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“…Happy Birthday to you!" The chorus was mercifully over, but Billy couldn’t hide his smile as his family sang a very out-of-tune rendition of Happy Birthday.
"…and many more!!" Victor tagged onto the end before clarifying, "But not enough to get as old as Rosa and me". Everyone must have been feeling generous as this line evoked quite a bit of laughter.
“Go on Billy blow out the candles,” Rosa encouraged.
“Then we get to the presents!” Darla practically screamed.
It was Billy’s 16th birthday and thank goodness for that. He was sick of the constant taints from Freddy, who had turned 16 a couple of months prior, of how he was the baby of the group. This was despite being the second oldest member of the Vasquez family ever since Mary had moved out to College.
It was only seconds after the first bite of cake were taken that Darla had promptly left the room and returned with a small parcel wrapped in what appeared to be yesterday’s newspaper. (Billy could tell by the half of his *Shazam face that was smiling up at him after he has averted a nasty situation involving a gang releasing all the animal in the zoo yesterday. In the photo, he was holding onto a particularly aggressive octopus that had caused more grief than the lions, tigers and rhinos combined. Freddy in the background with the cage at the ready).
Lost in his thoughts, he didn't notice the first or second time that Darla had stamped her feet, but it was the voice of Freddy who brought him out of his daze.
“Billy? Earth to Billy, we going to need to you come down from the clouds for a second.”
"…huh…yeah sorry…oh, Darla, you didn't have to get me anything" he really did mean it. Even though this was his second birthday with his new family, he still wasn’t used to all the attention and certainly not the gifts and cake. At other fosters home he didn’t exactly make it his mission to be friendly or try to integrate into the group. So often his birthday would go by unnoticed, or he would just run away the night before knowing he wasn’t going to miss any parties.
“I don’t have any money like the rest of them,” Darla proclaimed, gesturing at the family, “but I do have love…and help from dad. So here, happy birthday Billy.”
Billy smiled, taking the present and giving a quick nod of appreciation to Victor which was returned happily. Unwrapping the small parcel, he found two bracelets clearly knitted but bound together skilfully. Upon examining them closer he saw that the two had words written on them spelled out with colourful yarn, one read “Shazam” and the other, “Family”.
Darla stood over Billy expectantly as Billy felt his eyes begin to water. Stifling down his joy, just a little, he quickly rubbed his eye with the back of his sleeve, before saying, “I love them, thank you, Darla….and Victor." *Who knew Victor was a whiz with yarn?
“Yay!” Darla did scream this time. Darla hugging Billy was everyone else’s cue to go fetch their own presents.
When everyone returned, the presents came thick and fast. Pedro and Eugene had pooled their money to get Billy a telescope. A nice one too!
“Oh, Billy you can look at the stars now, how exciting!” Rosa gushed.
But Billy knew that it was really to look for crime from the comfort of his bedroom. But Pedro and Eugene just smiled at Rosa's comment nodding in agreement.
Mary, who was back from College on holiday (which happens to align nicely and conveniently with Billy’s birthday) had got him several books on Super Heroes and Super Villains alike; she had also contributed to the telescope. It was, after all, a very nice telescope!
Victor and Rosa had been very generous indeed with two new formal shirts, two t-shirts (with superhero emblems – one was Shazam), a pile of chocolate and a pack of driving lessons vouchers. “I know you have been practising with us in the van but I’m sure someone actually qualified could teach you a thing or two more,” said Rosa with a smile and a wink to Billy.
Billy looked down at his copious amounts of presents, overwhelmed with feelings of guilt and joy. It was a weird combination of emotions to have, but nevertheless, Billy couldn't fathom what he had done to earn all these gifts. Struggling to cope inside, Billy’s eye sought the one face he knew could calm him down – Freddy’s.
As Billy’s eye sought out their prize, it became suddenly apparent that Freddy was nowhere to be found.
"Freddy?" Billy almost whispered, as his voice began to break. At this point, everyone else turned around to, and it was Darla who eventually said, rather awkwardly (for everyone else), “Why are you hiding behind the pillar?
Freddy was indeed hiding behind the pillar holding onto his present for Billy.
"Freddy baby, are you ok?" Rosa said getting up from her seat and walking towards Freddy. There's nothing like a mother's concern, in front of others, to make a teenager feel awkward as anything.
Just before Rosa reached Freddy, he jumped out of the way (as much as he could) and threw his present towards Billy with a residing yell of "Happy Birthday Billy!"
Among the chaos, Billy flashed Freddy a look of ‘everything ok man?' to which Freddy replied with a small shake of the head and a ‘talk about it later’ eyebrow raise.
Turning his attention back to Freddy’s present, he quickly unwrapped it as to avoid calling out Freddy on his terrible wrapping.
"What is it, Billy?" Darla pleaded, trying to crane her neck to see.
Billy pulled out a set of statues all moulded to a platform with six familiar faces smiling triumphantly at him. Not only were the six figures smiling at him but one of them was him! Or at least him in his Shazam form, along with Mary, Pedro, Eugene, Darla and Freddy all in hero form. Each hero was posed with their arms against their hips in their signature outfits, and each painted beautifully. Shazam was front and centre of the group, and the plaque underneath read "Philadelphia's Heroes'.
When he turned it around for all to see Darla, Mary, Eugene and he was pretty sure he even heard Pedro, jumped and screamed with joy as they fawn over the figurine.
"Wow, kids," said Rosa watching this reaction she turned to Victor, "I'm glad we got that lightning shirt after all!”
