A Birthday Wish

I abruptly woke up from the bright, white sunlight suddenly striking my tired green eyes. Most Monday mornings I would normally just groan, curl up in my purple polka dotted comforter, and reluctantly get up, but this morning I got up instantly.

Right after my mom opened the curtains she yelled, “Morning birthday girl, happy birthday Amy!” She then proceeded to wake up my sisters so that they could celebrate this beautiful day with me.

I jumped out of bed, brushed back my long blonde hair from my face, and smiled as I ran to my closet to get my clothes I’d picked out two days before. I pranced around in a light green, sleeveless dress that went just above my knees. It was covered with pretty pink strawberries and giant strawberry buttons. Since it was hot outside I wanted to be flowery and full of bright colors. I wore fuzzy, purple socks and a big blue ring that could easily slide off my finger if I wasn’t careful.

When I was in the kitchen, all dressed and ready for school, my sisters and I talked about how we were going to spend my birthday. We planned adventures for after school such as digging for worms in the backyard and climbing on the monkey bars; this would be my first time on them because I was now old enough. As we were excitedly discussing our plans, my mom snuck into the kitchen carrying my Cinderella birthday cake, complete with six pink birthday candles. My mom, my dad, and my two sisters all sang “Happy Birthday” to me, each with a particularly off tone voice. I stared at the cake, which I was allowed to eat every year for breakfast on my birthday. My two sisters and I smiled for pictures on this Monday morning, with each of our faces and teeth clearly smeared with sweet, chocolate icing.

“Time for school,” my mom said.

As soon as I arrived in my bright, fun-colored grade one classroom I announced the news of my birthday to anyone who would listen. I received high fives and “Happy Birthdays’” from almost every one of my classmates. They were excited to be around the birthday girl; some even gave me a few homemade birthday cards. All this excitement was calmed when our teacher, Mrs. Robinson, told everyone to sit down. I grinned to myself thinking what a great day it was going to be. I couldn’t wait for all the presents I would receive when I got home from school.

Mrs. Robinson interrupted my daydreaming of presents when she called me up to the front of the class. I skipped up there with ease, loving the attention and smiles I received. There were a few cheers and screams as I made my way to the front. I stood bouncing up and down on my toes with a huge grin on my face, waiting for my favorite song to be sung to me and then I saw them.

Sitting at the front of the class were two little girls, Jennifer and Kristen, staring at me, both with bold brown eyes that read a look of complete annoyance. As the class started to sing they sat in their expensive clothes, with perfectly done blonde hair and just looked at me with hateful eyes. The class sang as loud as they possibly could, each student trying to be the loudest one, but these girls just snickered and sneered at me. I even saw Kristen whisper to Jennifer, “She thinks she’s so great. She actually thinks her strawberry dress looks good.”

I was instantly humiliated and embarrassed by being up there directly in front of them. It was as though with every note that was sung and every long second I stood there, the girls’ stares made me feel like I was shrinking. My body felt like it was fading away, like snow melting on a hot winter afternoon. I couldn’t figure out why they looked at me with complete hatred and annoyance.

All I could do was pray for the song to end just so I could get out of the girls’ sight, but the song droned on and all the students remained completely oblivious to the fact that I felt like I was about to cry. When the song finally ended I hurried back to my seat as the students whooped and clapped. The cheering ceased moments later as Mrs. Robinson told the class to settle down once again.

It was time for math. This made me feel like crying even more because I hated math and always needed help. About a half an hour into the beginning of the lesson I was even more frustrated and upset than before. All I could do was think about how bad my birthday was going. Why were Jennifer and Kristen so annoyed with me? I don’t think I ever said anything to make them hate me so much. Why were they like this on my birthday? Was it just me they don’t like? This confusion did not help me feel better about the math. Mrs. Robinson recognized that I, as well as a few other students, needed some assistance, so she decided to assign math buddies to improve our skills.

