The Unbirthday Party.

With apologies to Lewis Carrol who coined the term in Alice of wonderland, this story actually happened.

It was school holidays and a perfect day to play ball, and Joe North was whistling happily as he limped along toward the park. As he neared the playground, he saw a knot of boys gathered in one corner of the field. He tried to hitch his brace along faster. The boys seemed to be excited about something. Joe could hardly wait to find out what was up. But then when he came up to them, they stopped talking and everyone was quiet. For a minute no one even made a move to get the ball game going.

“Well, are we going to play ball, or aren’t we?” Joe asked. He was a good player despite his crippled leg. The only problem was that Billy Burton had to run for him now. His brace was getting too small, and the doctor said he should take it easier until he got his new brace.

Soon the game was in full swing, and everyone except Joe was shouting cheerfully. He had an uneasy feeling that they must have been talking about something they didn’t want him to know about.

“Why would they do that?” he asked himself. “Don’t they like me anymore?”

His mind was only halfway on the game, and he didn’t play as well as usual. He dropped the ball twice in a row.

Joe decides he would ask Don Wilder about it on the way home. He didn’t get a chance, though, because when it was time to go home, Don didn’t walk with Joe as he usually did. Instead, he walked with Billy Burton.

“Let’s walk home together,” Joe heard Don say to Billy. “We can finish the plans for the ……” he broke of and looked at Joe. “You know…..” he said in a lower voice.

Joe limped home. His two best friends had just made it evident that they didn’t want to walk with him. Now he knew there must be something wrong.

Was it because of his leg? Were they tired of playing with  a boy who had to wear a brace? That hadn’t bothered them during the three years he had already lived in this place. The boys liked him well enough up until now. Was it because his house wasn’t as nice as theirs? Or his clothes?

One by one Joe rejected all the reasons he could think of as he sadly limped home. He tried to act cheerful as he ate his tea. He wasn’t really hungry. As he sat there, he began to think of all the things that had gone wrong for his family. First dad had been sick, and then they had to move from their nice big home to this little place his uncle Ben had offered them. Here he didn’t even have his own room but had to share it with his four-year-old brother. Then his mother had to take on extra work and it seemed she was tired all the time.

A few years back he had grown old enough to realize that the brace he wore on his crippled leg cost a lot of money every time it had to be changed. “But we don’t mind about the money, son” Dad had said. “A few years from now you’re going to be walking straight and tall without the brace. That’s what counts for us.”

In spite of Dad’s encouraging words Joe knew that things would be a lot easier for Mum and Dad if they didn’t have to spend so much on the brace. They might even have new clothes more often if it weren’t for that, instead the whole family was wearing things other people were tired of.

Worst of all, Joe knew that Mum and Dad were especially worried about how they were going to pay for the brace this time. He wished he could have kept from growing too fast.

He had almost forgotten his troubles by Tuesday morning. He forgot them, that is, until he walked onto the play ground and was greeted by the same sudden silence. Somehow, he didn’t even care to play ball if things were going to be that way. Wednesday, he didn’t even bother to go and play.

“Aren’t you going over to the park?” asked his mother in surprise.

“I guess not,” Joe said. “I guess I will help you today.”

“Are you sick?” his mother asked anxiously. “It isn’t like you at all to turn down a ball game.”

“No,” he told her. “I just don’t feel like going, that’s all.” He didn’t want to tell her how the boys had acted over the last few days.

Half an hour later the whole group of boys stood on Joe’s front porch, and all of them were grinning from ear to ear.

“Aren’t you coming out to play?” they asked him.

Joe was mystified. For two days they had acted as if they wished he had stayed home, and then when he did stay home they came to get him. He just couldn’t figure it out.

Don Wilder turned to Joe’s mother, “Can Joe come over to my house after lunch?” he asked. “All the other boys are coming. We’re having an unbirthday party?”

“An unbirthday party? She puzzled. “Whatever is that?”

“Oh, it’s when we want to have a party but nobody has a birthday,” Don told her.

Everyone acted happy to have Joe playing on Wednesday morning, and soon he was enjoying the ball game just as much as he ever had. When it was his turn to bat, his first hit went so far that Billy, running for him, got all the way home on it.

Then lunch time came, and they all trooped over to Don’s house. Joe was surprised to find his mother and his little brother there.

“Mrs. wilder came and asked us to come over too,” she explained.

Lunch was spread out on two picnic tables on the lawn. In the centre of each table was a great big cake with candy sticks on top instead of candles.

“That’s because it’s an unbirthday cake,” Don’s mother said. “Since today is everyone’s unbirthday, there won’t be anyone to blow out the candles!”

An unbirthday party was just about like a birthday party, Joe decided. Anyway, it was lots of fun. He was sorry when Mrs. Wilder said there was just one thing more to do before the party was over. She asked Joe to come up the front and be ‘it.’ Then she blindfolded his eyes.

“Now hold out your hands,” someone told him. He felt something smooth and cool in his hands. It felt like a small glass jar. He wondered what the game was. The jar didn’t feel too heavy.

Someone pulled the blindfold off, and Joe looked at the jar. It seemed to be stuffed with paper money. All the boys began to laugh and cheer. Joe didn’t get the joke.

“It’s for you,” Don said, “For a new brace, so you can run in our ball games yourself!”

“We’ve been saving our money and earning extra.” Billy said. “We were going to wait until your birthday, but we decided you were ready to get the brace right now, so we would have to have an unbirthday party instead. And, boy, we could hardly get it planned with you hanging around so close!”

Joe grinned. So that was what all the secret talk had been about! His mother and little brother were smiling too. “I thought you were mad at me or something,” Joe told the boys, “the way you always stopped talking when I came near. But, wow, this is the nicest unbirthday I have ever had in all my life!”