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It had taken one of Klopp’s ancient scrapbooks for Florrie to find out when Milner’s birthday was. She’d known about the others—she’d been fully conscious of birthday celebrations by then—but for some reason, she didn’t know that Milner’s birthday was just four days after the New Year started.
She instantly felt bad: how could she have forgotten it? Milner was important to her—she even called him “Papi”. Milner was usually grumpy and sarcastic around the others, but around Florrie and the other kids, he tossed that description out the window. He would engage in playtime with them, even offering his back for horseback rides (they were piggyback rides before, but since Henrietta found her voice they became horseback rides).
When Florrie asked Klopp why she didn’t remember Milner’s birthday like the others, Klopp had just laughed.
“You were too young, Florrie, it’s not your fault. You came just before Christmas, and Milly’s birthday is just after New Year’s. He’s our New Year’s present!” he’d joked.
Well, Florrie wasn’t too young now. She was going to be four at the end of February, definitely not little anymore. And she was going to do something about it.
*
Every Wednesday morning, the kids would go bounce on Milner’s bed to wake him up. The evening before, Florrie buried the alarm clock underground in the garden.
“Why’d you do that?” Kairo asked. They’d woken up at seven instead of six-thirty as a result of the buried alarm. “We were going to wake up Papi Milly again.”
“Because today is his birthday!” Florrie pointed to the picture of her and Milner having a tea party. “So we’re giving him the gift of extra sleep.”
“Just so you know, that’s not a gift,” said Arwen, entering the room. “But it’s great to see you two are thinking about Milly today.”
“I want to make up for the last time,” Florrie explained, allowing Arwen to swoop her off the toddler bed she shared with Kairo. “I missed his birthday, Winnie. Papi must have been so sad.”
Arwen chuckled, ruffling Florrie’s hair. “I think Milly understood that you were too young, Flo. But if you want, you can help me with my surprise for him.”
Florrie and Kairo nodded, bouncing excitedly. “Sure!”
*
It had taken them a while to get to the kitchen. Henrietta and Grace had woken up, and both wanted to ride on Arwen’s wheelchair. Eventually the five managed to get into the kitchen, where multiple cupcake trays laid on the counter.
“Cupcakes!” Kairo cheered. “Arwen, you’re a genius!”
Florrie climbed up on a chair, frowning at the freshly-baked cupcakes. “Winnie, why are all the cupcakes naked?”
Arwen couldn’t help but laugh at that. “The cupcakes need to be frosted. I need your help for that, because I don’t know Milly’s favorite colors.”
Florrie stared at Arwen in shock. “You don’t know Papi Milly’s favorite colors?”
Arwen shrugged. “I just came here.”
“Everybody here knows Papi likes white, royal blue and gold,” Florrie sighed dramatically, gesturing towards the box of food coloring, chocolate candy and sugar pearls. “It’s common sense.”
Arwen ignored the sass, picking up the bottle of blue food coloring. “Mind helping me with this?”
The trio—Grace and Henrietta weren’t really much help—managed to frost and decorate the cupcakes before Milner came into the kitchen for his morning coffee. After some silent pleading, Arwen counted out six gold chocolate pearls for each of the younger kids.
They hid the cupcakes in Nemmer's pastry refrigerator, where Milner would surely never go. Then with the help of Thiago and Klopp, they set about making Milner’s favorite—dry toast and baked beans.
“So boringly British,” Klopp had joked, taking out cans of beans. “I can see why Milly likes this stuff.”
“I can’t.” Thiago frowned at the toast, dry as bones. “British cuisine is as boring as German cuisine.”
Thiago had earned a dishcloth to the face for that, as well as what could only be a stern warning in German. Florrie laughed so hard, she almost added too much salt on the poached eggs.
Finally, everything was ready. After setting the table with the plainest yet most sophisticated porcelain they had—Milner hated fancy stuff—they got ready for the party. The decorations mirrored the table setting: mainly gold and silver balloons and streamers, with touches of white and blue for Milner’s first club, Leeds United. In one corner was a growing pile of wrapped gifts. Soon everybody was in the dining room except Milner.
“You’d best not annoy Milly today, Robbo,” Henderson commented, glancing at the Scotsman. “He was proper annoyed already.”
Robertson rolled his eyes, bouncing in his seat. “Milly’s always proper annoyed.”
“When’s the birthday boy coming, man?” Tsimikas stared at the dishes of food with longing. “I’m hungry!”
