Birthday Boy

Also, he thought, looking at the numbers on the clock by his bedside – 10.24 – it’s still my birthday! For another hour and thirty-six minutes! What am I thinking of, going to sleep?

No – he also thought – I should be up, doing birthday stuff!

So Sam got out of bed. And tried on his trainers. And ran on the spot with them for a little while. Then he stood on his skateboard, which was great: his parents had splashed out on it – it was exactly the one he wanted, a flexiboard, customised with cool silver wheels and the right trucks and everything.

It would have been more fun to ride on it outside, obviously, but even in his quite small bedroom Sam was able to do some 360s and some frontside flips. Then he got Spock the guinea pig out of his cage, and did some more 360s, but this time with the guinea pig balanced on his head. The guinea pig didn’t look that keen on this. In fact, he looked down at his new master with quite a strong sense of, “If it’s all going to be like this, I’m going to be escaping to Peru. Which is where guinea pigs come from. In case you don’t know. Which I get the impression you don’t.”

(He had a pretty expressive face for a guinea pig, Spock. Which made him somewhat different, it has to be said, from the original Spock.)

Then, he – Sam, not Spock – ate some of the leftover marshmallow from the cake that his mum had brought up on a plate. Then he read the first few chapters of Demon Dentist, which was very funny.

After thirty pages, Sam looked over at the clock, which said, now, 11.55pm. He still, amazingly, didn’t feel that tired. What he did feel was a bit sad. Mainly, he felt a bit sad that his birthday was ending, officially, now. He sat up, and said to Spock, who was lying on his chest – had, in fact, tumbled down into his lap as a result of him sitting up – “Oh, Spock! I wish it was my birthday every day.”

Spock looked up at him with quite a strong sense of, “I wish I could live in a cage made out of parsley, but we can’t have everything.”

Just at that point, though, a light fell across the room. Sam looked up to see that the source of the light was beyond his bedroom curtains. Moonlight.

Aha! he thought. If I can see moonlight, the clouds must have parted. And, if the clouds have parted, I can use my telescope!

So Sam got out of bed and moved over to the window. He drew the curtains, and looked out.

He was right. It was no longer a cloudy night. Noam Chomsky House stood on a hill, and the road from it ran down, after a few miles, to the river that wound through the city. Sometimes, when – like now – the sky was clear and the moon came out, Sam could see all the way to the river (even without a telescope); he could even see the reflection of the moonlight on the water, lighting up a small tree-filled island that sat between the banks.

But Sam wasn’t interested in looking down at the water. He wanted to look up at the sky. He wanted to look up at the sky through his telescope, and see the stars and the moon. All of which were suddenly out.

He put his eye to the lenspiece at the bottom end of the telescope. It was hard to see anything – all he could make out, in fact, was what appeared to be three or four massive spider legs, which at first, excitedly, he thought must be aliens but then realised were just his eyelashes. Gradually, though, his vision got used to it, and then he could see the moon!

All white and shining and pockmarked, like Grandpa Sam’s face (although that was only the pockmarked bit, as Grandpa Sam’s face was sort of leathery and brown, and, though friendly, very rarely shining).

“I can see the moon, Spock!” he said to Spock, who was now on the floor, by his cage. Spock looked back at him with quite a strong sense of, “When you can see a planet made of parsley, let me know. Meanwhile, open my house, please.”

When Sam turned back to the telescope, though, he couldn’t see the moon through it any more. This was a thing about telescopes: even small eye movements meant that you could end up a long way from what you’d been looking at before. He scanned right, left, up and down, but couldn’t see where the moon had gone – and then—

What was that? A spaceship? It was black, and oblong, and had a series of enormous flickering green numbers on the front of it …

… Oh. It was his clock. Made to look much bigger and more spaceship-ey because he was seeing it through the telescope. He’d turned the thing all the way round, away from the window, and was looking back towards his bed.

Feeling a little silly, Sam began to move the telescope back round again. But not before noticing that the time was about to turn – the 59 of 11:59 had been there for a while – to midnight. And then his birthday really would be properly over. He sighed, shook his head and looked through the lenspiece for one last sight of the stars.

And then he saw it.

