One lovely, fall Saturday in 1967, Birdie was laying breakfast out for herself and her father. Like for most families, Saturday breakfast was an opportunity for them to indulge. On the table were chocolate chip pancakes, bacon, scrambled eggs, and toast as well as a cup of coffee for her father and a glass of chocolate milk for herself.
“Good morning, sweetheart,” Crimson Finch greeted his daughter as he walked into the dining room.
“Morning, Daddy.” The two of them exchanged kisses before seating themselves at their small table. Then, Birdie and Mr. Finch both helped themselves to some of everything on the table and began to eat.
“Mmm, this is really good,” Crimson exclaimed after taking a bite of pancake. “It’s amazing how much you were able to learn more or less on your own.”
“Daddy, you give me too much credit,” Birdie refuted. “I couldn’t have learned how to cook without the ladies from church teaching me.”
“Oh, I know. It’s just that I can’t believe my little girl is growing up so fast. Come the spring, you’ll be out of high school.”
Birdie frowned slightly and sighed at the mention of graduating from high school.
“I just wish I knew what I’m supposed to do next,” she replied.
“Well, darling, what do you want to do?” her father asked.
“Way too much,” she muttered. “I can’t decide if I want to teach music or...” She trailed off, unsure whether to tell her father what she was actually thinking.
“Or what?”
“Or,” she hesitated and then continued, “or try to make it in Broadway.”
“Broadway? You mean, like...”
“Yeah, like Mama did.”
For a while, neither father nor daughter said anything. Finally, Birdie opened her mouth and spoke.
“Daddy, I know what people say about me,” she said. “They say I’ll end up just like her if you let me sing and join theater, and if anybody finds out that I want to go to New York, they’ll only say that more, but I can’t help but want to try anyway.”
Crimson didn’t reply.
He frowned and took a long sip of his coffee before saying, “Birdie, I’m about to ask you something, and I want you to tell me the truth. Don’t tell me what you think I want to hear. Just be completely honest with me. Which one do you want to do more?”
“W-well,” Birdie began, “I’m not sure. Honestly, I’d be happy with either one. The most complicated part of choosing is that on top of all that I still want Lionheart to be in my life, but I have no idea where in my plans he’s supposed to fit, and I don’t know where in his plans I’m supposed to fit.”
“You and Lionheart haven’t talked about what the two of you are going to do after graduation?” Crimson asked, his eyes suddenly widening.
“No, graduation felt so far off, and the two of us just wanted to enjoy being together without worrying about anything. Should we have talked about it?”
Crimson’s eyes were still wide, and he suddenly turned his eyes towards his plate and became very quiet.
When he looked up and met his daughter’s eyes again, he said somberly, “Sweetie, you and Lionheart might need to talk about it sooner rather than later. I know graduation still feels far away, but it’ll be here before you blink, and the two of you might not have much more time to talk about it.”
Birdie stared at her father quizzically and asked, “Daddy, do you know something about my boyfriend that I don’t?”
Meanwhile at Lionheart’s house, he and his family were also gathered around the table for breakfast. Like Birdie’s family, they had bacon and eggs laid out on the table. Ms. Magnolia had also made everyone one bowl of rice porridge each, and Tigress had an addition of her own to the table.
“Sis, is this another one of your weird experiments?” Lionheart asked, eyeing what looked like normal steamed buns suspiciously.
“Just try it. I really think I’ve got a winner this time,” Tigress retorted.
“That’s what you say about all of them, and sometimes, you couldn’t be more wrong like that time you tried to stuff a sweet potato casserole into a mooncake.”
“Not this time,” his sister huffed. “Besides, those sweet potato and marshmallow mooncakes weren’t that bad."
“They exploded, and the whole tray was covered in a hot, brown goo.”
While the siblings stared each other down, their father took a bun out of the steamer and bit into it.
“Mmm, did you put breakfast sausage in these?” Ram Horn asked Tigress.
“And cheese,” she affirmed. “It worked out pretty good didn’t it.”
“I would have never thought of doing anything like this, but it actually works,” Ram agreed, finishing his bun and reaching for a second one.
“Maybe when I’m older, I can open up a bakery or a café and sell them and all my other winners.”
“Sis, I’d hate to put a damper on you, but are you sure something like that would work out?” Lion asked as he took and bit into a steamed bun. “I mean, you can make some pretty tasty stuff. I’ll admit that much. The hard part about making things no one has tried before is convincing other people to actually try them.”
“Well, maybe I’ll have that figured out by the time I’m older. I’m not older yet.”
Their discussion was interrupted by the sound of a doorbell ringing.
“Shì shéi a?” asked Ms. Magnolia as she got up to answer the door. “Ah, Birdie, how are you? Qǐng jìn. Did you eat?”[1]
“Yes, ma’am, I ate before I came here,” Birdie replied as she entered. That statement was only partially true. She had actually run out of her house and made a beeline for Lionheart’s, leaving her breakfast half-eaten. “I just needed to talk to Lionheart about something.”