Robertson glared at Tsimikas. “Shut. Up. It’s Milly’s birthday, and I want not a sound out of you.”
“Since when did you become Isabela Madrigal?” Klopp joked. It fell flat, though.
Finally, the voice they’d all been waiting for floated in from the hall. “Where is everybody?”
“SURPRISE!” everybody yelled as Milner came into the room.
“There’s our favorite Yorkshireman,” Klopp greeted Milner, pulling him into an embrace. “Happy birthday and, as the Hobbit said, may your beard never grow thin.”
Similar wishes and sentiments echoed around the room.
Milner stared at Klopp in disbelief. “You read those books?!”
“As a high school student, yes. Just because I’m old doesn’t mean I’m ignorant.” Klopp hustled Milner to his chair, pulling it out for him. “But we can talk about Lord of the Rings later! It’s party time now!”
“JM7 has just become JM37!” Robertson shouted, completely ignoring Henderson’s previous instructions. “May your beard grow as thin as Southampton's defense! That was some sarcasm in honor of our main man, Milly.”
Milner glared at Robertson. “What do you mean, ‘may my beard grow thin’?! I have enough problems with my hair growing thin.”
Ramsay answered that question before even Robertson could. “So we can shave it, of course! Edward Lear!”
“Shave the beard!”
If looks could kill, Florrie decided, Milner’s would have incinerated the young Scot on the spot. “Don’t make me hustle you to the gym this early, Calvin. You need to get in shape.”
“Lighten up, man, it’s your birthday!” Tsimikas rubbed his hands together, hungrily gazing at the platter of sausages. “Now let’s eat! Plato Da God is starved!”
Now Milner really looked like he wanted to expel Tsimikas from the room. “That’s seriously your new rapper name?”
“Plato’s Greek, I’m Greek. That’s enough for me,” the self-proclaimed “Greek Scouser” stated. “That’s half of my present to you.”
Milner rolled his eyes, trying his best to hide his clenched fists. “Keep the other half to yourself, Kostas.”
*
Breakfast was a generally festive affair, a big bonus considering how things had started off. Milner had brought sarcasm into almost every discussion anybody had brought up, especially towards Tsimikas and Robertson. He didn’t hold back on the snarky comments, and for once nobody minded. It was Milner’s birthday party, after all.
One thing that Milner wasn’t sarcastic about was breakfast. His eyes had lit up—rare for him—when he’d bit into the beans and toast. He’d commented on the use of Heinz Beans with his mouth full of them, which had prompted laughter around the table.
The cupcakes were brought out of the pastry refrigerator. To everybody’s surprise, Nemmer had already made a cake, so the cupcakes surrounded the white vanilla pound cake. One of the thirty-seven candles was shaped like an old-fashioned bottle of Ribena, and Milner couldn’t help but laugh when he saw it.
“Oi! Who did this?”
Diaz’s hand shot up. “Joel and I looked up old Ribena bottles. We found the model from 1986 and poured the candle in that fashion. You were born in 1986, right? Wikipedia said so.”
“As I always say, Wikipedia is never wrong.” Milner flashed a smile at Diaz and Matip. “Thank you, chaps.”
“Music!” Robertson shouted, pointing to the candle. “Otherwise your precious Ribena candle’s going to be a purple wax puddle.”
The birthday songs started up, in many different languages and variations. While nobody understood the meaning of every song they sang, perfection wasn’t the point of the occasion.
The cake and cupcakes were distributed, along with ample servings of Ribena ice cream. It had been Nemmer's birthday gift to Milner only, but Milner insisted that everybody else get to try it.
Eventually it was time for presents. Robertson was first, holding up his cylindrical-shaped present in front of Milner’s face. “Open it, me mate!”
Milner rolled his eyes, untying the ribbon from the package. The soft tissue paper fell away to reveal a foil-wrapped package.
“Dunking biscuits?” Milner playfully slapped Robertson on the back of the head. “Are you making a reference to that stupid video we did years ago?”
“Stupid? Milly, it was comedy gold!” Alexander-Arnold grinned, thrusting a box into Milner’s hands. “Now you can use Robbo’s gift with mine. They come in a pair, just like us.”
Alexander-Arnold’s box was harder to unwrap. Milner carefully took out a blue and white china teapot, along with thirty-seven boxes of Twinings’ black tea.
Milner grinned at the sight of all that tea, ruffling Alexander-Arnold’s hair. “Lovely present.”
Tsimikas stood from his seat, tossing Milner a psychedelic blue package. “Mine next, man!”
