Birthday

by Dave Bruggink

My favorite birthday was in fifth grade. I was about three feet tall and I talked in a high pitched voice. I invited a few of my best friends up to my cabin for a birthday party. It wasn't really a party though because all we really did was shoot birds. We had red Ryder B-B guns like in the Christmas story. The battlefield was a small field where the birds flocked. We shot about twenty five birds that day which is a lot for a small fifth grader who is trembling to hold up this gun and is struggling to pull back the lever. The mass graveyard of birds looked like a piece of bubble wrap. I had a blast.

I was having tons of fun until I stopped to think about it. I felt like a Nazi who just gassed a group of Jews. The lump came into my throat and my stomach tightened it was hard to breathe but finally my mom came and yelled time for cake and I felt better.