Disclaimer: The only part of Castle that I own is the TV on which I used to watch the show.
A good thing about being born in the summer is that every year you can probably celebrate outdoors. The only thing I don't like about my birthday being August 24th is that we're here in the Hamptons and my friends aren't. So I will have a party with them next month when we're back in school but it's still warm enough to be outside. Mine is going to be on the roof at Broome Street and then if it rains all we have to do is run right downstairs into the loft but I hope that doesn't happen. On my actual birthday, which is tomorrow, I will have a party just with the family including Gram, Granddad, and Alexis. And Docky because even though he isn't related to me he is part of our family. Plus it's his birthday, too, and he's my best friend, even more than Ethan.
Another thing I think about birthdays is that they're so much fun that you should get to celebrate them for the whole 24 hours, which sounds even better when you say all 1,440 minutes. Maybe when I'm older I can. I'm going to try it starting tonight and I'll tell you what happens. I have already been in bed for an hour and I'm not too sleepy yet. If Mom and Dad would let me have coffee I bet I could stay awake, but Dad says "ix-nay" and Mom says "non" about that. Dad and I like to talk pig Latin and Mom and I like to speak French, but it all comes out the same which is n-o, no. Isn't it amazing that no starts with n in a ton of languages? In Italian and Spanish it's even the same word, "no," just like English. And "nein" in German and "nyet "in Russian and "nem" in Hungarian and "nej "in Swedish and "nr" in Icelandic! I bet "nr" sounds like "brr" which would be smart for Iceland because it's cold there.
If I had a cell phone I could set a timer that could go off every few minutes in case I fall asleep, but I don't. I have a Yankees alarm clock, though. I set it for 11:59 p.m. which is one minute before my birthday. It plays "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" to wake me up. I'm going to take a nap now. Night.
Well, phooey. The clock woke me up last night but I was so tired I must have turned it off because when I opened my eyes this morning it was almost 7:00. But here's what I'm going to do, which is stay up late so tonight so I can be awake for the last minute of my birthday! I've put the alarm clock on top of my bureau so when it goes off at 11:59 p.m. I will have to get out of bed to turn it off and that will really wake me up and then I can say goodbye to August 24th until next year.
On our birthdays we always get to pick anything we want for breakfast and for dinner. In March when the twins turned five dinner was huge because they chose totally different things so there was a lot, lot, lot of food. "Knock yourself out," Dad told me when I was little. "It's the only day all year your mother and I won't make you eat vegetables." For my seventh birthday breakfast I told them I would like pain au chocolat which if you haven't had it is kind of like a croissant only rectangular and it has a chunk of chocolate inside. I also chose hot chocolate with whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles. I wouldn't get away with that any other day, even though we never eat vegetables at breakfast. Except sometimes Gram has a kale and carrot smoothie which I would not. No, thank you.
I ran down the stairs with Scrapple and before we got to the bottom Mom and Dad were already yelling "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" And they hugged and kissed me and Scrapple licked my ankle which is dog for a kiss.
Mom was holding a pencil and a measuring tape. "You ready, Eliot?"
"Yup!" I stood up straight with my back against the door frame. There are two things that always happen on the birthdays of the kids in our family. One is that Mom and Dad measure us to see how tall we are and make a mark in the door frame. They do it in the loft, too, so we have a record in both places. They always measure us as soon as we get up. The other thing that happens is that at dinnertime they tell us about the day we were born. Otis and Abby have a much more exciting story because Mom had them in the elevator that got stuck in the precinct, but luckily Docky was in there too and helped. I like my story even if it's much more ordinary. I said that to Gram on my birthday two years ago and she said, "There's nothing ordinary about you, kiddo. You are EXTRAordinary." I wrote the extra part in capital letters because she is very dramatic sometimes and when she said EXTRA it sounded huge.
"Wow," Mom said, "this is a real milestone. You're exactly four feet one inch tall."
I was happy because that was one of my goals for turning seven, to be at least four feet tall. "You know what?"
Dad was writing 4'1" EB-C 8/24/2023 next to the pencil mark. "What?"
"This is one of the times I'm glad we don't use the metric system because four feet one inch seems a lot taller than one point two four meters."
"You're right. And I won't bother asking if you converted that in your head," Dad said, and tickled me.
