Autobiography of a Child

Today is my birthday ~ but not my party

My name is Kate and today is my birthday. I’m dressed in this scratchy pink dress that swirls when I spin fast in my new shiny pink maryjanes. But since it’s not my party, I can’t spin because it musses my hair. Mommy already slapped me once for spinning and then curled some of my hair into a ringlet over the red mark on my cheek. She didn’t mean to slap me, but missed the back of my head and her ring caught my cheek. She says my pasted hair looks cute, but I think it looks like a piece of poop stuck to my face.

I’m not cute, I’m tall and my hair frizzes out when it’s wet, and I like to read. I don’t suck my thumb or grin like an idiot all the time, which is what grownups call cute.

Today, instead of having my own birthday party, I have to go to a wedding party with a bunch of old people, all over 20 years of age. Mommy says that when I’m older and get married to some nice young man, I’ll have a wedding party of my own. I won’t tell Mommy my secret, else she might slap me again and make me wear a poopy ringlet pasted to my other cheek.

I don’t tell Mommy lots of things. I try to be quiet and not talk much when I’m around her, because she doesn’t like me. She swats at me whenever I say something, or don’t say something, or do something, or don’t do something. I never know what the something is until after I get hit for doing it wrong or not doing it.

When my brother turned five last year, he got a party in the backyard with cake and hotdogs, and he got to ride his new bike. I have to go to this stupid party for somebody else. Oh, well, I’ll just pretend I’m somewhere else, in outer space, in a world where birthdays are for cake and bikes and a kid doesn’t have to act like old grownups on her very own fifth birthday.

I started school this year, and I’m learning a lot of things there. Daddy taught me letters and how to write when I was three. He tells me he likes my stories of far away worlds, and he laughs at the silly poems I write for him and tells me to keep writing down my dreams and stories and thinking up funny poems for him to read. In school I’m learning new stuff, though, like math, history, and science. I thought it would be hard, but it’s fun because my teacher is cool like my dad.

My teacher never swats me. She knows lots of stuff and she acts really nice about it, like she wants me to really understand what she’s showing me. She asks questions, and looks at me when I talk like she wants to hear what I say. She smiles when I do science experiments and work math problems on the board, even if they aren’t perfect. So my secret is that if I really have to grow old, then when I’m 20 I won’t marry some nice young man, but become a teacher.

***

Well, it’s late now and I’m writing this under covers by flashlight. The wedding party ended up being fun after all. I twirled with the bride’s nice young man while people took pictures and videos. I was getting dizzy spinning in the air, so he gave me a sip of some bubbly fizzy stuff in his glass, after which I threw up all over the wedding bride’s white party dress. I thought the dress could use some color, but the wedding bride cried, and Daddy took me outside to the courtyard so I wouldn’t hear people swearing, but I did anyways.

I was scared that I’d done something or not done something that would make Mommy hit me, so I curled up in Daddy’s lap and pretended to sleep. I must have really fallen asleep, because when I opened my eyes, I was on my back flying toward the evening star in my very own starship. I was on a mission to discover new worlds where kids were kids and nobody hit anyone for no reason.

As Daddy picked me up from the back seat of the car and carried me into the house, I knew it must have been a dream, and I whispered in his ear that I wanted to be a starship commander. He smiled, and told me that if I really wanted something, and worked hard at it, I would have it someday. Daddy is really smart too, and when he’s not at work, he plays with me and talks with me like I have a brain, so I guess if I don’t become a teacher, I will be a starship commander once I’m an old lady of 20.

Now, I’d better shut off the flashlight, close my eyes, and pretend to sleep before Mommy comes in to check on us. Who knows what new adventures I will dream up that I can work hard at and someday have. Maybe I’ll dream of a Mommy who doesn’t hit me all the time and make Daddy work so hard and long, that somewhere I can just be a normal kid until I grow old and become a teacher, or starship commander.

© 2007 manga_kate

Honored to share in three way tie for First Place in the January 2007 "Invalid Item" 




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