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“Everybody, put your pens down.” The invigilator’s voice rang out loud in the silence of the exam hall, and Joy Deng Sijia heaved a sigh of relief as she tossed her pen aside and handed over her completed exam script. Actually, she had finished doing all the questions half an hour ago, and had managed to check all her answers once over before she turned them in. It was pure serendipity perhaps, but to turn twelve on the day of the very last paper of the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) marked a watershed in Joy’s short life. After all, practically everything in the past two years had revolved around the PSLE – not that it mattered that much, when she had already gained direct admission to the secondary school of her choice, and she was confident that she had done well enough not to forfeit her place. But her father, William, was not exactly discreet about his high hopes that she would score a perfect four points, even if the only purpose it served was for his bragging rights. Her mother, Elizabeth, often defended her, saying that nobody cared about her own sixth grade report card well before she turned twenty, so why should it be any different for Joy? Daddy would then tell Mummy she wasn’t Chinese so that was why things weren’t the same, and at that point Joy usually decided it was better to do practice exam papers in her room rather than to hear that same old conversation playing out again. They had gotten it to a point where that debate was almost playful, and almost certainly a rigmarole they went through out of sheer habit, but Joy was still tired of it anyway. And they’d have far more to worry about with her younger brother Bennet, when he liked to talk more than to study and thought the only purpose of going to school was to see his friends. He’d make a wonderful politician, except in Singapore you still needed to get top academic grades to get invited into politics.
The end of the PSLE did not make things different right away. Just as always, the family chauffeur, Encik Sulaiman, was waiting just outside the school gate in William’s black Mercedes, and he knew exactly which route home Joy liked best: taking a slight detour to get on the elevated West Coast Highway as soon as possible so she could see the sea on her journey home. Joy loved the fact that she lived upon a magic island, where the sea lapped right outside her bedroom and there was a big theme park less than ten minutes’ drive from her house. If the Deng family home, buried deep within a gated community, was too far away from anyplace interesting for Joy to explore on foot, that fact didn’t occur to her.
Mummy was waiting at the door when Encik pulled into their carport, just as she had promised that morning before breakfast. Usually, Joy never got out of school this early, so having Mummy all to herself for several hours was a very special treat.
“Congratulations, honey!” said Elizabeth warmly, giving Joy a big hug. “It must feel really good to be all done and ready to play. And happy birthday! Do you want to see the surprise I have for you?”
“Of course!” Joy forgot she was not supposed to be a child anymore and bounced excitedly on the balls of her feet. “What is it? Are we going to build a tree house? Or did Daddy buy a boat?” She had already received the grandest gift of her life, a beautiful antique grand piano handed down from her grandfather, a year ago when her grandparents deemed her skills good enough to be worthy of it. There weren’t many other things that could top that. “Or am I supposed to go for fish spa because I am now an adult? Eeee. No, thank you.” The tai-tai’s, or ladies of leisure, the wives of men whom Daddy got to know through his family business, sometimes asked Elizabeth to join them for facials and massage sessions. One of the fads they had insisted on was to soak their feet in shallow pools, where little fish swam around and nibbled away the dead skin. Joy had nearly peed her pants when the fish tickled her feet, and she’d jumped out of the pool screaming as she ran to the bathroom. Mummy had solemnly promised to never make her do it again, and the tai-tai aunties had excused her disgraceful behaviour because she was a child. This time, she wouldn’t have that much luck because she was now over 12, the threshold of adulthood that restaurants, tourist attractions and airlines went by.
“I keep my promises,” said Elizabeth. “Have you ever seen me get less than full marks on that score? And you have my word on that; I would never make you go to a fish spa ever again. Well, you still haven’t guessed the surprise yet. Are you up for one more try?”
Joy patted her cheeks; there were no pimples, but she should already know that since she looked in the mirror to brush her teeth every day. “I don’t think I need a facial yet,” she remarked. “Do you think so?”
“You’re still way off.” Elizabeth laughed. “I suppose I’m counting my chickens before they’re hatched, but I would bet money you’re still not going to need a facial even after what we’ll be doing today. I’m going to show you how to bake your own birthday cake.”
Elizabeth demonstrated how to use the sunshine-yellow stand mixer in the kitchen, with scarcely any protest when Joy splattered chocolate batter all over the two of them by accident. They were so busy with the cake they had to send Encik to pick Bennet up from school, a task Elizabeth usually took on personally. He burst into the kitchen while Elizabeth and Joy were piping the final swirls of frosting on top of the tall layer cake glazed all over with a glossy layer of chocolate.
