at first.

At home, Evan secretly begins writing poetry. Using Post-it notes, he composes a poem about his grandmother, who moved in after New Year's and whose memory is declining. The poem compares her to a tree: strong, proud, and good, but with creaking knees and a tendency to forget his name. He adds parentheses inspired by E. E. Cummings. Meanwhile, Jessie investigates the candy hearts, sneaking into the empty classroom to search Mrs. Overton's desk. The next morning, she discovers a heart drawn in black ink on a bathroom stall door with the initials "M.M." and "E.T." inside, deducing that Megan Moriarty loves Evan Treski. In the cafeteria, Jessie loudly asks Megan whether she loves Evan. Megan turns bright red, students erupt in teasing, and Evan is mortified. Jessie, who struggles to read social cues, does not understand why the question was inappropriate. Evan privately demands she find out who drew the heart.

Jessie decides to create an anonymous love survey as her front-page story. That evening, Evan composes a second poem, "Pony Girl," about Megan, capturing her ponytail, her laugh, and the dumbstruck feeling she gives him. He copies it neatly, hides the good copy in his desk drawer, and throws the messy draft in his trash can. The next day, with Mrs. Overton absent and a disengaged substitute in charge, Jessie distributes the survey. A second batch of personalized candy hearts appears on everyone's desks. Evan's hearts again bear a generic message, "BE MINE" (92), while everyone else receives tailored ones, making him feel singled out and unspecial.

After school, Evan and his mother discuss love and his parents' divorce. He questions how love can simply end, and his mother explains that different kinds of love exist. He shows her his grandmother poem, and she calls it remarkable, encouraging him to frame it as a Valentine's gift. Evan admits aloud for the first time that he likes poetry. Later, Jessie enters Evan's room without permission, trips over his wastebasket, discovers the draft of "Pony Girl," and takes it to her room, rationalizing that it was trash. Evan confronts her about the intrusion and fines her two dollars under their household privacy rules, insisting that some things are private.

On Friday, Mrs. Overton returns and shares a poem she wrote, "Counting Ribs," about the terror of almost losing her elderly cat. A third set of candy hearts appears, and Evan storms to the bathroom and crushes his box in frustration. On Saturday, Jessie calls her clever friend Maxwell, who advises her to match the distinctive shape of the bathroom heart to the person who drew it. Comparing old lemonade-stand signs Megan had decorated with the bathroom heart, Jessie confirms that Megan drew the graffiti. Also on Saturday, Evan encounters Megan while hiking and is rude to her, ashamed of liking her, liking poetry, and being the only student with generic candy-heart messages.

That evening, Evan finds his grandmother confused in the kitchen and calms her by presenting the framed poem. She reads it but does not fully understand it, nor does she quite recognize Evan. She then recites from memory E. E. Cummings's "i carry your heart with me," astonishing him. Over the weekend, Jessie finishes laying out the newspaper, featuring the survey results and the candy-heart mystery. To fill a small remaining space, she inserts Evan's "Pony Girl" poem without his permission, intending it as a proud surprise.

On Valentine's Day morning, Jessie discovers the missing twenty-seventh survey behind her bed, revealing that someone has a crush on her. At school, she finds Megan crying in the bathroom, trying to scrub the heart off the stall door. Jessie confronts her with the matching evidence, and Megan admits she drew it. At recess, Jessie tells both Megan and Evan that the newspaper identifies Megan as the candy-heart giver, linking the bathroom heart, Megan's earlier compliments matching the personalized messages, and Megan's uncle's candy factory. Evan angrily accuses Megan of leaving him out by not writing a personal message. Megan fires back that his hearts were the most special: "FOR YOU," "BE MINE," and "I ♥ YOU" (188) were the only truly personal love messages, meant exclusively for him. Evan falls silent as he finally understands.

When Jessie mentions a surprise poem in the paper, Evan panics and discovers "Pony Girl" printed on the front page. He tells Jessie the paper cannot be distributed: It would expose Megan to punishment for the graffiti and unauthorized candy, the survey names could hurt classmates, and his poem was published without consent, violating copyright. Devastated, Jessie agrees. Together they rip up all copies except one Evan keeps.

After recess, Evan apologizes to Megan for his recent behavior. Megan tells him she likes him but does not want to "go out" with him, and they agree to be friends. He gives her the last copy, folded to display "Pony Girl," asking her never to show anyone. Scott Spencer, a classmate, snatches the paper, and back in class Mrs. Overton confiscates it. Megan takes her own advice from her newspaper advice column and confesses to the class that she distributed the candy hearts and drew the bathroom heart, then bursts into tears. Jessie admits she cannot distribute the newspaper because it contains a poem published without the author's permission and information that could hurt feelings. Mrs. Overton praises Jessie's investigative reporting and proposes a revised edition. The final published 4-O Forum, shown at the end of the book, features anonymous survey results with pie charts, an interview with Megan, her advice column, and a poetry page with work by several students and Mrs. Overton, all published with the authors' permission.