A Teenager's Challenge in a Small Town

The Surprise Revealed

It is finally our birth-week. I am super excited to see what my dad's been up to. The only information I could get out of him was that he would show us our surprise on our birthday. Which is in four days, and I don't know if I'll be able to wait that long.

"Dad! I can't wait four more days!" I tell him.

"You'll just have too," he says with a wink.

"Ugh, dad if you don't tell me I'm going to explode and die, and that would be awful on our birth week". He just laughs and walks out the door for work. It's a forty minute drive to the FedEx headquarters where he works so he's always leaving early. I take the elevator up to the study, my mom likes me to start my work in the morning, that way I can hang out with Tori when she comes home from school. Alright, what to do first. I've got a stack of books with my name literally on them. I need to catch up fast, on absolutely everything. English, History, Math, Science and even Art. Nothing is more boring than math homework. Art takes the most time, English has the most writing, and I don't even know what page we're supposed to be on in my science book. Luckily my mom has been going pretty easy on me, she just wants me to get it all done before the next school year or I will have to repeat the sixth grade. That's something I don't want to do, so I'm pretty motivated to get this done.

               I go to the bookshelf to get one of my English books, and I see this horse bookends. I didn't pick these out! I don't like horses. My mom walks in and I ask her "Where did these bookends come from?"

"Oh Tori picked those out, she loves to ride," my mom says. I can't believe what I just heard. She's my own sister, a twin no less, and she loves to ride. She never told me, I guess it never came up with everything that's been going on. I pull Much Ado About Nothing by Shakespeare off the shelf and start reading until she gets here so we can talk about it. When three o'clock come around I expect her any minute but she doesn't show until five o'clock. She walks in "Beks I'm so swamped with all this homework" she says as she slings her backpack onto her desk.

"Where were you?" I ask "I thought you'd be back at three thirty."

"Oh I was riding at the stables!" she says like it's no big deal.

"I didn't know you liked horses," I say. I must've said it in a weird way because she turns around to look at me.

"I've always loved to ride! I guess it just never came up". I change the topic "So do you know what my dad is getting us for our birthday?"

"Nope, nothing. They haven't said anything to me about it". She pulls out her school books and sets them on the desk. My mom walks in "Girls, dinner will be ready around 6:30 so cram in as much studying in as you can" she says with a slight smile.

"I'm so glad your father put these doors in, I love them. He knows I've always wanted a house with French doors." She leaves to go back downstairs and I open my book and finish reading. I think I can finish it before dinner. It's actually pretty good, it's happy, and I didn't expect it to be so good when I saw it was written by William Shakespeare.

"Girls! Dinner is ready!" my mom yells from downstairs. Tori and I go down for dinner and see my dad sitting at the table. He's reading the newspaper.

"Hey, dad!" I say "Where've you been all day?" I ask him suspiciously.

"At work, but I do need to leave after dinner, I've got a project to finish," he says.

"What's the project?" I ask.

"You'll see," he says.

"But dad..." I begin to say.

"Beks, it's time to eat; no more questions," he says over me. We all pray and start to eat.