On Love: Agape!!!

Chaper 37

November 23rd, 2023
Yutopia Inn, Hasestu Japan.

Maria woke up with a jolt and knew what day it was without even checking the calendar on her wall. It had taken forever for her to fall asleep, which was very unusual for her. But how could she possibly sleep when the very next day was A. a day fo from school for Thanksgiving*, and B, her birthday?! And even the early morning sun seemed to be saying "Happy Birthday Maira!", for out her window, Maria marveled at the beautiful pink, orange, and gold sunrise, that seemed to be dressing itself up for the occasion. As for her own pajamas, Maria was wearing a fuzzy long-sleeve sunshiny yellow nightgown, that had pictures of Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, And Cinderella on it. She had specially picked it out the night before because it was a tradition to open up birthday presents and eat cake in the morning while wearing pajamas if the birthday person so decided. So, of course, Maria had to pick her very favorite nightgown!

She immediately jumped out of her bed and ran over to her digital clock, with read 7:02 am, and when she saw it, nearly jumped out of pure excitement. Because Maria was usually such an early riser, it was an official rule that she had to stay in her room (unless she needed to use the bathroom) until her clock read at least 6:30 am. And 7:02 am was most definitely after 6:30 am!!!

Maria quickly grabbed Elly (Elly always liked to open presents with her), ran out the door, but was shocked to see that there was a small basket on the floor, with a note inside that read "Follow the Daisies" and when she scanned the hallway, low and behold, there was a trail of small fabric daisies!

So with the basket in one hand, and Elly in her other arm, she followed the trail of daisies, putting them into her basket as she came across them until her basket was nearly full, and the trail ended right at the sliding bamboo walls of her family's dining room. Through the thin screen, Maria could make out the shapes of Daddy, Papa, Ojisan, Obasan, Auntie Mari, and Princess, all sitting around the table, waiting for her to walk in.

"Happy Birthday Maira!" Papa cheered in Russian, Daddy, Auntie Mari, Ojiisan, Obaasan, cheered in Japanese! And while Princess couldn't speak human languages, she barked what Maria assumed was a "Happy Birthday Maria" in dog-speak.

"Thank you!" Maria thanked, smiling as wide as she could and blushing a little, after all, Ojisan was recording the whole thing on a camcorder. The normal family dining room had been completely transformed, from a really pretty place to eat food to a beautiful party scene! Yellow, Pink, and Purple streamers lined the entire room, along with glittery balloons of the same colors. On the wall facing the door, a Banner with the words "Happy Birthday Maira!" Was written in what looked at least 10 different languages, including one that looked like Kanji, one that very swirly letters, and several that had the same alphabet as English, but weren't. (One of Maria's favorite things to do was learn different languages, it completely fascinated her that she could say something that would enable her to talk to people halfway around the world.)

On the table, however, was Maira's favorite Strawberry Cake, with a yummy vanilla glaze, 6 pink, glittery candles, and little toy figures of Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, and even Peggy! (Which was just a Rubber Moana figure in a Belle dress, but Maria didn't mind.) But behind the cake was several gift-wrapped boxes and bags!!!

"Your welcome Masha!" Papa said, smiling almost as much as Maira.

"What do you want to do first, Open presents, or have some cake?" Daddy asked, but Maira already had this part all planned out.

"Cake!" She decided, which made everyone giggle.

After eating the very delicious cake, it was finally time to open up presents! There were 4 of them, 2 of which were in boxes, one of which was a good-sized pink polka-dot wrapping paper and had a purple ribbon tied on it and then ties into a bow. the other box had rainbow balloon wrapping paper and was so little it could fit in Maira's hand. One of the bags had Rapunzel on it, and purple tissue paper coming out the top. But the last bag Maira could clearly tell who it was from because it had the Russian flag on it and the tissue paper was red, white and blue. Also on each package had a big tag on it, so Maira could easily read who it was from.