Surprise Party

Complete Story

"Surprise!" the girls said, as they removed the blindfold from Amy.

She blinked as her eyes adjusted for the light, wondering where her friends might have brought her. She knew she was in the mall, but there were many parts of the mall with similar layouts and it had thwarted Amy's best efforts to guess where they were going for her birthday. She had assumed that it would be a shopping trip or something when her friends told her they needed to blindfold her earlier, but now she found herself looking at-

"Build a Bear Workshop?" she said curiously, looking at her friends. "You guys... really shouldn't have." She tried to hide her disappointment. This wasn't how she wanted to celebrate her 21st birthday. A night drinking on the town sounded so much more interesting than stuffing a bear, even if she had secretly been drinking since at least 16.

"We figured, since you're officially an adult, you'd like one last hurrah where you get to do all the things you wanted to do as a kid," Jenny, Amy's best friend said.

"Um... Wow, that's so thoughtful of you," Amy said unconvincingly. "Well, let's, uh, let's go in guys!"

"Oh shit, you forgot her other gift," Tiffany said.

"Oh, you're right!" Jenny said. She pulled out a device that looked like a smart phone and pointed it at Amy. After a few clicks, Amy's face went blank.

When awareness returned to Amy, she was smiling ear to ear. "Oh my gosh guys! Thank you, thank you, thank you, for taking me to Build a Bear, I'm going to make the cutest little bear ever!" She bounded inside, looking around at all the options. There were so many cute options, and she could barely wait to start.

As her friends and her waited in line, she was already thinking about what she could do for her bear.

"About where did you put her?" Tiffany asked Jenny.

"In her mind, she's 7 years old," Jenny said.

Tiffany frowned. "She actually looks like she's having a blast. I wouldn't mind having a little of that energy myself."

All three of them were college students, and they were all used to Amy being the "mom" of the group. It was a role she naturally took to, because she had been the oldest of her siblings, and there was a pretty big age gap between them. But you'd hardly tell it looking at her now - she had a carefree smile, and was moving in a clumsy ungraceful way, zipping around the store as she waited for Tiffany and Jenny to pay for everything.

Jenny shook her head. "One kid is enough, I don't want to have to take care of two!"

When Tiffany and Jenny finally paid, they got Amy and the Build-a-Bear employee started giving them a run down the whole process. Amy listened with rapt attention, but it was clear from the way she was bouncing her leg that she was impatient to start building her bear. When the employee finished, Amy ran to the first station. She spent a long time looking at the different animal options, before selecting a cute frog.

The employee smiled, looking at Amy's joy. "It's always awesome to see people connecting with their inner child," she said to Jenny and Tiffany who were also picking out their animals, but in a much more subdued way.

"You don't know the half of it," Tiffany muttered.

As they moved on to picking the sounds, stuffing and registering the animals, it was clear that Amy was having a blast with everything. Gone was the serious, straight-A college student, and in her place was a child enjoying a birthday out with her friends.

As they walked out of the store, Amy hugged her little frog tight, and talked about how she couldn't wait for her mommy to see her new friend.

"Okay, seriously," Tiffany said to Jenny. "I can't deal with Amy like this. You've got to make me younger."

Jenny mulled the idea over. She finally sighed and agreed. She pointed the device at Tiffany, and soon both Tiffany and Amy were running around the mall like little kids excited for the next thing.

"Slow down!" Jenny said, trying to keep up with them.

Their next stop was the toy store. The girls ran straight to the doll section, and were admiring all the cute toys when a boy from their college saw them.

"Oh, hey, Amy!" James said, as he walked up to them.

Amy giggled. "Hi, Jamesy. It's my birthday!" She held up her frog proudly and pointed at it.

James was a little taken aback. He had worked on a group project, so he knew her as a serious and straight-laced student. He had never seen her on a weekend, and he had to admit that he found her carefree attitude kind of attractive.