After my chococentric breakfast–that's what Dad called it, ha ha!–I went to camp but I didn't go on the bus. Instead Mom drove me because we had two huge shopping bags with birthday cupcakes. They were in different plastic boxes with labels on the top that I made like NUT-FREE and GLUTEN-FREE and DAIRY-FREE. Dad helped me with the spelling of gluten. It's funny that free means there are no nuts in some or no butter in some because the cupcakes are also free since the kids don't have to pay for them! All week I have been avoiding Christopher which is not too hard because he's mostly with the older kids. I'm pretty sure he got bawled out for being a bully. When Mom and Dad were putting the frosting on I heard him say, "We should have a zero-tolerance cupcake for Christopher." I think I wasn't supposed to know that so I pretended not to.
Granddad says, "You should kill people with kindness." He doesn't mean kill them like make them dead, then Mom would have to investigate. What he means is that you should be kind to people who are mean. That will make them squirm like a worm and maybe then they will be nice. Tomorrow is the last day of camp but there is a ceremony at the end and families come so we don't go home on the bus. I thought about what to say to Christopher this afternoon on the bus. I have been rehearsing it all week! Even though camp was fun today, especially the cupcakes and the swimming races, I couldn't wait to be on the bus.
Finally it was time to leave. I made sure that I sat behind Christopher but I didn't make one single peep until we were almost at the end. And then I leaned over and said, "I love Sheldon on The Big Bang Theory. He's funny and smart and he has the greatest tee shirts. His girlfriend Amy is incredibly smart, too. So I was really complimented that I remind you of him. Thanks, Christopher."
And then I got in the aisle ahead of him and he couldn't do anything. But I killed him with kindness. Squirm, you big worm! It was sort of my birthday present to myself.
Everybody was at the house when I got there so the party for Docky and me began right away. We all swam in the pool and then while we ate Mom and Dad told the story about my birth day. The day I was actually born. How when they got in the car to go to the hospital in the middle of the night it wouldn't start and how when the doctor was examining me after I was born I yelled so hard that I was the noisiest baby in the whole city which could be a fib. Every year they tell me something they hadn't before and this year it was the best surprise.
"The pool, Sidney," Mom said. She was looking at Docky with her eyebrow up which most of the time is not good like she is saying, "Don't lie to me, buster," but I was pretty sure she was kidding and she was.
"The pool?" Docky asked.
"You know what pool. Fess up."
"Oh, that pool."
"Yes, that pool. The two thousand four hundred seventy dollar one."
"Is that how much a pool costs, Mom?"
Dad laughed. "Not the kind of pool she means, Eliot."
"So what pool?"
Docky made this big sigh. "Okay, I admit it. Eliot, you know how people like to bet on things?"
"Yeah, like Dad and I bet who would burp first when we drank our soda too fast at the movies last week."
"Right. Well, when a lot of people want to bet on something each one puts down some money on his or her bet and all the money together is called a pool. At the precinct people bet on things all the time."
"They do?"
"Ask your father his all-time favorite," Mom said, and I saw her wink at Dad.
"What was it, Dad?"
"Everyone bet on the first time I would kiss Mom."
"They did? Who won? I bet it was Uncle Javi."
"Nobody won."
"Nobody? But you must have kissed Mom a zillion times so how come nobody won?"
"Because she kissed me first."
"Mom! Is that true?"
"Yup. I kissed Dad before he kissed me. So the bet was off."
"What happened to everybody's money?"
"We gave it to the Police Athletic League. But let's go back to Docky and his very, very important pool."
"Okay."
"When your mother was pregnant, Eliot, everyone at the precinct was betting on what day you'd be born, what time, how much you would weigh, and whether you'd be a boy or a girl. I was one of the people who bet."
"And you won?"
"I did."
"Which part?"
"All of it. Day, time, weight, and gender."
"And there was two thousand four hundred seventy dollars in there? Boy!"
"When your mother found out she called me up. She was so mad."
"Mad? Why would she be mad? Besides, you're our friend."
"Well, believe it or not, we weren't friends then. We became friends a little while later because of you. She felt that everything about her pregnancy was personal and that people she knew shouldn't be betting on something personal. Anyway, she phoned me a few days after she found out I'd won and said, 'Perlmutter, I am disgusted with you. You're a doctor. It's so, so–it's so unbecoming. You should know better.' And then she hung up. My ear felt like it was on fire."
"What did you do, Docky?"
"I sent her flowers and wrote an apology and told her I was giving the money to an orphanage in India."
"The one where you go help every year?"
"That's the one."
I looked at Mom. "You're not still mad at him, are you?"
"No, sweet pea."
"Was there a pool before the twins were born?"
"Oh, yes. But that's a story for Otis and Abby on their birthday."
Then I looked back at Docky. "I bet you didn't go in that pool, did you? Get it? I bet you didn't!"
"You bet right, Eliot. I learned my lesson."