“Hey!” Joy squealed as Bennet swiped off a glob of frosting with his index finger and licked it. “You spoiled my cake!”
“I didn’t,” argued Bennet. “I just saved the frosting from cap-ti-vi-ty. I’m a hero.”
“That’s a big word for a seven-year-old,” scolded Joy. “And you’re not a hero. You’re a frosting pirate.”
“I can be a real pirate if Daddy buys a boat,” Bennet pointed out. “If he doesn’t buy one for my eight-year-old birthday, I’m going to hi-jack the neighbours’ boat and become a pirate anyway.”
“You cannot,” exclaimed Joy in consternation. “That would be a crime. It’s called tress-pass-ing.”
“If you do that,” said Elizabeth with a smile, “you need to remember to wear your life jacket.”
“Just go play Mario Kart, OK?” said an exasperated Joy. “You can’t touch the frosting until Daddy sees the cake.”
After Bennet scampered out of the kitchen and down to the basement rec room, Joy took her mother to task.
“How come you never told him piracy is bad?” she admonished. “You actually gave him permission to steal our neighbour’s boat. Mummy, I’m disappointed in you.”
“Joy,” said Elizabeth, “when you become an adult, you’ll start to understand the concept of ‘tongue-in-cheek’. It’s when you say what you don’t really mean on purpose, which sometimes is much more effective than saying everything you want to in a literal way. If I tell Bennet piracy is strictly taboo, what do you think he will do?”
“He will go and do it.” Joy was more than familiar with the perverse way in which Bennet’s mind worked. She’d been more than thankful he didn’t go to the same school as her, especially on the day he was caught trying to shimmy up the flagpole in the school courtyard.
“Right. So how do you influence Bennet to not want to do something?” asked Elizabeth.
“You tell him you want him to do it.” Joy laughed. “Thank you Mummy, I learned something new today.”
They managed to repair the spot of frosting ruined by Bennet, so that by the time Encik dropped William off at home, there was a three-layer chocolate cake with the words “Happy Birthday, Joy” in pink and a bunch of colourful balloons with pink tails on it sitting on the dining table to greet him, with their two household helpers, Yati and Gloria, standing sentry by it to prevent further attempts at piracy.
“Happy birthday, my little one,” said William. He was used to patting Joy on the head, but now she’d grown so tall that the top of her head reached up higher than his chin, making such a gesture ridiculous. So, he switched to a side hug instead.
“I’m not your little one anymore, Daddy,” said Joy, hugging him. “I’m twelve now, so I am an adult.”
“Says Singapore Airlines,” remarked William with a chuckle. “Growing up is a very long process, and you’ll have to wait till you’re 21 before you’re considered an adult everywhere. But you shouldn’t be in a hurry to grow up; it’s a luxury to enjoy your youth.”
“Daddy?” Joy loved both her parents a lot, but she especially idolized her father because of their shared penchant for classical music. “What was it like for you when you were my age? Did you suddenly turn into an adult when you were twelve?”
“When I was your age - ” William shut his eyes, a pained expression taking over his face. “That was the year my sister was born. It was a life-changing year for my family.”
“I love Gu Gu, she’s an amazing musician,” gushed Joy. “And she’s an amazing person too. The day she was born must be a very happy day. So why don’t you look happy, Daddy?”
“Someday you’ll understand,” replied William evasively. “But it’s too much for you now. Trust me, all right? I don’t want to make you cry on your birthday. Just suffice it to say that it was a time of great joy and great tragedy.”
“OK, Daddy,” Joy hugged her father again, squeezing extra tight. “I love you to the moon and back.”
“Me too, honey,” William hugged back. “I’m so blessed to have two Xiao Jia’s in my life: you, and your Gu Gu Gianna. You were partly named after her, you know.”
The doorbell rang; Yati and Gloria hadn’t had the time to cook dinner with Joy and Elizabeth hogging the kitchen, so William had ordered in takeout. That was when Joy realized Daddy and Mummy were in cahoots to plan this special day for her. A crew of men draped their ornate round rosewood dining table with a drop cloth and set up a huge metal trough that plugged into a nearby electrical socket. Each place on the table was set up with chopsticks, bowls, plates and ladles. They showed Yati and Gloria the big jugs of soup and all the raw meat laid out on ice, telling them which was which, and then they left, scribbling down the phone number the Dengs needed to call when they were done so they could pick everything up.
