Master Twii's youngest student leads him to a room claiming there's an urgent matter that they need help with. When the door slides open to the massive cargo bay, a huge number of his friends, and those he views as family, shout surprise! They were not sure to the exact date of birthday so... close enough, right?
@internutter/challenge-04991-m242-remember-the-fairy-bread -- BKF
There is little more amusing than children attempting to be covert for a benevolent cause. There's an energy in the atmosphere around them, besides the fact that they're almost uniformly terrible at secrets.
Whispering too loud. Obviously going on tippy-toes to sneak around. Hiding things very badly behind their back. Obviously lying about what their stuff was for. And, of course, the Ssh-fights.
"No, you shoosh!" Adi insisted.
Lynn's urgent gesturing as her eyes bugged pointed out Master Twii. Adi finally took the hint and both girls adopted a picture of innocence that had to have been drawn sinister-handed in the dark.
"Who, us?" said Adi. "We weren't doing anything."
Lynn elbowed her. "We need you, Master. There's -aaahhh- there's a thing in-um..." A stage whisper, "Where is it?"
"Cargo hanger fifty-four," supplied Adi in an equally loud whisper. "We're doing it now?"
"We gotta," Lynn managed between clenched teeth. She resumed her act. "Yeah. Uhm. Keit's -uh- stuck!"
"Yeah, stuck," agreed Adi. "You gotta come help. Now." In spite of the pretended urgency, Adi sent an emoji to a group chat via her datareader. "She's gotta be worried we took so long finding you."
"Yeah, we don't want the Havenworlder getting worried," agreed Lynn. "That's real bad."
The hardest part was keeping a straight face as the girls led Twii towards cargo hanger fifty-four. Which was predictably dark.
"Keit? Sound off," prompted Lynn.
"It's now?" said a small voice in the dark.
Adi made a sweeping gesture towards Master Twii and announced, "Du-uh..."
The lights flicked on and a host of people shouted their welcome. Alas, the messaging was unclear on the purpose. Most shouted, "Surprise!" But there were factions behind, "Happy birthday," or, "Have some cake," and a minor group who got completely the wrong message and shouted, "Boo!"
The array of party food was... well... the best thing Twii could say about it was that it was colourful. Out-of-context holidays from various corners of Terran Space were there. Including Christmas, Easter, and Halloween.
Keit, very obviously not stuck anywhere, was on a high perch. "We are here to celebrate Master Twii on what might be his eleventy-eleventh birthday," she announced.
"According to our best research." Added Adi.
Jem handed hir a party hat. "Eat, drink, and be merry," she recited. "For tomorrow we diet."
Which wasn't the phrase either. But it didn't matter. Their assembled hearts were in exactly the right place, and that did.
[Photo by Lidya Nada on Unsplash]
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