So that was a fun new thing to know about my birth day. After dinner it was time for presents. We gave Docky a membership to the Museum of Natural History which he loves, especially the planetarium. Scrapple and I talked about getting him a special tee shirt. We told Dad the idea and he ordered it online. It says YOU ARE OUR LUCKY STAR and here is something amazingly coincidental. Docky gave me a telescope! It is a real reflector one and you can even see nebulas with it. He said maybe we could find a lucky star with it, too.
My big present from Mom and Dad was a new bike. "You have long legs like me," Mom said, "and now that you're over four feet you're too tall for your old bicycle." It's bright blue with a racing stripe and has six speeds which is six more speeds than I had before so I'm very excited about riding it. They gave me a new helmet, too, which is blue with yellow stars and they didn't even know about the telescope. "See, Mom," I said when I tried it on, "it's another coincidence."
"Atta boy," Dad said. "I love having another coincidentalist in the family."
And then it was funny because I saw Mom say with her lips–you know, not out loud and nobody else saw but I could tell–"You have no idea" which is a special expression of theirs.
It was past the twins' bedtime so Dad took them upstairs and Mom took me for a practice ride up and down our driveway so she could teach me all about the gears. "Hey, Mom," I said when I put the bike in the garage. "I know you don't believe in coincidences, but I'm glad that you believe in magic."
"I certainly do, my magical boy." She gave me her best almost-squeeze-you-to-death hug. "I have you and your father to thank for that. Let's go back to the others and pretty soon you have to go up, too."
I got to stay up for another 45 minutes and played hearts with Gram, Grandad, and Alexis. Gram always wins. "Lucky at cards, unlucky in love," she said when she won again this time.
"But Gram, we all love you to pieces."
"You're right, Eliot. I'm very lucky. I guess I won't say that any more."
Then I did have to go to bed. After Mom and Dad came in to say good night and happy birthday I started thinking about goals for when I turn eight. I think one will be to win at hearts. I double-checked my alarm clock to make sure it was set for 11:59 and got back in bed.
"Hey, Scrapple, I love my new dachshund socks. Did you pick them out?"
"Yes. They're for the cooler weather but I thought it would be fun for you to have a present to look forward to. Like celebrating your birthday again when it's October."
"Thanks. Did you have fun today?"
"Of course."
"What was the funniest thing you saw?"
"Alexis falling into the pool when she tried to catch the frisbee from Otis. Oh, and while you were at camp and Dad was frosting your cake he dropped a humongous glob on his bare foot. It looked like he had on a hedgehog."
We both laughed about that and it's the last thing I remember until "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" woke me up. Sometimes, especially in warm weather, I like to sleep with my door open. When I got up to turn off the alarm I could see the lights were still on downstairs. I thought everyone had gone to bed but Mom and Dad were talking.
"I'm serious, Castle. Listen to me."
Uh-oh, "I'm serious" is usually really serious. Mostly it's mad serious but she didn't sound mad, so that's good. But I could tell she was trying to get Dad to pay attention.
"I'm listening, I'm listening."
"Stop eating that piece of cake."
"Okay."
"Do you remember Eliot's first birthday?"
"Of course I do. That tee shirt we got him that said 'No one understands me like my dachshund' that he wanted to wear every day and then the bike trailer and little helmets that Perlmutter got for him and Scrapple. Cutest thing ever. I really miss those days."
"Very cute, I agree, but since you're cycling down Nostalgia Lane–"
"Wait, speaking of cycling? He really loves his new bike, doesn't he?"
"Yes. But concentrate, please. I was referring to something else, not the bike."
Something else? What else? I remember that shirt and our helmets and my first waffle ever and a lot of other things from the day I turned one. I don't think the waffle is what Mom meant, though.
"Okay, I'm concentrating."
"Concentrate on this. I'm forty-three years old–"
"You don't look it."
"I'm forty-three years old and by April I'll be forty-four. How did this even happen? We're not reckless. We're not teenagers, for God's sake."
It was quiet and I kept waiting for Dad to say something or Mom to explain what she was talking about.
"I'm sorry, sweetheart. I'm still lost. Oh. Oh. Oh, wait. It can't be."
"Oh, but it can."
Can what, Mom? Can what? There was more quiet and I'm pretty sure Dad kissed her.
"You didn't say a thing. Did you suspect it? When did you find out?"
"I've had an inkling for days but I was sure I was wrong. Until I took the test just now while you were loading the dishwasher."
Mom took a test at 11 o'clock at night? What kind of test does anyone take then?
"It's magic, Kate."
"There's nothing magical about it."
Whatever it is, I know Mom believes in magic.
