b) The time when you failed to remember a friend’s birthday.
Sunlight streamed into my room, peeking through a gap in my pastel coloured curtain. The birds in a tree outside my window were chirping noisily, seemingly determined to keep me awake. I pulled the blanket over my head and covered my ears with my favourite pillow, equally determined to go back to sleep. I squeezed my eyes shut, convinced that sunlight was evil.
An hour later, my determination was as close to the Grim Reaper as the crewmen of a very ancient Mariner. I grudgingly accepted that I wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep and got out of bed, disgruntled at my determination for losing to a bunch of tiny, plump birds. One of the aforementioned tiny, plump birds gave an indignant screech and I winced. Not only did I have a competition with birds and lose, but now I had to suspect that birds were able to read minds. I grunted, unimpressed with my day so far.
Another hour later, I was sitting at the dining table, sipping a hot cup of Milo and squinting at the newspaper, while something nagged at me from the back of my mind; was I forgetting something?
“What’s wrong with your face?” my sister asked me cheerfully, walking into the kitchen.
“Mmphgurghehpyu,” I replied.
“What?”
I removed my mouth from my steaming cup of Milo. “Reading newspaper,” I repeated.
“But that’s like on the other side of the table!”
“Huh,” I said, taking another sip from my cup. “Help me turn the page please?”
“Oh, you’re impossible!” she said, shaking her head as she walked out of the kitchen. “Oh, by the way, Lisa called. She says you owe her something.”
“Oh, so it was her? I was wondering why my dream of frolicking in a field of daisies had the sound of telephones ringing in the background…” I grumbled into my cup. “I am soo gonna call her Mona Lisa for the rest of the month.”
As if on cue, the phone rang. “It’s Lisa!” my sister called, picking it up. I mumbled some incoherent words and took the phone from my sister.
“Ngaahhh,” I said.
“Good morning to you too, you little ray of sunshine!” Lisa’s high-pitched voice chirped happily. “Don’t you sound absolutely gorgeous on this fine, wonderful day?”
“Jabushka.”
“Don’t you ‘it’s too early to be up’ me, young lady! It’s two o’clock! IN THE AFTERNOON. You owe me something!”
“Greyuhh?”
“No, no, no, that was ages ago, silly! You forgot what’s today, didn’t you? That’s it, we’re going out!”
“Ohtenoh…”
“Great! I’ll be there in 15 minutes! See you!” She hung up. I stared at the receiver, convinced my best friend had been a tiny, plump bird in her past life. I turned to see my sister staring at me suspiciously over the rim of my Milo cup.
“It makes me very curious, the way your conversations seem to go…” she said. I shrugged and went up to