Ms. Magnolia led Birdie into the dining room, unaware of the anger simmering underneath Birdie’s smile. Birdie entered and locked eyes with Lionheart, glaring at him intensely. Lionheart just stared back in confusion while his father and younger sister obliviously continued to enjoy breakfast.
“We need to talk,” Birdie said to her boyfriend.
Lion swallowed whatever he had been chewing earlier and replied, “Okay? About what?”
“When were you planning on telling me that you’re going to volunteer for the army?!” Birdie suddenly shrieked.
Lionheart’s eyes went wide, and his jaw dropped. He wanted to say something, anything to her, but all he could do was continue staring at her while he gaped like a fish. How did Birdie even find out about that? When he stopped staring at Birdie long enough to look around the table, he saw that his parents were giving him the same dumbfounded stare that he had been giving Birdie earlier.
“You told Mr. Finch that I was planning on volunteering for the army?!” Lion exclaimed.
“And you didn’t tell Birdie?” Ram Horn retorted before returning to his breakfast.
“Was I supposed to?”
“Āiyā! Érzi!” Ms. Magnolia exclaimed. “You were just going to join ahmy without telling your girferend?”
“No, of course not! I was going to tell her. Eventually.”
“You ter her now. Go!”
Lionheart hesitated, looking from his girlfriend to his breakfast to his sister.
“We won’t let Tigress eat your breakfast,” said Ram.
“Awww!” whined Tigress.
Reluctantly, Lionheart got up from the table and walked with Birdie to the front porch. For a while, the two of them just stood next to each other not saying anything. Birdie simply kept glaring at Lion while Lion fidgeted uncomfortably as he stared back at her. Finally, Lionheart spoke.
“So, I’m guessing your dad told you about me wanting to volunteer for the army,” he said.
“Yes, yes he did,” Birdie replied icily.
“And you’re upset about that.”
“And why wouldn’t I be?! Good grief, Lionheart! What were you thinking? Joining the army while the country is in the middle of a war? What if you actually get shipped out?”
“Birdie, I know I might get shipped out,” Lionheart snapped. “I also know what people are saying about the war, that it’s a waste of time, money, and manpower, and it’s not just the hippies that are saying that anymore, but I can’t explain it. I just have this feeling that maybe I can make a difference out there.”
“Even if you are right about that, any difference you might make is going to come with a price,” Birdie argued. “You could not come home. Even if you do, you might not come back the same.”
“I know. Dad said the same thing when I talked to him,” Lion replied before taking his girlfriend by the hand. “If it makes you feel any better, I promised my parents that I wouldn’t sign up until after I graduate and that I won’t run away from home and lie about my age, so we’ve got time. Besides, even if I don’t volunteer, I might end up getting drafted anyway.”
“You could always find a job that’ll get you an exemption.” Birdie knew there was no point in bringing that up. She could tell by the way Lionheart was looking at her that his mind was made up.
“Birdie, I’m sorry, but this is something I have to do.”
“Ugh!” Birdie cried, pulling away from Lion. “Gosh darn you! Why did you have to be the one thing I wanted to be certain about my future?!”
“Excuse me.”
“Daddy and I were talking about what I was going to do after I graduated,” Birdie explained. “I told him I either wanted to teach music or go to New York.”
“Wait. You want to go to New York?!” Lionheart interrupted.
“Yes! I do! And I have no idea which of those I want to do more! I want to teach because I think it would be really helpful and meaningful, but I also want to make it big on Broadway just for the fun of it. After I thought about it, I realized the one I wanted more is whichever one lets me keep you in my life, but none of that really matters with you leaving, possibly for good, now, does it?!” she screamed, sounding as if she was about to cry.
Lion opened his mouth to say something comforting and reassuring, but nothing came out. All he could do was stare at Birdie and pray that she doesn’t cry because he won’t know what to do if she does.
“Birdie,” he finally uttered with a sigh. He pulled Birdie close to him and wrapped his arms around her. “I, I love you.”
Birdie returned his embrace as tears started flowing from her eyes. She wanted to tell Lionheart that she loved him back, but all she could do was cry into his chest and let him hold her.
Baking was one hobby that not many people knew Flash had, and he was quite good at it too. That was not to say that he didn’t have areas of profound weakness in the skill. He still had a tendency to overmix cake batter resulting in a sweet, crumby brick as opposed to anything worthy of the name cake. His warm hands still made working with pastry quite challenging, and cake decorating still usually ended in a hot mess of broken cake and buttercream. Thankfully, he wasn’t working with any of those media today.
Flash smiled as the smell of butter and almonds filled the home economics classroom, the Baking Club’s usual meeting place. His great-aunt had given his family copies of her and Great-grandma's recipe books as a parting gift over the summer, and he was putting one recipe in particular to good use.