“Daddy, you got Hai Di Lao,” observed Joy. “Is this your birthday or my birthday?”
“Can it be both our birthdays?” quipped William playfully. “I know you all love this stuff as much as I do.”
“No kidding, Daddy,” remarked Joy sternly. “Hot pot is your favourite. We only eat it because of you.”
The truth was somewhere in the middle, though. Sichuan hot pot was indeed one of William’s favourite dishes, but over the years everyone in the family found a soup that they enjoyed, which meant the four-soup combo was a fixture with the Deng family. Besides, Joy and Bennet liked to visit the children’s play area when they ate at the Hai Di Lao outlets in town; it was the one time they had a special place to run wild without the adults bothering them. It also gave William and Elizabeth some much-needed time for private conversation and was the only way William knew how to cook for Elizabeth, so that was a good enough reason for a Hai Di Lao visit to become a treat for everyone.
After dinner and dessert were over and Yati had wiped the gooey cake debris off Bennet’s face, the family retreated to the basement for entertainment, as was their wont.
“Joy, it’s your birthday, so you get to pick what we watch tonight,” said William. “Or if you want to do karaoke, that’s fine with me too.”
“Daddy, don’t cheat,” warned Joy. “You’re not supposed to push your favourite activities. It’s my night.”
“But we like the same things,” William pointed out. “It’s convenient, I have to admit.”
“Do I see some coalitions forming?” Elizabeth jumped in on the raillery. “You and Joy are a unit, and Bennet and I are a unit. It’s a wonder we’ve been able to get so far without going into stalemate all the time.”
“Well, maybe I want to do something you both don’t want,” said Joy. “You need to do what I want tonight because it’s my birthday, not yours.”
“It is your birthday,” acknowledged Elizabeth, “though we would probably need to draw the line at any illegal activities. Thought I’d just call that out before your Daddy exercises his universal veto powers.”
“You know I never do anything illegal,” Joy protested. “I’m not Bennet. And I’m a prefect, OK? Here’s what I want: can we Zoom with your best friends, and ask them what their lives were like when they were my age? I want to know everything about becoming an adult.”
William and Elizabeth couldn’t help but laugh; aside from the fact that they would be paying more for everything now that Joy wouldn’t qualify for child rates at commercial establishments, they didn’t think that twelve years of age amounted to adulthood in any way. Maybe it might mean they’d have to stop shopping for Joy’s clothing from the children’s department, as she was already in the biggest kid sizes and still growing like a weed.
Since they had to catch everybody at breakfast time before they went to work, they Zoomed with Frederick and Anne Wentworth in Detroit first. Captain Frederick Wentworth was an airline pilot, so it was a complete lottery whether Joy could get him at home when she Zoomed, but apparently, her birthday brought her luck. And why not? Turning twelve was a big thing, after all.
“Hello! Uncle Fred and Auntie Anne,” said Joy. Chinese kids were all expected to be respectful to their elders, so anyone who was the same age as Mummy and Daddy had to be addressed as Aunty or Uncle even if they were friends rather than blood relatives. “Good morning!”
“Hey, kiddo.” Frederick’s greeting was offhandedly casual, as always. “What’s up?”
“Guess what day it is today,” proclaimed Joy. “This is the luckiest day of my life because I just turned twelve years old. It’s my first day of being an adult.”
“How wonderful,” Anne’s gentle smile was truly a beautiful sight. “Happy birthday, dear. Did you get all your wishes today?”
“There are so many things I can’t just wish,” replied Joy. “Like when the PSLE will finish. But my last paper was today, so now it is over, and I can play again without Daddy nagging me to study. And Mummy helped me bake my first cake today.”
“Oh wow, that’s got to be so much fun,” Anne was always so encouraging, one of the reasons why Joy loved to talk to her. “Baking is always so satisfying; some people say it’s almost like making a baby.”
Frederick snorted loudly at that comment, earning himself a punch in the shoulder from Anne. “For your information,” Anne told him sternly, “I did not mean that in the literal sense. We’re still not in PG-13 territory yet.”
“Thirteen will be another big, big birthday,” said Joy enthusiastically, “but that doesn’t mean twelve is not the biggest birthday of my life. It’s a huge difference to be over twelve and under twelve. That means I don’t get colouring books and children’s menus at restaurants anymore. And Daddy and Mummy must buy me adult tickets when we sit on aeroplanes. But I don’t feel so different from yesterday when I was still a child. That’s why I want to ask you what it was like when you were my age. How did you know you were an adult when you became twelve years old?”
