The balloons had started to gravitate towards the threadbare red carpet and we were all crowded around the dining room table. The lights were flicked off and my mother came through the door baring a large chocolate cake in the shape of a caterpillar. Its segmented body was dotted with Smarties and its facial features were made of icing. Then my dozen or so friends began to sing, I could not tell who started; it was as if they all began in the same second. After three ‘hip hips’ I blew the sixteen candles out in one full puff and a chorus of hoorahs ensued. I saw my mother carefully calculating how to cut the cake into equal slices. After a few moments her face uncrumpled and she began dissecting my caterpillar. ‘Who wants the face?’ She said bouncily. ‘Me’ I shouted eagerly. I always liked the slices with the most icing and I liked the thought of eating that caterpillar’s foolish grinning face.
After ten or twenty minutes of small talk and scoffing cake the cars started to arrive. One by one my friends hugged me, wished me happy birthday and thanked my mother. It was just after 11 p.m. when the last girl, Catherine kissed me on the cheek and darted off to her father’s car. Then after grabbing a handful of chocolate raisins and eagerly cramming them into my mouth I sat cross-legged on the floor and inspected my haul of presents more thoroughly. It included the usual things, bath bombs, in trend jewellery and nail polishes in reds, purples and blues.
