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BIRTHDAY BOY (#ulink_9deb1b4d-038d-5c64-8950-0d89af18c1e0)
Sam Green was really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really looking forward to his eleventh birthday.
I mean: really. He couldn’t wait. In the days leading up to it – his birthday was on the eighth of September – he simply wouldn’t talk about anything else.
“Have you sorted your school bag, Sam?” his mother, Vicky, would say in the morning.
“I’m thinking an Adventure Time cake this year, Mum,” Sam would reply. “With Finn, Jake and Ice King figures. What do you think?”
“I think you should get your school bag sorted,” she’d answer.
“Do you want to play football?” his friends would say to him at break-time.
“What about a magic party?” he would reply. “You all come, having learnt a different magic trick, right, and then we each perform it in turn – me last, of course – and then … where are you going?”
“To play football,” they’d answer. “Break’s nearly over.”
“What would you like for dinner?” his dad, Charlie, would say to him and his younger sister, Ruby, in the evening.
Ruby would open her mouth and say:
“Actually” – she said “actually” a lot – “I fancy shep—” but before she got any further Sam would be saying:
“I’d like a telescope. And a skateboard. And new trainers. And a guinea pig. And a tool kit. And an iPod. And some of David Walliams’s books.”
“—herds pie,” Ruby would say.
“For dinner, I said, Sam,” his dad would say. “Not for your birthday.”
Obviously, Sam wouldn’t always say these things (and so, obviously, the people he was speaking to wouldn’t always say those things back). No. Sometimes it would be a different type of cake, a different style of party and a different list of presents (although always including a telescope: Sam was a big fan of Star Trek, and sci-fi generally, and wanted to see as much of the solar system as he could from the window of his room in order to watch out for visiting aliens). Which did mean that he had ended up with a very long present list, and a very long selection of party-theme ideas. Which, in turn, presented a bit of a problem for his mum and dad, both in terms of choice and in terms of money, because they didn’t have a lot of that.
But the thing that never changed was Sam’s excitement about the day.
And then, finally, it came.
CHAPTER 2 (#ulink_aa9e7eae-9fb1-52da-8cd9-301f0d3871a8)
UM … (#ulink_aa9e7eae-9fb1-52da-8cd9-301f0d3871a8)
“Oh, Mum! Dad! That was amazing! What an amazing day!” Sam was saying as he undressed in his bedroom. It was 10pm on Saturday the eighth of September. The last of his friends, all of whom went to Bracket Wood, the local primary school, had left. Vicky and Charlie were smiling at him.
“So! Did you like your party?” said Vicky.
“Yes! Especially the sci-fi cake! In the shape of the Starship Enterprise! With six different gobstoppers for planets all round it! And candy Klingons and other aliens on the sides! Great idea, Mum!”
“Yes, well, it was your idea, Sam … I think it was cake suggestion number four – you made it last Monday …”
“And the film-theme fancy dress really worked, didn’t it, Dad? Everyone’s costume was great! Barry Bennett looked brilliant as Gru from Despicable Me! And Ellie and Fred Stone as Minions! And Malcolm Bailey as the sloth from Zootropolis! And Morris Fawcett as Homer Simpson!”
“Well,” said Charlie, “that was your idea too. Party suggestion number seven …”
“And you looked great!” said Vicky, grimacing as she pulled off Sam’s Wall-E head and feet.
“Well, that’s why I won the Best Costume Prize …”
“No, actually, that’s because it was your party,” said Ruby, wandering into the room. She’d been allowed to stay up a little bit later as it was Sam’s birthday. Ruby had a tendency to be very direct about everything, in a seven-year-old way. But she was a very clever seven-year-old. “So everyone thought you had to win. In fact, Mum and Dad basically bribed all your friends to vote for you by giving them extra cake and—”
“Yes, all right, Ruby. Time to clean your teeth,” said Charlie, taking her hand, and leading her – a little forcefully – towards the door.
