****
It was my eighth birthday, and Mom took us to my favorite restaurant. The one with the all-you-can-eat pizza buffet, along with a huge area filled with arcade games. We had just finished eating our fair share of cheese pizza, and then it was on to game time. I took my cup full of tokens and headed to the pinball machines. Marc took off for the basketball net game. For some reason I was a master pinball player. Marc would never play against me. My mom said it was because I had such good eye-hand coordination. I just liked seeing the machine light up. Several games later, I decided to move on. To my left was my nemesis machine: the claw game. A simple idea of inserting a coin, positioning a mechanical claw over a stuffed animal, and then having the claw retrieve said animal and drop it down the chute for the winner to enjoy. But it never happened. Why I always spent half my money on the claw game, I’ll never understand. But here I was again. Token after token, I watched the claw loosely grab onto the edge of the goose I wanted, only to let it drop back down again.
“Why do you waste your time here?” Marc stood near me, mocking me.
Defiantly, I placed my last token in the machine. Like a trained ninja, I positioned the claw right where I wanted it, and I pressed the button. I held my breath as the goose began to rise up out of the pile, and I bit my lip as it descended down the winner’s chute and into my hand. I danced around merrily as Marc’s mouth gaped open.
At home, I told Marc how my goose was going to lay golden eggs for me. It was my birthday after all, and I assumed all geese laid golden eggs, so mine would certainly oblige.
That night, I fell asleep dreaming of the glittery gold eggs that would await me the next day. But something woke me from my slumber — some noises from the kitchen. I tiptoed out of bed and walked to the kitchen. There I saw Marc and my mother carefully positioning a stack of golden eggs in front of my goose.
“What are you doing?” I asked, startling them both.
“Look!” Marc shouted. “Golden eggs!”
Hesitantly, I walked over to them. My mother was smiling, but Marc was grinning like a cat that had eaten a family of mice. While scratching my head, I looked back and forth at them and then at the eggs. Then I spotted the egg carton poking out of the trashcan. My little eight-year-old self, instead of being flattered at the trouble they had gone to in making me golden eggs, was enraged that they were tricking me. I picked up an egg from the pile.
“Nice, huh?” Marc said. A moment later I splattered the egg against his stomach. “Hey!” he yelped. Then he grabbed an egg and cracked it on my head. I grabbed another, and so did he, and we began chasing each other around the kitchen table, dripping with egg, and laughing so much my sides hurt.
All the while, my mother kept saying, “Children please, stop that, stop it right now, this is no way to behave.”
Then Marc, while aiming for me, splattered an egg across my mother’s backside. She looked at him, and then quicker than a blink, she grabbed an egg and splattered it on his head. We had an egg war in the middle of the night in our kitchen. We laughed until we had trouble breathing. It was the best birthday I’d ever had.
****
It was Monday, and a Monday at school always meant tired students and grumpy teachers. To my surprise, I managed to stay somewhat awake in all my classes. In study hall, I nodded off briefly before Zoe threw a pencil at me. I was glad Brandon had his classes on another floor — less chance of us running into each other. A pang of guilt hit my heart when he texted me around lunchtime.
Wanna grab a bite outside?
I texted back, Sorry must study. A lie.
Once classes let out I raced through the parking lot to get to my car. Unfortunately, Brandon was already there. “Hey.” His smile was bright, and I wanted to not like it as much as I did.
“Hey.” I adjusted my book bag on my shoulder, its weight suddenly feeling like one hundred pounds.
He brushed his hand through his hair, and I felt a prickling sensation at the base of my neck. “So tomorrow’s May fifth,” he said.
Unsure of what he meant, I replied, “Very good.” Very good? What did that mean?
He looked amused. “You’re funny. May fifth is Senior Skip Day. Now, I know you’re just a sad little junior, but I was thinking you might want to partake in some good, clean Senior Skip Day fun.” The way his eyes danced at me was as if they had taken ballet classes.
“Good, clean fun, huh?” I tried to sound aloof, but I wasn’t sure why I was doing that.
“Yeah, I was thinking you’d like to go to the beach with me. Now, I don’t swim, so have no
