"Happy birthday Anne!" Gilbert called from behind running to catch up on the way to school.

Anne stopped and waited for him to catch up. "Where's Diana?" He asked.

"oh her mother had something to ask Mr Phillips so headed up earlier. And thank you" she said before he caught up "everyone is being so kind Matthew got a pretty new dress Marilla gave me..." She trailed as he handed her a wrapped up gift. "Gil!" She exclaimed hugging hi.. something stirred inside of her, she dared not think about it so she turned her attentions back to the conversation "Three presents!" She cried "I've never been so spoilt before." She let go of him.

"Three?" Gilbert said in shock. "You've never had more than two presents?"

He couldn't believe no one had bestowed gifts upon gifts on her before. He kept forgetting how unfortunate her circumstances were before she had come to Green Gables. She'd become such an integral part of his life he sometimes forgot there was a time she wasn't in it.

"I never had more than one, Can I open it now?" She asked.

"Well it'll be of little good in the wrapping paper." He retorted. She opened it.

"oh Gil it's Tennyson!" She exclaimed at the book "Oh I had one when I lived with the Thomas' but then I was late back from my chores because I was daydreaming... she found the book in my basket and fed it to the fire."

Gilbert looked in shock. She looked at him and laughed "yes that was my reaction." She looked at the book then at him again "oh Gil it's so sweet thank you ever so much!" She said leaping into his arms again. He wrapped his arms around her. There was no other feeling like this. Man Alive! I fell fast and hard didn't I? He placed her on the ground again

"Come on we'd best get to school before Mr Phillips feeds this one to the fire too."

"Oh I don't think he would, though he would sit me next to a boy to humiliate me again." She said joking with him starting to walk.

"Well let's hope it's this one." He said flirting. He decided not to let her think too much about what he just said and changed the subject back to her. "So how does it feel to finally be twelve? Are you grown up yet?"

"Don't you remember being twelve, it was only two years ago?"

"I thought right up until my birthday that being twelve would make me feel different somehow... like I would wake up and feel like a man."

"And?"

"I woke up with such a buzz I was most definitely a man! Until I ran so fast down the stairs I missed the last two steps fell over my own feet landed face flat on the floor... I cried like a baby and had my leg in plaster for a month." He laughed at the memory Anne's face fell in disappointment for him "oh Anne don't take things so seriously it's funny. "

"you were..."

"...a child and nothing else would have convinced me otherwise. So I later decided that manhood comes on you gradually it's a process much like getting older you don't jump from 11-21, there are stages in between and I was happy... thank you very much...to be a twelve year old boy." He looked at her and laughed. "It's alright you know I'm quite over the disappointment myself. Anyway not about me today it's about you. How do you feel?"

" I don't feel any different than I did yesterday but I don't want to grow up I want to be a child forever."

"forever?" He asked. "Come on Anne don't you like the idea of anything grown up?"

"oh I suppose I do but things have to change to get that way. I never liked change, usually because it meant I was going back to the orphanage."

"But change meant you got to stay at Green gables. Meant we became friends. Not all bad."

They arrived at school. She looked at him and smiled "would you like to spend lunch time reading Tennyson with me?" She asked excitingly.

It wasn't Tennyson which made his heart quicken it was the beautiful young lady who had suggested it. "I'd like that."