"Nikki and me put the invitations in everyone's cubbies."
"Could they have fallen out?"
"No. Someone must have taken them out!"
"Now, don't go accusing someone if you don't know for sure."
"I bet you Antonia saw us."
Auntie smiled cheerfully. "I'm going to make a couple more phone calls tonight, and the rest in the morning. We'll have some kind of party yet."
Deja doesn't want "some kind" of party. She wants the party she's been imagining for the last three weeks.
Deja doesn't like the look on Auntie Dee's face when Deja pads into the kitchen the next morning, still in her nightgown. Auntie Dee breaks into a big smile as soon as she sees her, but Deja knows it is a forced smile. "There's the birthday girl," Auntie Dee says cheerfully over her newspaper. She gets up and gives Deja a big birthday hug. "Happy birthday, big girl. I got something for you."
Deja sits down and puts her chin in her hand. Auntie pushes a small box toward her. A small box means jewelry, Deja thinks. Deja stares, making no move to open it. She just wants to look at the box wrapped in lavender tissue paper for a while first. Finally, she removes the paper, lifts the top off, and peers inside. It's a citrine pendant on a gold chain.
"It matches my ring," she says softly.
"Do you want to put it on?" Auntie asks.
"Okay."
Auntie Dee slips the necklace around Deja's neck and then fastens the clasp. "Beautiful," Auntie says.
Deja rubs the citrine, liking the feeling under her fingertips. Then she goes to the mirror over the buffet in the dining room. She has to jump up to get a really good look at it in the mirror. She likes what she sees. "Thank you, Auntie Dee," she says, coming back into the kitchen.
"Look what else I have for you," Auntie Dee says. On the table is Deja's favorite breakfast, the one she never ever gets to have—except on her birthday. On Auntie Dee's best china plate is a single cinnamon bun, like the kind they sell at the mall. Gooey and dripping with icing. Deja can never eat a whole one, but she always thinks she can when she starts. She peels off a piece and licks the icing. She licks all the icing clinging to her fingers. She feels a little better.
"Now, Deja, I made some calls last night and some this morning. It seems most of the girls in your class are going to Antonia's party, but a few are now undecided. There's nothing we can do about it, so let's think of something fun you, me, Nikki, and your little friend Sheila can do."
Deja sits up straight at the mention of Sheila Sharpe. She's not my friend! she wants to say. But she doesn't. She realizes fully what a dud her party is going to be and slumps her shoulders. She looks out the kitchen window at a cloud-covered morning. The wind rattles the leaves on Auntie Dee's maple trees. Even the day is disappointing. Where is the sun?
11. A Turn of Events
The party will start at two—with hardly any guests, unless some of the "undecideds" decide to come.
Nikki pops over with lavender and pink streamers. "Look, Deja. I've got your favorite colors."
"Great."
"Come on, Deja. Some girls might come. Don't you want the living room to look pretty? I brought lavender and pink balloons, too."
Deja shrugs. "I guess." She holds out her hand, and Nikki gives her a package of lavender streamers.
Working alongside Auntie Dee, they hang paper streamers in the living room. Then they set up the card tables with the board games and bring out the big stuffed panda bear that will be first prize. On each table, they place bowls of popcorn and peanuts. Deja had already made sure nobody had any peanut allergies back when she thought the entire classroom of girls was coming. Then they start blowing up the balloons. Auntie Dee has even set up an empty card table in the corner for birthday presents. Deja looks over at the nearly empty table. So far there's only Nikki's present. She supposes that soon there will be at least one more ... from Sheila Sharpe.
In the refrigerator sits Deja's lavender birthday cake with the pink flowers. In the freezer is Deja's strawberry ice cream, because pink and lavender make such a happy combination, and Deja, with her decorator's eye, knows this.
Just then, Deja, Nikki, and Auntie Dee hear a loud cracking sound. They stop as if the freeze bell has rung in the living room. Deja waits to see what will follow. Silence. And then another louder cracking sound. Deja and Nikki rush to the living room window just as a steady downpour begins.
"It's raining," they say in hushed tones. They slap palms, but in a way that shows they barely believe it. It's raining. Great big drops pelt the sidewalk, Auntie Dee's tiny white compact car in the driveway, Mr. Bohanna's lilac bushes. It's raining. On Deja's birthday.
But that means it's also raining on Antonia's backyard. It's raining on her trampoline, on her roller rink, and on her tetherball (built into the ground). On her party that's supposed to take place—now! Nikki and Deja look at each other as a slow smile grows on each of their faces. Nikki starts the song first. Soon Deja joins her, until they are skipping around the living room hand in hand:
It's raining, it's pouring,
The old man is snoring.
He bumped his head and went to bed
And couldn't get up in the morning.
"Again!" Deja demands, so they sing it again.
It's raining, it's pouring,
The old man is snoring.