"Well, happy birthday!" he said. "I was just here taking care of my little cousin, since my aunt and uncle are busy tonight." He motioned to a little boy nearby, who was looking at action figures.

Amy thought it might be fun to play with James' cousin, so she ran up to him. "Hey, I'm gonna get this dolly. Do you want to play together after you buy your doll!"

The boy scrunched his face in disgust. "Ew, no. These aren't dolls, they're action figures. Only a stupid girl would get that mixed up."

Amy put her hands on her hips, "Hey, I'm not stupid. You're a stupid meanie face, and you have cooties." She stuck her tongue out at him.

"Am not!" he said.

"Am too!"

"Am not!"

Then Amy giggled, and her laughter was contagious. Soon the boy and her were laughing together.

"Well, your *action figure* looks really cool," Amy said. "Wanna play with me once you get it?"

The boy smiled and nodded. "Okay, but I don't know if my brother will get it for me," he said.

"We can buy the toys for you two," Jenny said. "If your brother is okay with it?"

Jame shrugged, and as the toys were being bought, Amy and the little boy got to know each other.

"I'm Billy," the boy said.

"I'm Amy," she said in return.

"You're really fun for a grown up," he said.

Amy looked at him in confusion. "I'm not a grown up! I'm a kid like you."

Billy looked up at the 21-year old girl, towering over him. He was sure she was like a bajillion years old, but he did like her, and he wanted to make good on her offer to play with their new toys together.

When they left the store, Amy introduced Billy to Tiffany.

"Ew, he's a boy, why do you wanna play with him!" Tiffany said.

"Don't worry, he's fun!" Amy said.

James and Jenny were busy talking about other things. Soon they walked past the mall's indoor play place, and Amy, Tiffany and Billy were all begging to play there. James and Jenny all agreed.

James smiled at Jenny. "Your friends are really great with kids," he said. "I think the big thing is they're not condescending. Too many adults speak down to kids, but your friends act like equals, and I think Billy is really taking to it."

Jenny tried not to reveal to much, so she just said cryptically, "Yeah, they're really good at getting back into that childhood mentality."

Once Jenny and James were tired of watching the three play, they decided to tell them it was time for something else, to groans all around.

"But it was just getting fun!" Billy complained.

"Don't talk back, cuz," James said. "Come on, let's get going."

They walked around, and passed by an ice cream.

"Can I get ice cream," Amy said to Jenny. "It is my birthday!"

"I want ice cream too!" Tiffany said.

Jenny rolled her eyes, but agreed. It was tough being the designated adult. As they were buying ice cream, Billy started begging for ice cream as well, and James eventually caved.

Everyone was happily licking their cone, and they came to the mall's movie theater.

"Hey, we should go see a movie!" Amy said.

"Actually, that's not a bad idea," James said. It would be easier to let the screen babysit his little rambunctious cousin.

They walked in and got tickets for a kids movie that everyone thought looked alright. James made an excuse to sit near Amy. He admired her during the movie. She was just so vivacious and enthusiastic. Even though it was a kids movie with a fairly basic plot, he just found the way that she was wholeheartedly enjoying it so attractive. It was like she lacked any self-consciousness or doubt - she was so different from the no-nonsense girl he thought she was.

When everything finished up, Jenny, Tiffany and Amy said their goodbyes to James and Billy, and Tiffany and Amy went on and on about how fun today was. Jenny smiled weakly, and pointed the device at her friends. Soon they both had their adult minds back.

"Wow," Amy said, realizing how she had been acting the last few hours. "That was a blast! That was an amazing birthday, thank you guys." She hugged her friends.

"I'm glad you liked it," Jenny said. "You two were a bit of a handful."

"Sorry about that!" Tiffany said.

"Well, you can make it up to me," Jenny said. "Maybe next time I won't have to be the designated adult."

Amy's eyes lit up. "Next time?"

"If you want," Jenny said.

The three girls walked back to their cars, imagining all the fun times that lay ahead for them.