CHAPTER 5 (#ulink_91680747-842a-51b4-b965-07c6abb3917e)

WHEN YOU WISH UPON A STAR (#ulink_91680747-842a-51b4-b965-07c6abb3917e)

A shooting star! A really big one, tearing up the sky! Through the telescope, it looked amazing, like a comet, or a rocket, or a firework. And it didn’t just go in a split second, like shooting stars do: no. It stayed travelling across the night sky for what seemed like ages, in a long arc from one end of the horizon to the other.

It was astonishing, beautiful. Sam couldn’t believe he was the only person in the world seeing it: surely NASA, or Jodrell Bank, or Brian Cox, or someone from the Star Wars Resistance, was also watching. But he didn’t think about that for too long, because – while the star was still shooting across his vision – he remembered what his mum had said.

You can wish upon a star. You should wish upon a star.

Sam wasn’t superstitious. In fact, he had been pretty tongue-in-cheek about it when saying to his mum, just as she was putting him to bed, “Does that actually work?” But this was different. This was a star so bright, and so fast, and so present in the sky that it really did feel to him that it might be magical.

And so – he wasn’t to know this, because he was looking through the telescope – on the stroke of midnight (it wasn’t actually a stroke: it was a small, almost silent click, as 11:59 became 12:00 on his clock) – he said, out loud, towards the star:

“I wish it could be my birthday every day!”

At which point the star seemed to burst into even greater light – it seemed to glow, extra-brightly, for a second – and then it fell from the sky, straight down. Sam tried to follow it with his telescope, and for a moment he could, even though it was travelling really quickly. This star looked as if it was on a mission to come to Earth! Or as if someone had shot it out of the sky! Perhaps, unbeknownst to Sam, his telescope was mounted with a laser beam that had blasted into the heart of it!

Unfortunately, these thoughts got in the way, and meant that Sam couldn’t track the journey of the star all the way down. It appeared – but this couldn’t be right – to land in the middle of the river, either in the water itself, or maybe on one of the islands. Sam could see one of these through the telescope. But it was dark, and covered in trees, and definitely not lit up by a falling celestial object.

Sam lifted his eye from the lenspiece. He looked around. Nothing, it had to be said, very magical appeared to have happened. His room, with its posters of the Starship Enterprise and Battlestar Galactica, was the same. On the floor stood his new skateboard, and trainers, and book, and guinea pig. Who was looking at him with quite a strong sense of, “Wishing on a star? Who are you – Jiminy Cricket?”

Sam felt a tiny bit disappointed. Not being superstitious, there was no real reason for him to think that wishing on a star would have any effect, but he had somehow felt wishing on this star, being so bright, would mean something. Clearly, he thought, I was wrong there.

Never mind, he thought, and went over, picked Spock up, gave him a quick stroke, opened the cage and put him inside.

“Happy birthday, Sam,” he said to himself, one last time.

Then he realised he was, at last, tired, and so went up his little ladder to his top bunk bed, shut his eyes and fell asleep, immediately.

CHAPTER 6 (#ulink_dc096507-a3ed-5021-8022-55bae07071cc)

BIRTHDAY TWO (#ulink_dc096507-a3ed-5021-8022-55bae07071cc)

KNOCK-KNOCK!

It must be Ruby, Sam assumed. She still got up really early, like little kids do. So he just ignored it.

But then the knock came again. And, to be honest, it sounded a bit too … full, and high on the door, to be Ruby. It sounded like an adult’s knock.

He stretched his arms, and sat up.

“Sam! Sam-my …!” came his mum’s voice, from behind the door.

“Hey, Sam!” came his dad’s voice, as well.

It was his mum. And his dad. So why were they up, and waking him up, so early on a Sunday morning?

Well, there was an easy enough way to find out. Sam got out of bed, climbed down the ladder and opened the door … to see his mum, dad and sister standing there with a tray, on which lay a full English breakfast, a glass of lemonade and a doughnut. Around the plate were eleven candles. Sam looked up, frowning. They were all smiling.

“Happy birthday!” they all said as one.

“Sorry?” said Sam.

“Happy birthday! We’ve made you breakfast in bed!” said Vicky.

“Your favourite! Full English! With lemonade and a doughnut!” said Charlie.