Skip to content
Valentina’s eyes fluttered open as sunlight pierced through the half-closed blinds, casting golden stripes across the chaos of her bedroom. Blankets were twisted like vines, socks clung to the edge of her desk lamp, and a glitter-glued science project leaned precariously on a pile of comic books. But the mess wasn’t what jolted her upright.
It was the dream.
She had been flying. Not like a superhero—this was different. She floated weightless over oceans of stars, chasing a voice she couldn’t quite hear. Then, the moment before she could catch it, she fell. And woke up with her heart pounding.
She rubbed her eyes, her mind racing. Dreams always meant something. At least, that’s what her abuela used to say before she moved back to Argentina. “Dreams are whispers from the soul,” she would whisper in Spanish, tapping Valentina’s chest. “You just have to listen.”
Valentina sat on the edge of her bed, trying to decode the whisper.
And then—BOOM.
The door burst open. In rolled her little brother, Nico, wrapped in a blanket like a burrito, yelling, “MOM SAID PANCAKES! And also that we’re late!”
Late?
Valentina’s eyes darted to the alarm clock: 8:42 a.m.
She had twenty-eight minutes to get dressed, eat, find her art portfolio (last seen under a suspicious mountain of laundry), and make it to her school’s talent showcase.
Suddenly, the room’s mess wasn’t just visual clutter. It was a minefield.
“Where’s my other shoe?” she shouted.
Nico shrugged and threw a Nerf dart at her head. “I used it for the catapult.”
“The what?!”
He grinned. “Don’t worry. It worked.”
Heart racing, Valentina dove into the mess. A banana peel (when did she last eat a banana?), two empty paint tubes, and her dad’s missing watch all surfaced before she found the sketchbook. Pages fluttered like birds, each one full of dragons, cities in clouds, and a portrait of her family—Mom laughing, Dad asleep on the couch, Nico mid-cartwheel.
This was her dream. This was what she was chasing. Not some voice in the stars—this.
Through the noise of clattering pans and Nico’s high-pitched humming, she saw it: the beauty of the mess. It wasn’t just a room. It was a canvas of her life—chaotic, loud, real.
She sprinted downstairs with her sketchbook clutched to her chest.
“Do I have time to eat?” she gasped.
Mom turned from the stove, her eyes wide. “Only if you like pancakes on the go.”
Valentina grabbed one bare-handed and kissed her mom’s cheek. Syrup stuck to her fingers and her heart felt like it might burst.
As she raced out the door, hair unbrushed and shirt half-tucked, she wasn’t just a kid running late. She was an artist chasing the wild, beautiful dream of being seen. The dream hadn’t ended when she woke up—it had only begun.
And in the middle of a messy room, a yelling brother, and a pancake-scented kitchen, Valentina found it:
The chaos was the heart.
And her heart was wide open.
By
