Natalie and the Downside-Up Birthday (2 page)

School goes on pretty much like regular. Only very much longer than regular. This might could be on account of I am waiting for our teacher to make a ’nouncement about how tomorrow is February 4, and we will have a birthday party for me with cupcakes.

I know this is what happens. Other kids in my very own classroom already had their birthdays. And we got ’nouncements about it and mostly cupcakes. Miss Hines makes the ’nouncement a day ahead of time so we can be excited about it all night.

But we are almost at the end of the day. And Miss Hines still hasn’t made the birthday ’nouncement. My stomach is starting to feel twitchy in a not-good way.

Like, what if the kindergarten birthday ’nouncement rule changed? And there can’t be any more birthday cupcakes in the classroom?

Or, what if Miss Hines forgot that part about the ’nouncements?

Or, maybe she doesn’t know that tomorrow is
Month Number Two and Day Number Four.

Or, what if—

“Class,” Miss Hines says in her big voice, “please be quiet. I have an announcement.”

I look two rows over to where my bestest friend, Laurie, is sitting. She is all smiley-faced back at me. Laurie knows about ’nouncements.

“Tomorrow,” Miss Hines goes on, “we’re getting a special treat. A birthday treat.”

“Yea!” Jason yells.

Other kids shout too. They don’t raise their hands, and they still don’t get in trouble.

“Not only are we getting a classroom birthday party tomorrow,” Miss Hines continues, “we’re getting
two
birthday parties.”

Jason and other kids yell, “Yippee!” and “Cool, dude!” and “Woo-hoo!”

Only not me.

Two birthdays?

I raise my hand, like the rule is. Only I don’t wait for Miss Hines to call on me ’cause I can’t wait. “Miss Hines, I’m only having one birthday,” I tell her.

Miss Hines smiles. “I know, Natalie. But you have a birthday buddy in our classroom.”

This is new news to me. It feels like bad news. Two four is
my
birthday. I never thought about sharing it. “Are you for certain sure somebody else in here has a birthday on February four?” I ask our teacher.

“Well, not exactly,” she admits.

My heart slows down its pounding. My stomach stops twitching.

“But,” Miss Hines continues, “someone else in our class has a birthday on February the fifth, the day after yours.”

I am feeling way much better not sharing my birthday. “Then we’re
not
birthday buddies,” I say, to help our teacher ’cause she must have been mixed up to say that.

“But since February fifth is on a Saturday, we’ll celebrate it tomorrow. And that means we get two birthday parties,” Miss Hines explains.

This is back to being not good again.

“Whose parties?” asks Jason, my bestest friend who is a boy. “Nat’s and who else?”

I am listening very hard to this answer. This is what
I
want to know. Who else is going to have a party on
my
birthday?

Miss Hines smiles big and turns that smile to the middle part of the second row.

Now my stomach feels more than bad twitchy. It feels like when I ate a whole stick of lipstick. Or a stick of butter. Or when I shared Percy’s new cat food with him.

I think I know where our teacher is smiling at. Only I hope not.

Jason’s question is still hanging in the air of our classroom, waiting for an answer.

Miss Hines gives the most horrible, awfullest answer she could come up with:

“Sasha.”

“But it’s no
fair,
Mommy!”

We are in our car, Buddy, driving to the grocery store to get cupcake ’gredients.

“Why exactly isn’t it fair, Nat?” Mommy asks.

“Two four isn’t even Sasha’s real birthday!” I tell her for the gazillionth time. My mom is very smart, except for sometimes like this. She should know that Sasha is just Sasha. Not Sasha 24.

“When
is
Sasha’s birthday?” she asks.

“Her birthday is on Saturday, the
not
-February-four day. We are
not
birthday buddies.”

“Guess she wanted a school party,” Mommy says. “Friday
is
the closest school day to her birthday.” She stops Buddy fast for a red light. She and I both sit up, then pop back in place. Sometimes it makes my stomach sick when Mommy drives Buddy.

Somebody honks a horn. I stare out the window. I have been hoping we’d get new snow for my birthday. The snow we have now is used snow. It’s all dirty. Blackish snow mountains line up around the parking lots of Queen Burgers and Fish-O-Rama
and the library.

“Natalie, tell me when your home birthday party is going to be.”

