On Jane's sixteenth birthday, she sat in her room and cried. Oh, sure, she was excited about her cake and presents and being the classic age of a rebellious teenager, but she couldn't bring herself to let go of all the things that had passed her by.
If she went to Hogwarts, she's have no OWLS and would've missed most of school. If she was going to find the Half-Magic Talisman, she'd be too old to make it work. She was older now than even Peter Pevensie. Dorothy Gail would find her positively ancient.
Countless protagonists had long since ceased to be relatable to Jane, their age gaps growing larger and larger with each passing day. She'd outgrown schools, secret organizations, even civilizations. Her favorite books didn't grow up with her anymore, she grew away from them.
Sure, she understood that these books were works of fiction. She got that none of her favorite people had truly existed, but it still stung, to never be drawn into their worlds. She had always watched for signs- double yolks, words spelled out in spilled salt, lens flares- but nothing ever came up.
And her she was, sixteen and hating it, with no magic, no sidekick, and no adventures to speak of. She felt abysmal.
And so she washed her face and cursed her puffy eyes as she made her way down the stairs to eat a cake she didn't want for a birthday she refused to acknowledge. Jane liked being fifteen. It made her ripe for adventure. At sixteen, the only thing she could hope to be was the lonely, hopelessly in love girl that lived in the center of a romance novel.
You know, the girl in the army jacket, reading her book, meets the hot new kid, and in comes the hot summer romance, complete with death of a parental figure and heartbreak.
Jane would rather that happen to someone who cared. She loved her fantasy and her wild, magical worlds, concealed by a buttercup or a special knock, and people who were clear cut good and bad- places where Jane could be a hero.
Sixteen. She'd pondered the word all day. It didn't exactly ring with promise. The only character Jane could think of that she could look forward to was Bilbo Baggins, and he was a middle aged hobbit. It would be a long shot even if she was forty years older. Even Jane knew her imagination could only stretch so far.
And so Jane arrived in front of her lovely white cake feeling sorry for herself and, oddly, her generation. She listened to the happy chorus of Happy Birthday that coupled Batty's lovely voice with Syke's unenthusiastic monotone, both accented by Rosalind's happy, off tune warbles. She blew out the candles of her cake and was suddenly struck with an extremely happy thought.
There were sixteen candles leaking smoke. Her mind raced, thinking about the many night's she'd spent in her bed perusing Netflix on her laptop.
Sure, she'd never fall through a rabbit hole or slay a dragon, but there were some things she could still hope for. Molly Ringwald had not yet eluded her. She could still fail woodshop and end up in Saturday Detention with a bunch of misfits, or look out the window to see a boy holding a boom box. She could still skip school and end up hijacking a parade. Narnia was lost, but Jane had found something else to hold on to.
She was just the right age to be part of an 80s movie.