Twelve had not been a good age for Frederick Wentworth. Growing up in inner-city Detroit had never really been safe, but somehow his Mama had always managed to shelter Frederick and his two elder siblings from the worst of it. Until the point when, out of cosmic coincidence, several events during the year he was twelve came together to pitch him headlong into adulthood. It was the year he moved up from elementary school to junior high while his brother Edward started high school, which meant the boys who bullied them got exponentially rougher. Meanwhile, with his sister Sophia starting community college, most times his siblings weren’t home yet when he was dismissed from school. Still too young to get a job, he filled those empty, lonely hours wandering down the sidewalks and doing skateboard tricks by the street. That was when he first saw a gang fight happen mere paces from where he huddled around the corner, taking shelter behind the nearest pillar he could find, and the first time he stared into the cold, empty eyes of a dead man. That year was also the year his mother had her first drug overdose; he still remembered to this day how he’d frantically dialled 911 without knowing what to do or having any medications to give her. Even though they’d gotten her into hospital in time to revive her again, he’d still worried about how they’d have the money to pay for doctor’s bills, a question he never learned the answer to. None of this, of course, was in any way appropriate to share with Joy.
“When I was twelve,” said Anne, “my sister Liz went away to boarding school. You know about Liz, right? She’s my big sister and has the same name as your mom but isn’t like your mom in any other way at all. In fact, I guess my sister and your mom are polar opposites. Anyway, Liz left behind a bunch of clothing and since I liked the things she didn’t like, I took over all of it. That was a good thing.”
“Nope,” confirmed Elizabeth. “Liz Elliot isn’t like me at all. Honestly, Anne, if you passed any of your sister’s clothing discards to me, I’d rip them all apart and start over.”
“That isn’t too different from what you always do,” observed William. “Is there anything in your wardrobe you haven’t dismembered?” Refashioning second-hand clothing had been Elizabeth’s hobby ever since she was in middle school. It meant she’d never have the exact same piece of clothing as anybody else and was good for the environment at the same time.
“And then a not so good thing,” Anne continued, “was that seventh grade was the time when everybody started caring about what was cool and what wasn’t, and my class wasn’t one big happy friend group anymore. There were the cool girls who hung out together at the movies and shared Earthquakes at Swensen’s, and I wanted to be one of them but didn’t know how to get myself included. In some ways, twelve was the loneliest year of my life.”
“I can tell you what it takes to be a cool kid,” said Frederick. “It takes a lotta pretendin’. Believe me, it ain’t fun at all.”
“Bennet always thinks he is cooler than me,” Joy pointed out, “so I know how that feels already. But the song he likes says you have to be lonely to be a hero. I don’t like being lonely, so I don’t mind if I am not a superhero like him.”
“Word,” remarked Frederick. “That song’s spot on. The times I was said to be a hero were the loneliest times of my life.”
“OK,” said William, eager to stop this talk of loneliness before it destroyed whatever remaining innocence Joy had. “I think we’ve taken up enough of your time here. Thank you for entertaining Joy – I hope you have a great rest of your day.”
“Can we call Chris kor kor and Marianne jie jie next?” pleaded Joy. “They are younger than Uncle Frederick and Auntie Anne, so they might have more interesting things to say.”
Christopher Brandon and Marianne Dashwood weren’t officially married yet, so William had to ping them to get onto Zoom from their respective homes at the same time. They waved enthusiastically to Joy and remembered to wish her a happy birthday before she even said a word. Because they’d just visited her family during the June school holidays, they knew all about how this was her big year with the PSLE.
“Liberation,” remarked Chris dryly. “That’s got to feel really good. What is the first thing you want to do with your freedom?”
Joy scratched her head and scrunched up her face in deep thought. Up until this day, she’d lived in dire anticipation of the time when the PSLE would be over, and yet she’d never really considered exactly what might make her happier in a world without PSLE. The only ways she’d known how to fill up her time were studying and piano practice, and maybe the odd game of Mario Kart in the basement rec room. Oh, and of course, there were the times when the family played mahjong and sang karaoke and went shopping or visited the theme park. But all these years, she’d never really been in control of her own time. It was always Mummy or Daddy deciding what they all would do.
“Maybe…” Joy didn’t want to give up yet, though her imagination was drawing a blank. “Mummy and Daddy will bring us on a holiday!” That was decidedly unimaginative, when the Deng family usually went on overseas trips twice a year, during the June and December school holidays. But those were usually the best times of the year for Joy.