Now I know my mom is having a bad day. She even wrote that birthday party date on all those invites. “Mommy, my real party is on Saturday. Don’t you remember?”

She nods, then frowns back at me in the rearview mirror so I can see her frowny face.

The car behind us honks. The light’s turned green. Mom jerks the car forward. “Nat, is
your
birthday on Saturday?”

Now I’m getting aggravated at
her
. “No! You know when my birthday is. Tomorrow! Friday.”

“But you’re having a party at our house on Saturday?” she asks, like this is a big surprise.

“Yes! You said to, so Daddy could come.” I love my mom, but she is a big forgetter today.

She nods again. “Even though Saturday is Sasha’s
real
birthday and not yours?”

Then I get it. She knew this all along. I hate it when she tries to get me to understand stuff I don’t feel like understanding. “I get it,” I admit.

But I still don’t like it.

I stare out of Buddy’s smudgy window and see three bigger boys racing fast on the sidewalk, where they’re not supposed to ride bikes but they are. They have snowsuits on and stocking caps, but no gloves. One bike is red with a silver stripe. I like that bike.

“Mommy, can I have a big red bike with a silver stripe for my birthday?”

“No can do,” Mommy answers.

“What
am
I getting for my birthday?” I ask.

Mommy sighs, but it sounds like air leaking out of a balloon. “I thought we agreed you wouldn’t ask that question again, Nat.”

We did agree this on account of my mom thought I asked that question a gazillion times a day. And she never answers it. So it was a waste of our brains to keep doing that.

“Yeah,” I admit. “Only my birthday is tomorrow,
and I thought maybe that would be close enough. That’s what.”

“Nope,” Mommy answers.

I don’t know what I’m getting for my birthday. So far, I know I’m
not
getting a red bicycle with a silver stripe or a TV in my room or a pony.

I would very much love a pony.

Mom parks the car in the parking lot of the HyKlas Grocery Store. She parks very far away on account of a thing that happened one time.

One time I was in the car with my mom. And this is a story, but it is a true thing. Mom parked our car really up close to the grocery store, next to all the other close cars. Then we got our grocery stuff and got back into our car. Then she backed up our car. Only there was already a car there. So the two cars went “BANG! CRASH!”

And that happened one more time in this parking lot place.

So we park far away from those other cars now. And it is many, many steps to that grocery store.

Mommy helps me out of my booster seat. When I’m six tomorrow, I don’t think I’ll need this thing.

She holds my hand, and we look out for cars and hurry ’cause it’s very cold. When I breathe, I make little frosty clouds. That’s how cold it is.

When we are close to the HyKlas, I look up. And
then I see the most wonderful thing. “Mommy!” I shout. “There he is! There he is!”

“Nat, please,” Mom says. “It’s too cold.”

She says something else, but I don’t hear her. I don’t see her. I don’t see cars or people or anything. On account of what I do see.

My pony!

“Rocket!” I cry.

I love my horse that goes by the name of Rocket.

When Mom and I are on the sidewalk, I try to pull away from her and run to my horse. Only my mom is very strong. She keeps on holding my hand.

“Rocket! Rocket! Rocket!” I scream.

Rocket doesn’t do anything, on account of he is made out of plastic. He can’t move unless you feed him two quarters into his black box. Then he will
go fast like a rocket. That’s where I got that name,
Rocket
.

“Nat,” Mommy pleads, “it’s freezing out here. You don’t want to ride that thing now, do you?”

“Daddy would let me!” I shout. “Daddy
loves
horses!”

When my daddy takes me to the grocery store, we never get much groceries. He
always
lets me ride Rocket sometimes. Daddy puts quarters into Rocket’s box and says, “I guess Rocket is a Quarter Horse.” Then he laughs his head off. And I laugh too, so he doesn’t feel bad.

I jerk my hand, and guess what! My hand comes out of my glove. So all Mom is holding is my glove. I race over to my horse and hug him around his hard neck. “I love you, Rocket,” I tell him. He feels cold when I press my face to his. And kind of hard.

I pet Rocket. He looks like he used to be yellow and white before he got dirty like the snow.

When I was littler, I used to pretend yellow was my most favorite color. I loved purple best. But I felt sorry for yellow.

And here’s why. When somebody asks, “What’s your favorite color?” nobody answers, “Yellow.” And that is ’cause yellow might as well be white, which is almost not really a color. Only yellow has a tiny bit of color in it. And not very much.