“Dad? Mum? For my birthday, can I have a kitten?” said Ruby as she was leaving the room, books tucked under her arm, to do extra homework as usual. This was another thing Ruby said a lot, as well as “actually”. Sometimes she combined them and said, “Actually, Mum and Dad, can I have a kitten?” Even when no one had asked her what she wanted.
“Well …” said Vicky.
“Um …” said Charlie.
Ruby didn’t look surprised. She was used to her mum and dad saying “um …” in answer to the kitten question. But that didn’t mean she was going to let it go, either.
“Sam got a guinea pig,” she said, pointedly. “Spock!” Which, indeed, was something else on Sam’s birthday list that his parents had managed to get him. They looked over to said guinea pig, in its cage on the floor. It was a brown-and-white one, with a little tuft on its head. Sam had decided to call the guinea pig Spock after the extremely logical, cold character in Star Trek. Spock looked back at them with quite a strong sense of, “I think that name is very unfair.”
“Ruby,” said Charlie, “you know what a kitten will become?”
“Yes, actually, I do, Dad. I’m seven, not an idiot. A cat.”
“OK, so a grown cat, unlike Spock, will need some outside space. We haven’t got any.”
“Yes, we have,” said Ruby, pointing to the window. “What’s all that stuff out there?”
“Oh right. I see. Is the cat going to go down by itself from the seventeenth floor? In the lift that smells of wee?”
Ruby sighed, as if that question was ridiculous. Which it kind of was.
“We’ll think about it,” said Mum.
“Um …” said Dad.
Ruby nodded, feeling her point had been made, and turned to go out of the room. “Night, Sam! Hope you had a great birthday!”
“I did!” he replied.
CHAPTER 3 (#ulink_b400e145-7b30-5bcf-ac9e-967e1f7b27ce)
THE STAR-WATCHER EXPLORER (#ulink_b400e145-7b30-5bcf-ac9e-967e1f7b27ce)
Sam looked up at his mum. She was buttoning his new pyjamas, which were covered in little UFOs. Sam, of course, being eleven, could do up his own pyjama buttons. But he knew it was something his mum still liked to do. “And I loved all my presents! The skateboard and the computer games and the new trainers and the DIY tool kit and the books …”
“Everything on your list,” said Vicky. “Well, apart from the iPod. Sorry about that, Sam. Maybe next year …”
“It doesn’t matter, Mum. You got me the telescope. That was my big present. I love it!”
They looked over to the window. There it was: the Star-Watcher Explorer. Sam’s dad had already set it up on a tripod, and angled it against the window, pointing at the moon. It was black and sleek and long, with a computerised tracker to allow Sam to find particular constellations.
Sam and his family lived in a tower block – Noam Chomsky House – on the seventeenth floor. So it was the best present ever! They were so high up that Sam had an uninterrupted view of the night sky, and all its stars.
“You should be able to see any aliens out there with that, eh, Sam?” said Charlie.
“I don’t think so!” shouted a voice from outside the room. It was Ruby’s. “Actually, the nearest planet capable of sustaining life is four light years away!”
“How far is that?” said Sam. “In miles?”
There was a silence. But only for a few seconds. “Two hundred and thirty-five billion billion. Give or take the odd mile.”
“Um … OK …” said Charlie. “But we don’t know how fast their spacecrafts travel, do we?”
“Well, anyway,” said Vicky, looking out of the window at the night sky above the city, “I just have a feeling that there is life out there somewhere.”
Charlie smiled: he knew that his wife had a lot of faith in her feelings. He loved that about her, even if he didn’t have so much faith in her feelings.
“Is that like the feeling,” he said, putting his arm round her, “you had yesterday, about how I shouldn’t walk under that ladder – and so I didn’t, and fell in that huge puddle instead?”
She pushed him away, but smiled as she did it.
“It didn’t cost too much, did it?” asked Sam, going over to the telescope.