“You could come to Colorado Springs,” suggested Marianne. “We could bring you to the mountains and maybe go skiing.” She glanced at Chris with an expectant look. “Skiing is wealth, not a competence,” she added. “But I think we can afford it now.”
“I suppose we could,” mused Chris, “but skiing isn’t exactly a new thing for Joy and Bennet, is it?”
“We went Hokkaido three times already,” confirmed Joy. “Two of them, Bennet was too young to remember, but I do.”
“Anyway,” Joy rambled on, “when we go on holiday this year, Mummy and Daddy have to pay for adult air tickets for me. And maybe they will give me my own hotel room with Bennet. Because now I am twelve, which means I am an adult!”
“I don’t think – ” said William, before Chris took over and remarked, “I believe the minimum age for having one’s own hotel room is eighteen. I know that from personal experience.”
“It will be a long time before I am eighteen years old,” stated Joy matter-of-factly. “That is very old.”
Marianne burst into peals of laughter. “See, I’m not the only one who said that,” she choked out to Chris, her words barely discernible between laughs.
“That’s an indication of your mental age at the time you said it,” quipped Chris, with raised eyebrows.
“Well, I don’t need to be an old adult to be an adult,” declared Joy. “And I called to ask you for your advice. This is the first day I am an adult, so I want to know what it was like when you were my age.”
For Chris, twelve had been a very confusing age. It was the year when Eliza Williams, who had followed him like his shadow ever since they were five, suddenly started to seem different, even though she was waif-thin and small for her age. He didn’t know if he’d changed or she had, but all of a sudden, he became hyper-aware that she was a girl. And she inhabited the strange dreams he started having at night, making him feel more relieved than ever that he had his own bedroom and didn’t have to share with his brother, who would invariably laugh at him if he knew. Seventh grade was when they started having school dances, which meant all the conversations in the boys’ bathroom were about who was going to invite which girl as their date.
Even though the who had been a no-brainer for Chris, he’d been completely stumped by the how. He had never been glib like his elder brother, and even though he’d hung out with Eliza since forever, talking with her about anything under the sun, the mechanics of asking a girl to a middle school dance left him flat-footed and tongue-tied. He couldn’t possibly ask her in school, that was too public. So was the bus stop, even if he could convince her to ask her mom to let her take the school bus for just one morning instead of driving her to school as usual.
As the days to the first seventh-grade dance drew near, Chris became increasingly desperate. Finally, exactly a week before the big day, he scribbled a note to his mom to tell her he’d be skipping his Boy Scout meeting because he had something important to do and walked the four blocks or so between his house and Eliza’s.
Chris quailed in front of the porch; what would he say if Eliza’s mom opened the door? Would he have to ask Mrs. Williams for permission before he even had the chance to invite Eliza? What if she told him he was silly and laughed at him? No, he had to find a way to get Eliza out directly. Sneaking over to the side of the house, he took out the makeshift slingshot he’d made for woodworking class at Scouts and aimed an acorn at the window, which bounced off its target with a bonk. Nobody answered, so he tried again and scored another hit. This time, Eliza appeared at the bay window, and he motioned for her to come out. It took a whole bunch of waving and pointing before she got the point.
“Chris, what on earth are you doing here?” said Eliza. “And why are you acting so mysterious?”
“Will you… erm, what do you think… can you… do you want to go to the school dance with me?” Why was this so difficult? Chris knew he sounded like an idiot, but he couldn’t let go of his terror that she would say no.
“Of course, silly,” said Eliza. “Who else do I have to go with?”
“Y-yes!” Chris raised his hand to give her a high five, dancing around in circles in his delight. “S-see you in school, yeah?” He bolted off down the street, eager to beat a retreat before she could change her mind and say no.
On the night of the dance, their middle school gym was unrecognizable with the brightly coloured streamers hanging down from the ceiling and the dim lights and disco music. It was like one big grown-up party. Except grown-ups didn’t have all those rules: nobody could dance with their backs to their partners, you were supposed to keep each other at arm’s length, and no grinding or moshing, whatever those things were, was allowed. Chris tentatively placed his arms on Eliza’s waist, and as they started swaying to the beat, he felt like he was in seventh heaven. This was what they were supposed to be, moving together as one.