He bumped his head and went to bed
And couldn't get up in the morning.
"Again!" Deja says louder. And they sing it again. And again, and again, until Auntie Dee says, "Okay, enough." Then they just skip around the room humming.
Sheila Sharpe soon arrives. Deja opens the door just as Sheila's pushing her glasses up on her nose with her index finger. The first thing she says as she hands Deja a big box wrapped in the funnies from the Sunday paper is, "Sorry, we didn't have any wrapping paper."
"That's okay," Deja says. "Thanks." She puts the big box on the table next to Nikki's much smaller flat box wrapped in silver paper and a lavender ribbon. Deja guesses Nikki's gift might be a coffee-table book of beautiful houses for her future decorating business. She'd pointed it out to Nikki the last time Auntie Dee had taken them to the bookstore.
"This is exactly what I want for my birthday," she remembers saying while running her hand over the book's slick cover.
Nikki, Deja, and Sheila go out to the front porch to watch the rain. Even Bear—poor nearly forgotten Bear—seems to be watching the rain from his post on the porch swing.
"Can we swing on that?" Sheila asks.
"Our legs aren't long enough yet," Nikki explains.
"I'll push," Deja says.
Nikki and Sheila climb on, and Deja begins to push the swing while the rain comes down harder and harder.
After a while, Auntie Dee sticks her head out the door to say, "Well, it looks like your little friends Ayanna and Rosario are heading this way. I just spoke to their mothers on the telephone."
"You think they're bringing presents?" Nikki says.
Deja shrugs. At this point, she doesn't know what to think. Nothing is as she'd imagined. It's not as good as she'd imagined it would be three weeks ago ... but it's not as awful as she'd imagined it would be last night. Even with her daddy not coming. Like Auntie said, she probably didn't send the invitation to the right address. That's the reason. Next year they'll find out his correct address and send an invitation there. Then of course he'll come. He's her daddy.
The telephone rings again. And again. A few minutes later Auntie Dee's back announcing, "Three more, it seems. Melinda, ChiChi, and Keisha."
Deja counts. Eight all together. Enough for two games.
By two thirty, there are enough girls in Deja's living room to occupy all of the card tables. Excited, giggly voices fill the room. Deja, at the Monopoly table, with Park Place and Boardwalk, looks around. Almost all the girls from Room Ten are there. Deja is finally eight, like most of her classmates. Only Nikki and Rosario are still seven. What a satisfying feeling. Deja throws
the dice and lands on Community Chest.
It's funny how one thought leads to another thought. Deja thinks of being eight. She thinks of how powerful and strong the number "eight" sounds, while "seven" sounds soft and babyish. "Eight" makes her think of a figure eight on ice. And that makes her think of skating, which makes her think of roller rinks, which leads her to Antonia's roller rink under the pounding rain. And Antonia sitting at her kitchen window, staring at it.
She reads the card. Get out of jail free. She sighs heavily. Not because of what it says—that should make her smile—but because she knows what she's going to do. She's going to sit there and feel sorry for Antonia. And she's not going to have all that much fun if she feels sorry for Antonia. She sets the card down and watches Keisha throw the dice. She tries to put Antonia out of her mind. But Antonia keeps popping back into it. Does this mean what she thinks it means?
"Yes. It does," she says under her breath, and the girls at her table glance up.
But Antonia took Deja's invitations out of the cubbies.
Deja frowns. Then she thinks, It could have been Carlos or Ralph who took the invitations out of the cubbies.
Now she's feeling even sorrier for Antonia. When Auntie Dee stops by the table to replenish the potato chip bowl, Deja beckons for her to lean down. She whispers her idea in Auntie's ear, and Auntie breaks into a big smile. "I knew you'd want to do that," she says. "I knew you'd start to feel sorry for Antonia and want to invite her."
"You did?" Deja asks.
"You're my Deja, aren't you?"
Deja feels a surprising warmth wash over her. She likes the way Auntie Dee says "my Deja."
She watches Keisha move her wheelbarrow five spaces and land right on Park Place. Ha! Deja holds out her hand while Keisha counts Monopoly money into it. This feels great, Deja thinks. She places the money into the right piles and looks at it. She's probably going to win. She loves winning. But she doesn't love it more than hearing Auntie Dee say "my Deja."
"My Deja" tells her that even though she doesn't have her daddy—this year—she has her Auntie Dee. And, to Auntie Dee, she is "my Deja."
Plus, there's always next year to hope for.
* * *
Karen English has been an elementary school teacher in urban neighborhoods for many years, and she wrote these books with her students in mind. She lives in Los Angeles, California.
* * *
Laura Freeman has illustrated many books for children. Her drawings for this book were inspired by her own childhood. Laura lives with her husband and two children in Dunwoody, Georgia.
* * *
Birthday Blues Page 5