19th Aubirthday

The beams of glistening, midday sunlight streamed in through the small gaps in the dark wooden blinds, bathing the room in a comforting, yellow hue. The vivid green wallpaper adorning the room was covered in a plethora of posters displaying the names of unknown punk bands or the heroic silhouettes of comic book or movie characters. On the hard, wooden floor, stood a small, single bed, draped in a bundled up and messy, neon-pink duvet, on top of which, likely due to the early summer heat, lay, splayed out in an awkward shape, a girl. Her pale skin and long t-shirt covered in stripes of warm sunlight, topped off with a crown of messy pink hair spread out around her head, fading to dark at it's roots. She twitched awake, slightly, her eyelids fluttering open while one of her arm tiredly lifted towards her face to rub her dark eyes. After lifting herself up, she sat on the edge of the bed, yawning into her hand and stretching her neck with a satisfying crack. Looking over to the small night stand, she reached for the hairbrush places next to the flowerpot from which sprouted a small messy bush of vibrant pink and red roses. After combing her hair straight, she slipped on a plain, black t-shirt and some old, faded, pale-blue jeans before opening the blinds, flooding the room with light, making her eyes squint for a few seconds while they adjusted. The birds chirped a pleasant tune while she looked out at the empty street outside, everyone was likely hiding from the heat she thought.

Slowly opening the door from her small room into the hallway outside, she noticed the house was strangely quiet, never the less, she made her way to the bathroom where she quickly brushed her teeth and washed her face in the sink, the shock from the cool water helping to stave off her longing to go back to bed. looking into the mirror after wiping it down with a towel. Walking towards the stairs along the creaky floorboards, she heard something strange, a quiet murmuring seemingly coming from the living room. Somewhat cautiously but filled with curiosity, she began to descend the steps, looking out for anything that may seem out of the ordinary; the drone of many quiet voices got louder as she came further and further down the stairs, the living room and kitchen obscured, out of her view around the corner. Suddenly, a loud noise filled the near-silent house, the girl had stepped on a particularly creaky step, making a high pitch sound; the voices stopped. "I think that's her, everyone stay quiet and get ready", a soft sounding voice whispered almost inaudibly. They were waiting for her? Why?. As she reached the bottom of the stairs, she slowly turned the corner. "Happy birthday Aubrey!!!!!!!"

A union of voices erupted from all around, along with the sound of small explosions followed by a rain of confetti filling the air all around her, the colourful strips of paper slowly floating down to the ground, some landing in her hair, making it look like a pink cake covered in sprinkles. "W-what!", Aubrey let out in shock, unconsciously taking a small step back. "Good day sleepyhead, we've been waiting for you to get up since morning, your friends here said we should wake you up but I didn't want to disturb you on your special day.", Polly spoke in her usual, pleasant tone; "Not that it mattered anyway, from the looks of it she completely forgot herself!" Kel chimed in with a big grin on his face, "Shut up Kel!" came a voice from opposite side of the room, Kim, with a scowl on her face glared at him before turning back to Aubrey, "How's it going Aub? Happy birthday!". Aubrey scratched her head and took a look at everyone, all of her friends had been waiting downstairs to surprise her when she woke up, she didn't even remember herself that it was her birthday... She began to be hit with a pang of emotion, her face turning into a small grin and some small tears forming in the corners of her eyes, "Th-thank you everybody... sorry for keeping everyone so long", "Don't worry about it Aub, we're all happy to be here!" Kim spoke out, "It was all Basil's idea at first" Kel blurted out, "H-hey!!" the shy blonde boy hid behind Polly with a blush. Kel suddenly pushed a short, pale boy to the front of the crowd, "Look even Sunny came down from the city to say hello!", Sunny looked down at the floor, "H-happy birthday Aubrey". Aubrey wrapped her arms around him and squeezed him tightly, "I missed you, Dork".

"When do we get to eat the cake?" A boy in a partially unbuttoned blue shirt wearing a very obviously-fake blonde wig spoke. "Who invited him?" She, only half-jokingly, retorted. The mention of cake, however, drew her eyes to the table, on it there was a white-frosted cake, adorned with some chunks of sweet looking strawberry and two candles in the shape of the number nineteen. "Polly made it herself!" Kel, once again very loudly, blurted out. "That's not true, Basil did it with me" she announced. "I-I just helped out a little bit". Walking up to the cake on the table, she sat down at the chair opposite it, "Remember to make a wish Aubrey. Polly reminded. "Y-yeah, right." She knew it was silly but she still searched her mind for anything that she could come up with, however, nothing seemed to come to mind. Until finally, a thought struck her, she couldn't think of anything she wanted more. "I hope we can all make many more good memories like this one".