Something About Alice Murphy: BOOK 1

P A R T - T W E N T Y - S E V E N

Chapter Twenty-Seven; Happy Birthday
Thursday, 14th February
6:45am
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Alice woke up to the sound of her bedroom door creaking open and felt her muscles tense before she heard her mother whispering for her father to be quiet. Alice kept her eyes closed, letting her parents think that they'd successfully snuck in...

Quietly she listened to her parents rustle and tip toe around her room, whispering a little too loudly before about five minutes before they left, pulling the door closed behind them. As soon as it shut Alice opened her eyes and lifted her head, seeing the balloons tied to her bed and the pile of presents under a two larger balloons in the shape of a one and a seven.

She wasn't meant to be up for another fifteen minutes, but flung her duvet back and climbed out of bed and walked a little sleepily over to her presents to count them. There were seventeen of them, some very small, some weird shapes, one or two that were big, all of them in white wrapping paper with a pink bow. She smiled happily, appreciating how much effort her parents put in to her and her sisters birthdays and sat down with her legs crossed, deciding to open one.

She hummed the happy birthday song to herself and giggled quietly as she delicately opened one of the smaller presents, seeing a pair of earrings in the shape of an white fluffy Pom-Pom. "Awe," She cooed, smoothing her thumb over the material...

She opened another smaller present, revealing two live lokai bracelets that she'd been talking about a few months ago. She grinned and slid them on immediately, loving how much they matched her white nails and then excitedly read the leaflet that came with the box...

After a moment or so she could hear footsteps heading back up the stairs leading to her room, so she quickly got up, putting her presents back down and climbed back into bed so her parents would have the satisfaction of waking her up singing like they did every year. And just like Alice expected, moments later her door gently opened, and her parents began singing happy birthday gently whilst holding a large white cake that was flavoured with lemon tasting icing.

Alice pretended to wake up, and sat up smiling warmly, seeing her sister stood there grinning with a collection of cards all addressed to Alice. They gathered beside Alice's bed and let her blow the candles from the cake out before they put it down on a space on her nightstand. "Thanks guys," Alice smiled, taking her hair out of its messy bun so it fell around her shoulders in a slight tangled mess.

"Happy birthday sweetheart," Richard beamed, "Seventeen!" He grinned, waving his hands excitedly which made Alice laugh.

"On this day, seventeen years ago, I gave birth to you-" Sophie began, starting off the yearly traditions with Alice's birth story. She'd been born at three-thirty-four in the morning after sixteen hours of labour, weighing nearly seven pounds exactly and had an almost full head of hair too. Alice laughed gently, listening to the story she could almost mouth off by heart as she read her cards, having some from distant relatives, family friends, her grandparents, which to her delight gave her a large sum of cash, that fell out onto her lap when she opened the card.

Not long after Alice began opening her presents in bed that her sister excitedly bought over for her, and cooing and aweing at the collection of things her family had put together. Clothes, books, make up, little trinkets and notebooks that she could use for school. She beamed silently, then thanked her parents with a warm smile. "And there is one more thing," Richard said, stepping out the room briefly before he walked back in with something behind his back. "Now... you know we don't really approve of such unnecessarily expensive technology but-"