Milner set the present under his chair as if it had never existed. “Next, please.”
Thiago’s gift was a new CD player. Milner eyed it with curiosity before nodding. “Nice. Thanks, Thiago.”
Thiago shrugged, ducking his head. “It’s the least I can do after I dropped a glass of water on your old one.”
“Mine next, mine next!” Tsimikas chanted, taking his present back from under Milner’s chair. “Open it, man!”
Milner sighed, setting the package on the table. “Let’s get this over with.”
Slowly, he untied the ribbon, then ripped the wrapping paper open. Inside the box was a CD. Not a bottle of spiked ginger ale, or a man bun-growing kit, but a simple, harmless CD.
Well, until Milner saw the label.
“You…” Milner glared at Tsimikas, red-faced with fury. “You got a recording company to let you record your music?!”
“Yeah, it’s great, man!” The Greek inserted the CD into Milner’s new CD player. “They had to use the censoring button on my rap lyrics, though. Companies are so boring.”
The Yorkshire man looked like he would combust at any given moment. “You wrote a rap song?! With swears that are bad enough to censor?! What in the name of RONALDO were you thinking?”
Klopp, meanwhile, had taken the CD case and flipped it over to the back. He read the soundtrack list, cringing at most of the titles. Then out of nothing, he laughed.
Milner raised an eyebrow at the German. “What’s so funny?”
Klopp handed the CD to Milner, struggling to hide his amusement. “Are you sure you don't want this, Milly? Read the name of the fifth track.”
Milner did so, mentally blocking out the names of the first four. He instantly regretted not carrying out that action to the fifth.
“Well, of course I don’t want this. Who’d want a CD with ‘Glory, Glory Man United’ as the first track?” He set it aside, taking Florrie’s present to open next. “Thanks a lot, Kostas. You should have given me brain bleach along with this.”
Now everybody was laughing along with Klopp. Even Milner found the grace to smirk.
“Wow, this is pretty big,” said Milner, shaking the blue and gold wrapped package. “You wrapped this, Florrie?”
“It’s from all of us kids,” Arwen explained, dabbing Grace’s frosting-covered chin with a napkin. “But it was Florrie and Kairo’s idea.”
Milner carefully removed the wrapping paper, setting it aside. He opened the box and took out a plastic box.
Nearly the whole table burst into laughter upon catching sight of the contents.
“Mustaches?” Milner glanced at the children, who were shaking. “Why mustaches?”
Florrie pointed inside the box. “Read the note!”
Milner rummaged through the crushed tissue paper and pulled out a note. Judging by the penned letters, he could tell that Arwen had written it.
Happy birthday, Milly! These are so you won’t have to use Bobby’s toothbrush when we play Wild West Bandits. Also, now you can pretend to be a Latino bandit once in a while. Love: Arwen, Florrie, Kairo, Henrietta, Grace, Ellie, and Tristan.
Now even Milner couldn’t hold back his snickers. “A Latino bandit?! How am I ever going to pull that off?! What do I even call myself?”
“You used my toothbrush…as a mustache?” Firmino shook his head, reaching for more cake. “Excuse me while I pretend you did not do that.”
Milner shook out one of the plastic mustaches and stuck it on his upper lip, wiggling it around. The mustache he’d chosen was one of the long, curly Sherlock Holmes style ones, which only made it better.
“How do I look?” Milner didn’t sound annoyed or exasperated, which was a good sign. “Does anybody have a mirror?”
“Ridiculous,” Tsimikas shot back, still sore from the music incident. “About time somebody told you.”
Henderson disagreed. “Milly, it looks great! I daresay it could help you capture a few…admirers.”
Milner’s eyes widened once he realized exactly what Henderson meant. “It’s a plastic mustache. How is that supposed to make me more attractive? ‘Hey girls, this is James Milner, the Latin lover?’”
“Well…” Henderson smirked, leaning back in his chair. “Looking at you in that mustache I’m starting to see your finer points.”
Milner’s jaw dropped. “Don’t let me catch you saying that again! Adam would never forgive you.”
“He’s already got beef with me for the whole Jude business. This should be no different,” Henderson pointed out. “But seriously dude, you look great.”
“You speak Spanish, right?” Robertson asked.
Milner wordlessly nodded, unsure what Robertson was getting up to.
Robertson’s devilish smile only grew with the confirmation. “So accept it. You’re hot, Juan Milnerinho.”
Milner took to hiding under his napkin as everybody else laughed. Who knew the kids’ present would cause the most trouble?