My Sweet Sixteen Surprise

Bending over a pad of a paper, I sat on the couch, busily scratching away a letter I was writing as Constance Phelps, the character I'm going to play in our co-op's annual production. Creeping into the corners, yellowed light crawled over the expanse of the floor. My parents reclined at a desk, conversing with each other.

"Do you think we should tell her?" Mom said, looking at Dad. He nodded a slow, casual consent.

"Tell me what?" I asked.

She turned to look at me. "We planned a little surprise for your sweet sixteen...do you want to know what it is or do you want to be surprised?"

I wasn't sure. What do you say? If it's a surprise, then don't you want to, well...be surprised? At the same momen, however, I was held captive by an insatiable curiosity.

"Just let me guess," I finally said.

I guessed quite a few things- Jonas Brothers tickets (well, Dad DID use the hint JB in D, and by doing so claimed that for my surprise we were going to drive past the Jonas Brothers' new house in Dallas, since we were staying there at the time), Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (which came from Broadway to a local theater last week), The Phantom of the Opera (based on another of Dad's silly clues- POTO), Broadway, New York City, etc. THEN they proceeded to tell me that all of those things were indirectly related...hmmmm...sounded interesting!!!!!

"The Jollys are coming?" I finally said.

They looked at each other knowingly, making noises that communicated to me my little hunch was correct!

Saying she had been wondering how to make my birthday one that I'd remember, Mom proceeded to tell me that she thought to contact Mrs. Jolly and ask if the girls could come down. But...ssssshhhhhh! They couldn't tell- it was supposed to be a surprise!

That very day, Ellen, whose birthday is six days before mined, had been texting me, saying that it was our b-days soon and stuff like that. Completely unaware that my mother had similar intentions, I suggested that we celebrate our birthdays together. Mom said that my telling her this compelled her even further to e-mail the Jollys.

On Thursday, Ellen saw the e-mail. Calling to her mom, she asked her if they could do it. Ten minutes later, while on the phone with Mr. Jolly, she gave Ellen a thumbs up!

"I was in shock for like five minutes!" Katie exclaimed as she retold how Ellen had dragged her out of the schoolroom to tell her the news.

So now I sat in a Dallas hotel room, a huge smile tilting the corners of my lips as I absorbed everything Mom and Dad told me. It was unbelievable. Things the girls and I had been talking about but had pretty much written-off as impossible were coming true in an instant! For example, this time they'll be staying for not five days, or six days, but TEN WHOLE DAYS!!!! Also, we had for almost a year been hoping without much hope that they could come to the Spring Ball, which is a Christianized, family-oriented version of the prom that our co-op puts on every year for the teens and their parents. We're all totally excited for that, since going to the Hoedown AND the Ball was initially a "no" for the girls- and now we're all talking about possibly getting up-dos done from someone we know who does 'em cheap!

And perhaps the icing on the cake for me is the movie. Katie and I have a dream of becoming actresses and starring in movies together. And now, we have that opportunity- on a sort of smaller scale, but it's an opportunity nonetheless. The assistant director for our co-op's play sent out an e-mail to everyone saying she was in charge of getting a group of people together to do a local movie shoot. I've been trying to get Bekah to do it for a while, but she wasn't sure. It was kind of disappointing to know that no one I was super close with was going to be on set. And, then....

"I talked to Mrs. Furnish and arranged for them to do the movie," Mom announced.

By then, I wanted to scream. The whole thing was unbelievable! For months, all of these things had been simply dreams to the girls and I- right down to the very time slot being considered and like the exact number of days we had wanted to hang out together (10-14, we had been saying). And now, within a few days, they were all coming true!!!!

So the fearsome foursome (Bekah's stayin' too. She absolutely FREAKED when I told her!!!) will be complete once more. Thanks so much, Mom and Dad! You guys made my- year!!!