I closed my eyes and prayed to be paired with anyone but Kristen or Jennifer. It was then that I made my birthday wish, without any candles or a cake at hand and wished for them not to be my math buddy. I crossed my fingers and wished as hard as I could. I repeated the wish again and again in the back of my mind, praying and hoping it would come true at that very moment.

Mrs. Robinson began to call out other partners. “Mary and Cassandra will be together. Joel and Kelly are partners. As well as Kristen and Stefan.”

That meant that it was still possible to be stuck with Jennifer. I continued repeating the wish in my mind; I wish to not be math buddies with Jennifer. I wish to not be math buddies with Jennifer. I wish—

“Jennifer and Amy will be partners,” Mrs. Robinson said.

At that moment, it was obvious that the birthday gods had let me down. This was a disaster! We were now going to be math buddies for the rest of the year. Jennifer couldn’t even look at me without being disgusted, how was I supposed to be partners with her? This wasn’t going to be good for my math mark either because even though Jennifer was good at math, I knew she wouldn’t want to help me.

The look of disappointment and slight frustration on Jennifer’s face was almost a mirror image of mine. Even though she looked annoyed, she slowly walked over to my desk away from Kristen. The first moment was very uncomfortable, when she took her seat beside mine. It was obvious that neither one of us wanted to be sitting in that position. Without knowing what to say or do, I said, “Colin’s glasses make it look like he bought them in Mars from aliens.” Jennifer just looked at me like I was a nuisance. What was I supposed to say? She did not want to sit beside me, let alone have a conversation with me.

“I like playing hop scotch at recess; I noticed you’re really good at it. Do you think you could teach me how you play so well?” There was no reaction to my question. It was clear I bothered her in everyway. I needed to break the ice and I needed her to talk to me if I was ever going to figure out what her problem was. I had to think of something that she would want to talk about.

“Did you watch the new Arthur episode last night?” Instantly, after I asked this simple question, Jennifer’s eyes lit up.

“Arthur is my favorite show,” she said. “I’ve seen every single episode and I own every book. D.W. is my favorite because I am just like her; I bother my brother all the time but my baby sister still gets all the attention.” This was just the start to the first awkward conversation, but it ended up growing into a bigger one.

“My favorite color is purple too,” I said.

“What about ice cream? What’s your favorite flavor?” Jennifer asked.

“Cotton candy for sure. I get it every time.”

We didn’t talk about anything too exciting; we asked each other our favorite food, which boy in the class we thought was cute, and how many brothers and sisters we had. I also found out her favorite sport, song, movie, bedtime story, and animal. Before we even noticed, the math lesson was over and it was time for recess but we had gotten no math accomplished. We did, however, learn how many funny faces we each could make with the numbers on the math sheet. Jennifer was a pretty fun girl, and I hoped that she thought the same about me since she had actually gotten to know me.

Recess that day was horrible. Kristen was extremely jealous that Jennifer was hanging out with me, and that day Jennifer and I both discovered how rude Kristen actually was.

“Jennifer and Amy sittin’ in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G! First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a baby in a baby carriage.”

Kristen sang this hateful song for the entire recess and almost put me in tears because of how mean she was being. I didn’t know what to do, but Jennifer handled the situation.

“Kristen, do not talk to Amy or me like that. I like Amy; she is a nice friend and doesn’t make fun of people all the time. We laughed and joked all math class today. I’m sorry to tell you this but you are a mean girl and I don’t want to be friends with you anymore. I hate how you treat people badly when they don’t deserve it all. Goodbye.”

Jennifer walked away from Kristen and said to me, “I can’t believe I was ever friends with her. She is a mean girl.”

Recess was fine after that because Jennifer showed me how to play hop scotch and I finally learned how to do it right. As I was playing with her I realized that I was happy that my birthday wish didn’t come true because then I wouldn’t have met her. We hung out as good friends with Kristen completely out of the picture. That was the way I wanted it to be because Kristen was mean and Jennifer was nice. My sixth birthday ended up being one of my favorite birthdays, and not just because the Cinderella birthday cake was the best cake ever.