Eventually, it came time to clean up and pack up. As it was Billy's birthday, he got out of any cleaning duties and so did Freddy as he had volunteered to clean last night, so he could spend more time with Billy on his birthday (not that he admitted that part to anyone).
As everyone started to go their separate ways Billy once again sought the comfort of Freddy plus, he needed to speak with him. Glancing at the stairs, he just caught the site of Freddy turning the corner towards the bedroom at the top of the stairs.
Scooping up all his presents he made a mad rush up the stairs and around the corner, almost knocking himself out on the closed bedroom door. After a moment or two of juggling his presents around to get a hand free to open the door he saw the door handle turn, and suddenly Freddy stood in front of him.
“Heard you struggling.”
"Yeah, I guess this must be what it's like to be a rich kid." Billy said smiling, "Why can't I hold all these presents?"
Freddy gave a small chuckle and moved aside so Billy could enter.
“You know if you were really rich you would have a servant to carry all those presents. Like an Alfred to your Batman. But that’s more long-term thinking,” Freddy mused.
Billy smiled and carefully placed his presents on his top-bunk; he was happy to hear Freddy back to his usual self. But turning around instead of seeing him just waiting to crack another joke or discuss the night’s events, he found Freddy lying on his bed half turned to look at the wall.
Billy picked up Freddy’s present, went down the ladder and sat on the edge of Freddy’s bed. He didn’t have to wait long for Freddy to look over his shoulder to see what was happening.
Billy and Freddy briefly made eye contact before Freddy averted his gaze and went back to staring at the wall.
Frustrated Billy blurted out “What going on with you tonight?” a little more aggressively than he had intended. “And don’t say nothing Freddy cause we both know that’s a sack of shit!”
Silence ensued before finally Freddy turned over and sat up next to Billy.
Still averting his gaze and staring down at his hands in his lap he struggled to put two words together before sighing and finally saying, "I'm sorry…I'm sorry if I ruined your birthday."
“Ruined my bir…” Billy mumbled confused as to how he had exactly ruined it. “Freddy the only thing that ruined my birthday today was that surprise pop quiz in chemistry,” Billy shuddered, and Freddy snorted.
"Plus," Billy continued, "You gave me the best present I have ever received. I mean don't get me wrong everyone else was so generous especially Rosa and Victor like I can't wait to take those driving lessons, and I really needed new clothes and that telescope, wow! But to be honest it was really overwhelming, and I'm still not used to all this attention even after almost two years here and I mean I'm just glad to be here with you, that's all I really wanted for my birthday…" Billy trailed off; he had just realised how quickly he was talking and how much he was talking and how much he was actually saying in the subtext.
When he looked back up, it had appeared that something in his speech had earned him back the smile and eye contact from Freddy that he so loved. Returning the smile, he finally felt it was the right time to ask, “…so why do you think you ruined my birthday exactly?”
It was like all the light was suddenly sucked out of the room, and the gloom had returned.
Taking a note from Billy’s speech, Freddy scrunched his eyes tight and sighed, “Watching you open up everyone’s presents I suddenly realised how selfish mine was.”
“Selfish?” Billy interrupted.
“Yes! Everyone got you such useful things and gadgets you can use to defeat evil. Mary, Pedro and Eugene asked me if I wanted to go in with them on a present, but I said no. I said I had an idea that would knock theirs out of the water. Instead, I got you some statues, and the worst part is that it was self-indulgent, I'm a part of that statue…."
“Are you kidding me? The only thing, THE ONLY THING, that stopped me from blubbering down there in front of everyone was your gift. It reminded me of why I was getting all this attention, of why I was deserving of it, it’s only because I’ve found my family or more, they found me. And I resisted for a bit, but we all know how that turned out,” Billy knocked Freddy slightly with his elbow and chuckled.
"Thanks, Bill…but I still can't shake this feeling that when I was picking out the gift, I was only thinking of myself. I mean I never think about myself, why would I?"
Billy’s insides squirmed as he saw Freddy glance over at crutch and down to his leg.
But Freddy was amazing, how did he not know this… But before Billy could finish his thought, Freddy continued.
“The only time I think about myself as …worthy or amazing is when I think of myself powered up. So of course, I was going to buy the stupid statue. I share a room with you, that means I can stare at it! Then I’ll know I’m worthy and worth thinking of…”
This time Billy didn’t give himself a chance to think before replying, “Freddy Freeman, you may not think of yourself, but I do. Do you want to know why I did so badly in the chemistry pop quiz today?”
“Cause you suck at chemistry?” Freddy half-heartily teased.
"No, because I was thinking about you…" Billy felt his heart stop but battled through it, "You were wearing your Superman shirt today and had forgotten to brush your hair, but all I could think was how great you looked and how jealous I was that you were wearing a Superman shirt and not me…" Billy felt the warm glow of a blush and then did something he knew if he didn’t do immediately, he never would – he took Freddy’s hand in his.
Initially, he was just shocked that Freddy didn’t recoil at this action or launch into a play fight to try to ease the tension.
Instead the moment Billy’s glanced up to meet Freddy’s eyes he saw him lean towards him and Billy followed suit. A first kiss is never going to be the best kiss ever but when he felt the warmth of Freddy’s lips on his and the eagerness that resulted in teeth clashing and a misplaced tongue, his whole body teemed with joy.
Pulling back, with hands still entwined, they simply starred at each other until falling into a pit of laughter. Billy falling onto Freddy with such gusto it pushed him back onto the bed. With Billy laying on top of Freddy he took the opportunity to get another kiss which Freddy eagerly returned.
“Thanks for thinking of me Billy,” Freddy finally said after a lot more kissing.
“Anytime Freeman. And thanks for giving me my best birthday present ever…you!”