Spy School Oneshot Collection

Trail Mix Instead of a Cake

When I turned three, my parents decided that it would be a good idea to throw me a birthday party.

The intent behind this was fine. After all, birthday parties are a perfectly normal thing that lots of people have. But as the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. And as you can probably guess, the party was pretty much a disaster.

While my mom does come from a family of spies, her parents aren't spies, meaning that she had a semi-normal childhood filled with all sorts of the weird things normal people do. Including celebrating the anniversary of the day that they were born.

As for my dad, his mom was very much in favor of having birthday parties, so he had them, despite his father's objections.

Seeing as the two adults in charge of this thing both had ample experience with what to do and what not to do when it comes to birthday parties, I really feel like they should have been able to make this go much better than it eventually went, but oh well.

This whole saga started one night at dinner when Mom brought up that my birthday was going to be in a few weeks.

"So?" I asked. This fact didn't seem particularly important to me yet. "Are there any cool things I get to do when I'm three? Like using flamethrowers inside the house?"

"Uh, no," Mom said. "Flamethrowers will still need to be only used outside and far away from other people."

"Then why does it matter that I'm turning three? It's only one more than two. One more's not that much."

"We were wondering if you would like to have a birthday party," Dad said.

"Oh. I don't know. I'd rather get to use flamethrowers in the house."

"Oh, but it might be fun for you," Mom said. "We could invite some kids your age, and you could play games with them and have cake and do all sorts of the fun things you're supposed to be doing at your age."

"I don't want cake," I said. "They put way too much sugar in it. But games might be fun. Where would the party be?"

"In the living room," Dad said.

"But then people might touch my stuff."

"We'd have to put it away of course," Mom said. "I don't think anyone else's parents would let them come if we didn't."

"Are you going to do this for Trixie too?" I asked.

"Probably when she's older," Mom said. "But she won't even be turning one for another six months. And you can't really appreciate a birthday party when you're only turning one."

"That makes sense. Do I have to talk to the other kids who come to the party?"

"Why wouldn't you?" Dad asked.

"Because other people are boring. I mean, look at Trixie. The most interesting thing she does is put the weird mashed food stuff you try to feed her on her head. What if that's the most interesting thing the other kids can do too?"

"I think they'll have all moved beyond that," Mom said. "It's not like they're going to be babies. They'll be the same age as you."

"Okay," I said. "I guess we can do this."

"It'll be fun," Dad said.

Mom nodded in agreement, and Trixie spit out the mashed peas Mom had just given her, which I took as a good sign. And as confirmation that peas, both canned and mashed, are kind of weird.

* * *

While my parents handled the whole inviting people part of having a birthday party, my mom did take me and Trixie with her to go shopping for the party.