Sam’s dad was a manager at HomeFront, a big building supplies store, and his mum worked at home, buying and selling stuff on the internet, so they weren’t exactly rich – though it did also mean that Dad had been able to get a staff discount on the tool kit, something Sam had really wanted, as he loved making and fixing things.
“Don’t worry about that!” said Vicky. “It’s your birthday!” She looked over at the telescope. “Are the stars out? If you see a shooting one, you can wish on it! You should wish on it!”
“Really?” said Sam. “Does that actually, y’know … work?”
“Yes!” said Vicky confidently.
Charlie looked at her, and raised an eyebrow.
“Well. No one really knows. Do they?” she said defiantly.
“Um …” said Charlie, bending down and checking the telescope lens. “Well. What I would say is that tonight is too cloudy to see the stars anyway.”
“Never mind,” said Sam. “We’ll look through it tomorrow!”
He climbed up the little ladder and got into bed. It was a bunk bed, and sometimes Sam would show how good he was at balancing on that ladder by walking up without using his hands, although tonight he was too tired for that.
“Oh! And I liked it when the grans and grandpas came round for lunch,” he said. “They didn’t even fight!”
“I know,” said Vicky, clearly surprised herself. “They were on their best behaviour.”
“Yes …” said Sam, settling his head on the pillow. “Grandpa Sam didn’t even swear at Grandpa Mike. And Grandpa Mike didn’t even punch him or threaten to get his boys on him or anything. And Grandma Glenda and Grandma Poppy even smiled at each other.”
“I think that might have been a snarl …” said his dad.
“Shush, Charlie. Anyway … you should go to sleep now, Sammy,” said Sam’s mum. “I imagine you’re exhausted …”
“Specially,” said his dad, “having got up at the dot of six in the morning!”
“Was that the time?” said Sam.
“Well. It was one minute past six when you were knocking on our bedroom door, demanding presents. I’m sure of that …”
“But that was my favourite bit!” said Sam.
“Of what?”
“Of my birthday! I love how exciting it is to wake up on your birthday! And realise that it is your birthday! This day you’ve been waiting for, for so long, it’s finally here!”
“Yes,” said Vicky. “That is very exciting.”
“Not quite as exciting when you get to forty-three, though,” said Charlie, and Vicky laughed at his joke in a grown-ups-laughing-at-grown-ups’-stuff kind of way.
“Isn’t it?” said Sam.
“Pardon?” said Charlie.
“Exciting. Isn’t it exciting any more, your birthday?”
His mum and dad looked at each other.
“Well,” said Vicky, looking back at Sam kindly, and pulling his duvet back across him. “It’s always nice, yes. But maybe not quite as nice as it was when you’re ten … or when that of course turns into eleven.”
Sam nodded, but then shook his head.
“I’d like it to be my birthday every day!” he said.
His parents smiled, and then both of them got on the bed with him – climbed up the ladder and everything – and put their arms round him, something that in this family was referred to as a bundle-hug.
“Wait for me!” said Ruby as she hurried back into the room. She climbed up and joined the bundle-hug. She was holding a big science textbook, which made it a bit uncomfortable.
Then, after that, Vicky said:
“I’m glad the day went so well. Ruby, back to your room. Sam, time to go to sleep …”
And Sam smiled at her, and shut his eyes.
CHAPTER 4 (#ulink_32255a09-a318-5d05-9af0-3f9b68e5d347)
11.59PM (#ulink_32255a09-a318-5d05-9af0-3f9b68e5d347)
Normally, Sam had no problem sleeping. Normally, he was out as soon as his head hit the pillow. And his parents were right: he should have been more ready for sleep than ever, given how early he’d been up that morning.
But his birthday had been so great, and he was still so excited, that Sam just couldn’t sleep. He found himself tossing and turning in his bed, thinking of how much he just wanted to stay up and play with all his presents.