Not like purple. Laurie and I love purple and so do many, many girls. And mostly not boys. Boys don’t like colors, except for some boys like black and maybe blue or green.

But nobody likes yellow. So I pretended I did.

I don’t pretend that one anymore. Now I just love purple. One day, I’m going to paint my horse purple. That’s what.

Mom has been saying hello to somebody. Only now she’s done with that. She yells over at Rocket and me, “Please!”

I am getting a great birthday idea. “Mommy!” I shout. “Can I have Rocket for my very own for my birthday?” I should have thought of this great birthday idea before. “Ask Mr. HyKlas if we can
buy Rocket!”

I hug Rocket again. “I will take you home, Rocket. Plus I will paint you purple. You can be my purple horse and live with me forever. In my room. With Percy, my cat.”

“Now, Nat!” Mommy calls. “And the answer is no. You can’t have Rocket for your birthday.” She stamps her feet and blows into her gloves. “Nat, I’m freezing to pieces out here.”

I am still hugging Rocket. But my fingers are freezing to pieces too. Especially my hand with no glove.

“Mommy, if I can’t have Rocket for my birthday, can I ride Rocket now?” I ask.

“Not now, Nat. Maybe later,” Mom says.

But I don’t like “later.” I hate “later.”

“I
need
to ride Rocket
now
!” I tell her, on account of it feels like I do.

“Natalie?” Mommy’s voice isn’t Nice Mommy’s voice. But I’m not Natalie Elizabeth yet. So I hug Rocket tighter.

“I need to ride Rocket now, Mommy.” I don’t say this very loud. But my words do that up-and-down thing that makes it sound almost like a song.

“Don’t whine, Natalie,” Mommy says.

I try not to whine. But when I say words again, they come out like that song thing. “I
need
to ride
my horse!”

“Natalie Elizabeth,” Mommy begins. This is how I know she’s very aggravated at me. Which, in case you forgot, is what other mommies call mad. ’Sides, her eyes are little lines. “You do not
need
to ride that horse.”

I
knew
she didn’t understand, and this is proving it. “I
do
! I
need
to ride Rocket!” I say this part very loud ’cause I want her to understand this part very much. That’s what.

I can tell by her line eyes that she does not understand this part.

She steps toward Rocket and me. “Natalie Elizabeth, I can see that you
want
to ride that horse. But you do not
need
to ride it. Understand?”

I shake my head in the no way because my stomach and my whole insides are feeling like
need
.

Mommy takes in air and lets it out. Like a leaky balloon. “Starving children
need
food. Someone wandering and lost in a desert
needs
water. Now do you understand?”

I stare at my mom because I think maybe she forgot all about Rocket. On account of she’s worrying about the starving children in the desert.

“So,” Mom goes on, like her mind isn’t in a starving desert, “how about this? Since you
want
to ride the horse so much, I’ll make you a deal.”

This is not a good thing very much of the time. Mommy’s deals are very hard. I wait for this deal.

“If you can be a good girl and go shopping without causing any trouble, then when we’re done, you can ride the horse.” Her eyes go back to Nice Mommy’s round eyes that are very brown, like my eyes.

I look at Rocket. I look at Mommy. I look at Rocket. “Okay.”

I let Mommy lead me by my hand toward the big glass doors that open all by themselves. There is still some sad in my heart about not riding Rocket
now
. I turn back to smile at my horse that I won’t get for my birthday and that I didn’t get to ride yet, even though I really needed to ride.

The grocery-store doors swish themselves open. Mommy jogs inside.

I turn back one more time to wave good-bye to Rocket.

And I see a horrible thing.

A very terrible, horrible thing.

Someone who’s not me is climbing onto my horse.

She is wearing a purple coat.

That someone is that not-so-nice girl who is
not
my birthday buddy. That someone goes by the name of Sasha.

Sasha sits down on my horse, Rocket. Her mom puts quarters in the black box. Rocket goes up and down and back and front.

My feet stop moving.

“Nat?” Mommy says.

My eyes start crying. My head keeps looking back at my horse, Rocket.

Mommy pulls me into the HyKlas with her. The doors swoosh closed behind us.

The last thing I see is Sasha kicking the sides of my yellow horse, Rocket, and shouting, “Faster, you slow horse! Faster!”