“Oooooh,” exclaimed Pinkie Pie, “are you making your great-grandma's almond cookies again Flash?”
“I sure am,” Flash replied, still smiling. Just then, the timer went off, and shortly after, Flash removed the cookies from the oven and set them on the counter to cool.
“Gee, didn’t you make these last week?” Flash’s friend Derpy Muffins asked.
“Yeah, he did,” agreed Sandalwood, “and last month, he made them every other week, and he made them once the month before that and once the month before that one.”
Derpy and Sandal shared a look with each other before Derpy asked, “Is there a reason why you’ve been making these so many times and why you seem to be making them more often?”
Flash chuckled nervously, the smile on his face faltering a bit, “Oh, come on. Does a guy need a reason to make a recipe more than once?”
Flash did indeed have a reason for making those cookies so often; he just didn’t want to talk about it. The only people outside his family who knew about it were his best friend Micro Chips and their friends Twilight Sparkle and Sunset Shimmer, and Micro was the only one of those three who Flash told willingly.
“Well, no, I guess not,” Derpy replied, “but you didn’t do anything like this last year.”
“A lot can change in a year,” Flash muttered bitterly under his breath. He took a cookie from the tray and bit into it. As the cookie crumbled and filled his mouth with its flavor, a single, heartbreaking thought filled the front of his mind. “This could be the last time my mom ever has these cookies.”
Flash could feel a familiar pressure building behind his eyes as that thought continued to fill his mind.
“Oh, dear God, please no!” he prayed internally. “Please don’t let me break down right here right now in front of other people, please!”
Flash was so focused on trying not to cry that he didn’t notice that Pinkie Pie had been staring at him intently with a pensive look on her face. Suddenly, she began to contort her face into some rather uncomfortable-looking expressions grunting all the while. This confused Flash enough to make him forget about his sadness for a little bit.
“Uh, Pinkie, what are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m trying to make myself cry, but I don’t think it’s working,” Pinkie grunted in reply. She got tired of straining herself and relaxed, saying, “Okay, new plan, I’m going to think of something really, really sad like a sad puppy or a sad kitty or a sad bunny rabbit. Ugh! No, nothing I’m imagining is coming out sad enough.”
“Why are you trying to make yourself cry?” asked Derpy. She, Sandalwood, and the final member of the club Velvet Sky were just as confused as Flash was about Pinkie’s behavior.
“Well, Flash looked like he needed to cry but doesn’t want to, so I thought if he had a crying buddy, he’d be less self-conscious about crying in front of people.”
“I wasn’t about to cry,” Flash denied. The pressure behind his eyes and the frown slowly forming on his face said otherwise.
“Dude, you sure about that?” Sandal asked. “Your face and body language are kinda radiating a whole lot of sad.”
“I’m fine!” Flash shouted, stunning everybody else. “I-I’m fine.”
He turned away from everyone else and slumped forward, resting his elbows on the countertop and covering his face with his hands. Flash Sentry was clearly not fine. His closest friends in the club looked at each other, unsure how to help him but desperately wanting to. Then, Pinkie Pie’s eyes lit up like a lightbulb. She scooted herself closer to Flash, and placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Hey, Flash, I just thought of something really, really, really sad,” she said to him with almost uncharacteristic gentleness. “Do you want me to tell you about it?”
“Whatever,” Flash muttered.
“Okay, what I just thought about is,” Pinkie began, still speaking in that same uncharacteristically soft tone, “my friend’s mom is really, really sick and isn’t getting better, so my friend has been making his mom’s favorite cookies from her childhood because he’s scared that they’re going to be the last time she’s ever going to have them.” Her voice hitched as she continued, “And now, I’m feeling so sad for my friend that I think I might just cry.”
Flash slowly raised his head and turned to Pinkie Pie with a dumbfounded stare.
“Wha-? How did you know?” he cried. He was so confused and utterly surprised that he couldn’t even be upset that Pinkie just essentially revealed his secret to three other people, one of who was a casual acquaintance.
“Oh, just a hunch,” she replied with a sniffle as tears began to leak out of her eyes. Then, suddenly, “WAAAAAAAH!” she bawled, her tears gushing out in waterfalls. “Oh, my gosh! I can’t take it! What you’re going through is just so sad!”
“Yeah,” Flash sighed. “It is.” Unbeknownst to him, a single tear slipped out of his eye. That one tear became two, and before he knew it, he was leaning on the countertop and sobbing. From his left, Pinkie Pie hugged him, still crying. Derpy came in from his right, and Sandalwood gathered the three of them up from behind, the two of them getting a little misty-eyed themselves. Meanwhile, Velvet Sky, who had only joined the Baking Club that year and therefore, was not as close to Flash as the other three, stopped whatever she was doing to look for tissues.