The Key to my Heart

Chapter 10: The Party (Fitz's P.O.V)

I was supposed to be the first one to make it to Sophie's party. Biana had given me an invitation, and I was thrilled. Normal seventh graders didn't invite ninth graders to their birthday parties. And, as Biana pointed out, normal ninth graders wouldn't want to go to a seventh grader's birthday party. I guess I'm not normal, then.

Anyway, I was supposed to get there first. I wanted Sophie to know that I cared about her, even though we weren't in the same school this year. I failed to realize that I lived with Biana and we were going to a party. She spent three hours getting ready. I ended up being the last person to get there, even behind Biana, who ran inside to greet her friends before I could even get within an arm's length of the door. I sulked inside, spotting every other person who was supposed to be there. I glanced at the clock and was instantly horrified. It read 12:06. Not only was I the last person to arrive, but I was late.

"FITZY'S HERE!" Keefe screeched from across the room. Seven sets of eyes bored into my soul and seemed to blink simultaneously. Someone flung a pillow at my head.

"Hey!" I laughed, flinging it back in the general direction that it came from.

"DEX THREW IT, NOT ME YOU IDIOT!" Marella screamed back at me, pulling the pillow off her face and tossing it aside, hitting Sophie.

Within minutes, Sophie's living room became battlegrounds for a full-fledged pillow war. I grabbed Sophie's arm. "Should we team up?" I asked as quietly as I could with her still able to hear me. She smiled and nodded, then went to recruit more warriors for our team.

"TEAM GLITTER SPARKLES WILL AVENGE OVER THE UNDERRATED TURKEYS!" Biana screamed from her perch on top of the living room couch. Tam, Linh, Keefe, and Jensi stood around her. 

"THE TURKEYS SHALL RISE AGAIN!" Sophie protested, leading her squad of me, Marella, and Dex forward for an attack. "FIRE!" she commanded and we threw our pillows as hard as we could. Biana's team flung right back. Their team had more players than ours, and we started to fall behind. All of the sudden there was a squeak next to me.

"ALL HAIL THE UNDERRATED TURKEYS!" Grady laughed as he swung Sophie up onto his shoulders. "GET 'EM KIDDO!" Sophie flung her pillows at team Glitter Sparkles as fast as I could hand them to her. One by one, their members collapsed, out of breath. Biana was the last to go down, and when she did, the Underrated Turkeys belted out a victory cry. And then we all collapsed, laughing our guts out.

When the laughing stopped, Grady stood up and looked at his wrecked living room. "Well, I came in here to tell you it was time for cake, but-" Nine heads perked up at the word 'cake'. Grady laughed. "BUT, it looks like you have some cleaning up to do. He glanced around the room again and his grin faltered.

Under normal circumstances, the room would've taken twenty minutes to clean, at least. But these were not normal circumstances. There was cake sitting on a table only a few meters away, and the only things stopping us from eating it were this messy room and the plastic lid on top of it. The room was spotless in four minutes.

"My goodness..." Edaline breathed as she surveyed her sparkling clean living room. Suddenly all the lights went out.

"I heard today was somebody's birthday?" Grady asked as he walked into the room holding a cake topped with thirteen birthday candles. We, in response, began to sing, "Happy birthday to you..." and so on and so forth. I tried not to cringe at how off-key Keefe was, but I was glad when the song ended. At this point, Sophie sat, staring at the candles. I watched, mesmerized, as the little flames reflected in her eyes, bringing out their golden flecks.

"Make a wish, Sophie," Tam urged. Sophie closed her eyes, smiled, and blew. The room went pitch black for a moment, and then the lights went back on. As everybody else dug into the cake, I sat back and thought to myself,

I wonder what she wished for.