Birthday Mishaps

 

In another two days it would be Miriam’s birthday.  She was very excited.  She would be ten years old.  Miriam was born on the second day of the second month of 1986.

Close to every birthday Miriam would get injured in some way.  For her eighth birthday, she broke a finger.  Near her ninth birthday she badly bruised both knees.  Now as her tenth birthday approached, she thought, “Nothing must happen to me this time.”

She was sitting on the side of the bed when suddenly something dropped on her skirt.  Miriam jumped from the bed and ran out of the bedroom.  Next she was holding the little toe on her right foot.  She howled in pain as she examined the toe that was now twice its normal size.  Who would believe it?  A little lizard was largely responsible this time.

“Miriam,” her mother joked, “seems like it is not a wise thing for you to have birthdays.”  

Stewart Russell © 1999