![]() ![]() I lean forward, tuck my hair behind my ears, and shut my eyes. ![]() Fourteen blue candles form a circle around the edge of the cake, dripping wax in the buttercream.īut I won’t be rushed. It says Happy Birthday David! in bloodred icing across the top, the day in Birthday scrunched up where she must have run out of room. She has the cake tipped at an angle so I won’t notice it’s wonky. I’m not even sure the underwhelming events unfolding before me qualify as a party in the first place. Even the blue balloons Dad blew up look pale and sad, especially the ones with Fourteen Today! scrawled on them in black marker. I don’t blame him the whole party is pretty depressing. It is so bad Phil, the family dog, has retreated to his bed. At eleven, she’s already decided family birthday parties are totally embarrassing, leaving Mum and Dad to honk out the rest of the tune, Mum’s reedy soprano clashing with Dad’s flat bass. My little sister, Livvy, is barely even singing. My party guests are singing “Happy Birthday.” It does not sound good. Simon Allen wanted to be Harry Potter, so badly that the previous term he had scratched a lightning bolt onto his forehead with a pair of scissors.īut I didn’t want to be any of these things. Harry Beaumont planned on being prime minister. Zachary Olsen wanted to play soccer for England. Box, went around the room asking each of us to stand up and share what we had written. When I was eight years old, my class was told to write about what we wanted to be when we grew up. ![]()
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