18th Birthday

5 - "A Surprise Visit"

Margaret was about to faint when Fredrick dashed towards and caught her.

“Honey…” she moaned while being held on to Fredrick’s tender arms. Feeling all-dizzy, she apologized to her ever supporting husband, “Sorry dear~”

“Don’t worry hon, I’ll find a way somehow.” He whispered while assisting her to sit on the sofa. She hesitated but her husband managed to persuade her to another topic and said, “For now, all you have to do is to recover before Evon’s debut.”

Margaret barely smiled while sobbing. The three teenagers, still at the garden, wondered why Fredrick ran inside the house. Evon had a bad feeling and said, “I’m gonna head back and check what happened.”

She immediately walked back inside, leaving the two alone in the garden. Dorothy sat on top of an upside-downed bucket and smirked at Ian. Obviously about to stammer in embarrassment, he defensively said, “What do you expect? I only discovered the truth just now.”

She smiled and looked at the sky as she was talking to Ian, “You looked so serious back there but your face was funny at that time.”

The sun began to settle down.

*START OF FLASHBACK*

To ensure their business partners that everything is fine, Dorothy acted as Fredrick and Margaret’s daughter. Since they were short with money, they resorted to taking a loan from Mr. Lendington. Their real daughter was unaware of everything due to her condition.

The same goes for Ian who’s been out of town for days. So, to make the decoy flawless, both parents told Dorothy a lot of things about Evon, especially about Ian.

“Speaking of him, he’s bound to return by Saturday. Be prepared Dorothy.”

Dorothy was confident that she could handle things and confirmed, “Sure~”

She was given the privilege to sleep in Evon’s room and to scan her photo albums. Slowly as she turned a page of one of the albums, she saw a man beside Evon. They had several wacky poses that made the man looked like an idiot.

(Look at this guy…He really does look a weakling here.) Dorothy laughed by herself as she continued looking at the guy’s pics. (This must be Ian…) she thought.

Later at that time, Ian came to a thought to come back early to surprise his best friend. Instead of coming back on a Saturday, he decided to come back the next day.

After all the preparations, he carried his luggage and went on his way to the airport. Upon arriving, he immediately boarded the plane and with him was a seemingly large white paper bag.

Comfortably sitting, he took out what was inside of the paper bag; it was a pink teddy bear. He smiled with ease and muttered, “I’ll give this to her as a gift~ she’ll like it for sure~”

Few minutes later, the plane took off and was on its way back to the city. Dorothy on the other hand, saw Evon’s collection of stuffed toys. The silence and the room’s joyful atmosphere slowly brought her eyes to tears.

“I never had one of these~” she sighed. In her family, all of her other siblings were male. The brothers oriented her to be masculine, thus emitting a mild tomboy aura in contrary to what she really is.

It might not be clearly seen from her physique, but Dorothy is way stronger than Fredrick. Given such circumstances at home, she wasn’t able to experience girly games during her childhood.

(Why am I crying for such a little thing?)

Suddenly, she remembered a mischievous little boy from the past where he gave her a candy after seeing her crying. He consoled her, “Don’t cry~ that ugly face will look uglier~”

Just by that ambiguous memory, she stopped crying and began smiling. Fredrick arrived home during evening while Margaret insisted on staying in the hospital to watch over their daughter, Evon.

At the dining room, he saw his youngest sister eating alone. He surprised her with a pat on her back and asked, “So how do you find your niece’s room?”

She irritatingly said, “Gezz bro… I’m still not used to that word.”

Fredrick laughed loudly as his right hand messed up her smooth silky hair and added, “Don’t want to call Evon a niece, right ‘Auntie’ Dorothy?”

“Wanna die bro?” she bluffed and blushed at the same time. Then, she stood up and twitched the collar of her brother’s polo. Instead of getting frightened, Fredrick laughed and complimented her, “You sure have grown lil sis.”

Dorothy blushed even more after what her brother said and quickly whipped her hands off his collar and called him, “Stupid brother!”

He boisterously laughed after seeing his sister’s reaction and teased her more with a mocking tone, “She’s turning into a lady~”

Pissed off with her brother, she lifted him, slammed him on the floor and wrestled him. Fredrick groaned in pain as he was tapping the floor. Struggling to get free from his sister, he begged, “I give up sis! Spare me!”

It took a while when she actually stopped punishing him, and then she sat over his laid down body. Fredrick seemed to be in a mood for a talk and asked for forgiveness, “Sorry sis…”

“Sorry for what?” she asked. The atmosphere became serious. At that time, her brother was already crying. It was her first time to see her eldest brother crying. She was speechless and comforted him by giving him a pat on his shoulder.

“Sorry for dragging you into this…” he said. In his mind, he thought she was doing this in return for sustaining her school tuition and this might’ve been a bother for her, so he added, “I know this is against your own will but…”

Seeing how sincere his eyes looked, Dorothy smacked his head softly and interrupted him, “Stupid brother, what are siblings for?”

He stopped crying, struggled to stand up to embrace Dorothy and said, “Thanks a lot sis~”

Suffocated with her brother’s tight embrace, she complained, “Stop hugging me~”

The siblings spent the whole time talking until they fell asleep. The next day, while walking towards the garden, the early morning doorbell caught Fredrick’s attention.

“Who’s the early bird?” He was about to do his daily gardening but he had to attend to the person waiting outside his house. He opened the gate, and then an average-sized teddy bear startled him. He fell on his back and saw a tall silhouette in front of the bright sunshine.

That person reached out his right hand to offer Fredrick a lift. Slowly the clouds covered the sun and revealed the person’s identity. Fredrick shrunk his eyes to see who it was and called, “Ian?”

“Good morning, uncle~” he said. It was Ian all along. He brought with him the teddy bear he got from his trip for Evon. Surprised with his arrival, Fredick wondered, “Well, I thought you’ll be back by Saturday.”

Ian explained his circumstances and said, “I wanted to give Evon a surprise visit.”

His words made Fredrick worried that Dorothy might screw up so he thought, (This will be her first test. Hope she won’t screw up.) and said, “Ohh. She’s upstairs. Make sure you startle her~” then, ended it with a wink on his eye.

Ian said thanks, went upstairs and entered Evon’s room. He tiptoed closer to the bed and saw her sleep gracefully and thought, (You’re cute as always Evon.)

He then placed the pink teddy bear close to her face and made it poke her cheek. He gulped, made a squeeze to his throat to imitate a cute voice and said, “Good morning~”