The Birthday Past
a bedtime story
by the mystery tramp
I
Once upon a time, there was a beautiful little girl named Lily. This girl, this Lily—she had simply the most breathtaking eyes of any little girl in the world—like perfect little green apples, more delicious-looking than any you've ever seen. Lily had just turned seven years old—practically grown up, don't you know—when something strange and wonderful happened to her that she had never expected in all her life—the magical sort of something that nobody ever could expect... because it was just so unexpected.
Calm down, my girl! You don't even know what it is yet!
Well, as I was saying, on the day that Lily turned seven years old—that most magical age—something strange and wonderful and most unexpected came to pass.
Lily woke up on the morning of her birthday—a Sunday—in a bed that was not her own. It took her a moment or so to remember where she was, but finally, she knew—she was at her grandparents' house, where she and her brothers and her parents were spending the night, so that they could celebrate her birthday with the whole family in the morning.
Lily was very, very excited for her birthday, as any girl would be. She was excited for the birthday presents, and the birthday games—but most of all she was excited for her grandmother's birthday cake, because of course it was the most delicious cake in the whole wide—all right, all right, I'll get on with it. Whatever you like.
Lily had always longed for something wondrous to happen to her—something like the stories she'd heard about her mum and dad, the stories of all the magical adventures they'd had. She wished very much that something like that would happen to her—or that she could have been there to have an adventure with her parents when they were young. Of course, that was impossible... but that did not stop Lily from wishing it could be so.
When Lily had thrown on her dressing gown, and slipped into her comfiest slippers, she dashed down what felt like a thousand flights of stairs to reach her grandparents' living room. When she arrived, the room was already full of people, and when they spotted her coming down the stairs, they shouted—what do you think they shouted, hmm?
That's right! They shouted
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"
at the top of their voices.
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY LILY!"
And they were all smiling and laughing and standing around a great big pile of presents in the middle of the floor, and Lily grinned a big, happy grin and started in on the pile. Now, I'm not going to tell you what all of the presents were that she got—don't please Grandma! me, missy, you're just going to have to wait for tomorrow for that—but I will tell you about one present. One most special, most unusual present. The last present in the pile.
Nobody knew where it had come from—it didn't have a tag on it, nobody shouted "This one's from me!" or anything like that. It was just a simple box, an inch or so taller than it was wide, but it was wrapped up in the most beautiful paper Lily had ever seen. On the paper there were a thousand shining, twinkling hourglasses, angled in all directions, with sand gracefully pouring through each one. Lily would have been happy just to stare at the paper for hours—but her brother, James, would have none of that:
"Well, open it!" he shouted.
Lily turned her nose up at James, and purposefully turned round so that he wouldn't be able to see as she opened the box. She peeled the paper off carefully, bit by bit, so as not to tear it, and folded it as she—
No I will not hurry up, and if you keep asking I'll draw this out even longer!
—where was I? Oh yes, Lily carefully unwrapped the box, and slowly set the paper to the side, and finally—making sure that James could not see—she took a deep breath, and opened the lid.
The box was filled with tissue paper, bunched up and crinkled and clearly concealing something beneath it. On top of the tissue, however, there was a single piece of parchment.
Lily picked it up, and stared at it for a few moments. She could not yet read very well, you see, and she wondered miserably why someone would have written her a note. Wouldn't they have known she was only a little girl?
"What does this say?" she asked, holding the note, and James practically leapt forward to snatch it out of her hand.
"I'll read it," he said, and he stared at the paper himself for a few moments, a curious expression on his face.
"What does that mean?" he wondered aloud.
"What does it say?" asked Lily.
"It says, This is not a birthday present. This is a birthday past."
There were murmurings in the circle of their family, each one commenting to one another about this strange note. Finally, James handed the note back to his sister, and asked, "Well, there's got to be something else in the box, hasn't there?"
He picked up the box, and began to rummage through the tissue paper.
"JAMES!" shouted Lily. "That's mine!" And she grabbed hold of the edge of the box and tried to pull it away from him. It was a rather flimsy sort of box, however, and after a moment's struggle, the two of them had torn the box in two. Tissue paper flew in a thousand directions, and an object fell on the floor between James and Lily with a loud thunk.
What was it? you ask?—I'm going to tell you what it was, silly, if you'd stop interrupting me!
It was a silver pocket watch, with a long, silver chain. Lily picked it up, and it was heavier than it looked. She opened it, and frowned.
"It's not ticking," she said.
"Give me that," said James, and he snatched it out of her hands, like he'd snatched the box. "You have to wind it."
The grown-ups began to scold him, and Lily shouted "Give it back!" and grabbed hold of the chain.
James began to wind the little dial on the side—he wound it, and wound it, and wound it, until finally he felt satisfied. When he'd finished, an eternity seemed to pass in a moment, and then—a single tick—and all of a sudden, poor little Lily and her big brother James... disappeared!
I think that's enough for tonight, don't you?