The teachers switched on the lights whenever anyone was caught breaking the rules, which meant practically every few minutes or so, almost, the atmosphere would be dissipated by a bright fluorescent flash. It was annoying, just like all the boys who showed up without wearing deodorant and stinking up the place. But Chris still felt like this was the most magical night of his entire life. As the evening went on, the dance numbers got slower and slower, and Chris must have imperceptibly inched closer to Eliza, until he wondered what might happen if he just leaned a little bit in and touched his lips on hers. And then he wasn’t wondering any more, as he closed in the last couple inches to make his imagination a reality.
Of course, the lights flipped on at once, and someone yelled “Cooties!” so loudly that Chris jumped away as if he’d just gotten an electric shock. Everybody was dying of laughter, he realized, because they were still such children that somehow, that word was as much of a joke when they were twelve as it had been when they were seven.
That was embarrassing. And definitely not a story he could ever tell Joy. So, as was often the case, Chris was silent.
Marianne filled in the silence for him, though. “I don’t really know if I was exactly twelve years old,” she said, “when I started realizing that my sister Elinor has all the sense, and I have too much sensibility. But I think it was more or less when I was in middle school, and Ellie was starting out in high school. Ellie was all organized about collecting her Girl Scout badges, and she sewed them onto her vest herself. She was so careful to make all her stitches the same size; I don’t know how she never died of boredom when I nearly did just by watching her.”
“And I was really sloppy,” she went on. “I hated it when my piano teacher turned on the metronome. I was really good at sight reading because I got a sense of what felt right very quickly, but I lost my flow if I had to measure out every note in exact intervals. I play the piano like I’m talking, but I think you already know that about me.”
“I don’t know whether I’m too much of anything,” said Joy, confused. “I only know what to do so teacher won’t scold.”
“That means you’re on the right track,” said Marianne encouragingly. “At least, you’re doing better than me when I was your age. I think you have a lot in common with Ellie.”
“Well,” said Chris, “I need to start heading off to base. A soldier’s got to be punctual.”
“Thanks,” said Elizabeth. “It’s been really kind of both of you to wish Joy a happy birthday. We’ll catch you next time – have a good one!”
Now that they were off the line, Elizabeth asked Joy, “Why did you never ask me what my life was like when I was twelve? Surely you want to hear from Mummy? You might be Daddy’s girl, but I know you love Mummy just as much.”
“But Mummy,” replied Joy, “I already know you forever. And you have always been the same.”
“It’s really flattering for you to say so,” said Elizabeth, “but as you grow older, you’ll find that everyone changes as they grow. The person who you are at twelve is very different from the person you will be at eighteen, who in turn will be different from who you’ll be at thirty. Some things will always stay the same, of course, but as you learn and try and fail, and hopefully win more than you lose, you’ll add little things to who you are, until all those things come together to make your grown-up self.”
“So, what were you like when you were twelve?” asked Joy. “I think you were a very happy person, because you are the happiest person in this house. I’m not counting Bennet because he’s a baby.”
Bennet, who had tuned out from the conversation and was fiddling around with the Playstation, turned around at the sound of his name. He stuck his thumbs in his ears and waggled his fingers with his tongue sticking out, which might have subverted his intent to contradict Joy’s statement.
“I probably was about twelve,” Elizabeth said to Joy, “when I learned how to think on the past only as it gave me pleasure. My sister Jane, whom I adored, had just started going to high school and all the boys were into her. But nobody ever asked me to any school dances because they thought I was a tomboy. Now when I think about it, maybe it was also because I beat all the boys in math and science class. So I just focused on all my hobbies, and taught my younger sister Mary how to code, and had fun creating my own clothes and hair styles. And even if no boys asked me out, I had wonderful girl friends who were great fun to hang out with. The good things are the ones I choose to remember when I think about middle school.”
William, who had slipped upstairs while Joy was talking to Chris and Marianne, re-appeared with a giant soft package which he had to carry in a hug. He’d gone to retrieve her big present.
“That isn’t a life-size Pokémon plushie,” guessed Joy. “It isn’t big enough. And it isn’t round enough to be a Squishmallow either.”
“Wrong, and wrong again.” William handed the soft, squishy package over to her. “But you don’t have to wait till strike three to open it.”
When Joy peeled off the wrapping paper, making sure she didn’t tear it when she pulled off the Scotch tape, she found four Canada Goose parkas, one each for the four of them, and a printout of a holiday itinerary.
“Wah!” she exclaimed. “We are going Iceland to see Northern Lights! Thank you, Daddy!” She clapped her hands and hugged William one more time, smacking a loud kiss on his cheek.
“All the time, honey,” said William. “And now the PSLE is in the past, so you can think on it only as it gives you pleasure.”
THE END