.... I remember it like it was yesterday...

*singing* "Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday dear Echo, happy birthday to you," sung a group of people, I didn't seem to know. Now that I think about it, I only recognized 4 of the people there: Mother, Father, Penelope and Oscar. Oscar was my older brother. He is 5 years older than me. And Penelope was my best friend. I liked to call her "Peni". After everyone had finished singing, Mother brought over a big cake with candles shaped like the numbers "1" and "0". It was my tenth birthday. Peni's tenth birthday was last year. She is going to turn 11 in November. It's only May. I thought of a wish: a wonderful wish. My wish was I wanted to have the perfect life! I blew out my candles with a quite mighty force, almost knocking the candles over. I thought to myself, "How could suck a young thing have such a powerful force after only 1 breathe?" I honestly wasn't worried about it all too much. Besides, I was known as the little girl with the big voice, so having strong vocal cords and "breathing pipes", as I call them, wasn't surprising.

After we ate some cake, Peni brought over a few presents she had gotten me. Peni always gives me the best gifts. Last year, she gave me 2 new dolls and a 40 dollar gift card for my favorite store, "Pastel Princess Cafe". Technically, it wasn't a store,but it had a gift shop with all the coolest knick-knacks. I opened Peni's gift for me, and I saw that it was a beautiful porcelain doll. She was made in China and had a beautiful cheongsam, with a color scheme of marvelous blues and reds and pinks. I knew that this doll would someday have a very important meaning in my life.

 My brother also gave me a gift. It was also a doll, but this was no ordinary doll. It was a lovely little rag-like doll. I could tell it was hand made and it had a lot of very fine details. Although it had its flaws, it was perfect in my eyes. This doll also became an important part of my life. I loved my brother very much....But it hurts me to think about him to this day... Oh, how I miss him...

Later that night, when I went home, I put my brother's doll on my bed and Peni's doll on my nightstand. I laid in bed, wondering if my wish will come true. I hoped so. Not that there was anything in particular that had been bothering me so much that I had to change my everyday life, I just thought that having a perfect life would be so amazing. Honestly, it was nearly impossible for me to imagine a perfect life...It was too great to even think about it being true. Besides, I might have been only 10, but I still had enough sense to be able to tell fiction from reality. Finally, I had fallen asleep. It felt as though I would never wake up...