"We have a magical son, born seven years ago today. He talks dog. He had conversations with his siblings before they were born. And you don't think it's pretty magical that we, who are usually such excellent planners, have three unplanned pregnancies and find out about the second and the third on our first child's birthday?"
"Everyone will think we're out of our minds."
"You're not worried about that, are you?"
"I'm worried about having a baby when I'm forty-four."
"Tons of women do now."
"I know, I know."
"You're not unhappy about this, are you?"
"No, just stunned beyond belief."
"We do make amazing babies, though, don't we? A fourth at forty-four. See? More magic."
Wow. Forty-four wows. MOM IS HAVING A BABY. I ran back into bed and woke up Scrapple. And right then I got an idea of what to say to Mom later. I told Scrap and he liked it. I got up and set the alarm, only this time for 5:50 a.m. which is right before Mom usually leaves for her run. And then I said goodbye to my birthday and went to sleep.
When "Take Me Out the the Ballgame" woke me up I got dressed and Scrapple and I went super quietly downstairs and waited for Mom in the kitchen. Sure enough, about two minutes later there she was, carrying her sneakers.
"Hi, Mom."
"Oh, Eliot! You scared me half to death."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. I'm just surprised to see you."
"Could I come outside with you for a minute? Scrapple and I could walk you to the end of the driveway?"
"Are you all right? Do you have something on your mind?"
"I'm fine. I have something important that I want to tell you."
While she tied her shoes I put on Scrapple's halter and leash. I also secretly looked at her stomach. It didn't look like there was a baby in there so it must be really, really little so far.
"So," she said after she shut the door. "What's on your mind?"
"I wanted to tell you out here where no one could hear."
"Is it a secret?"
"Not exactly. First I have to confess something."
"Should I be worried about this?"
"No. I mean, not really, just the beginning of the story is I did something I shouldn't have." I told her about setting my alarm clock so I could be awake for the last part of my birthday and then that I eavesdropped which I know I'm not supposed to do. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. Just when I got up I could hear you and Dad talking and it made me feel cozy when you asked Dad if he remembered about my first birthday. It didn't feel like eavesdropping just to hear him talk about my tee shirt and stuff."
Do you remember how I said Mom could stand stiller than anyone I know and doesn't even have to scratch or move her feet? We had been walking but then she stopped and she was standing as still as a statue in the museum or the park. And then finally she said, "Did you hear anything else?"
"Yeah, all the rest to when Dad told you, 'We do make amazing babies though, don't we? A fourth at forty-four. See? More magic.' And then I jumped back into bed and told Scrapple you were having a baby. We're very excited. I hope you're not too mad at me for eavesdropping. I don't want you to be worried about having a baby, Mom. We can help you."
She was quiet, quiet, quiet. Not saying a thing. And then she took my hand, the one that wasn't holding Scrapple's leash. "Thank you for confessing, sweet pea. I'm not really mad. And if I were, it lasted about one second. Thank you for saying you'll help because I know you will. But you can't tell anyone for a while, okay?"
"Okay. Scrapple knows though."
"That's fine. But no one else. I think I won't go for a run this morning. I think you and Scrapple and I will take a walk, just the three of us."
"Just the four of us, Mom." And then I whispered. "The baby's here, too. So that makes four."
She laughed. "You sound just like Dad."
"I want to say one more thing that I thought of last night, my idea. Not exactly an idea, because it's a fact, but I hope it will make you not worry anymore."
"What's that?"
"You remember how you told me that Granddad took you to your first Yankee game when you were only eight months old and Grandma thought that was crazy and that you would cry and hate it and they would have to go home after one inning?"
"It's one of my favorite stories. Granddad said I loved it and smiled all the time and they stayed through the whole game."
"But there was a more important part."
"There was? What was that?"
"You said Reggie Jackson hit a home run. Remember when you showed me his plaque when we visited the Hall of Fame last year?"
"Yes, but I'm not sure what you're getting at."
"His number, Mom. His number on his uniform was forty-four. You saw number forty-four hit a home run in your first game when you were a baby and now you're going to have a new baby when you're forty-four. Isn't that a wonderful coincidence? And even if you don't believe in coincidences like Dad and me, don't you think that it's magical? Forty-four and forty-four?"
And then she gave me a huge hug and a kiss right in the middle of the sidewalk. "You're right. You're absolutely right. I love you."
"I love you, too. Hey, the baby's going to be born in April, right?"
"I think so."
"I hope it's born on April first, Dad's birthday. Then you'd really have to believe in coincidences."
"Maybe. But I'm very happy just believing in magic."
A/N That's it for now, but Eliot will return again. Thank you!
