On Turning Twelve

“What do you want for your birthday?” Mom asked about two weeks before my birthday.

“A dog.” I knew the answer but, just like every year, asked anyway. I figured requesting the impossible bettered my chances of getting the next thing on the list.

“You know we can’t have a dog. What’s your second choice?” Mom asked.

“Sidewalk skates. White ones.”

“Is that all?”

“Yeah, that’s all.”

The year I turned twelve, my birthday fell on a Friday, my favorite day of the week. When I got home from school, Mom baked a strawberry cake and decorated it with pink frosting.

“Stop sticking your finger in it!” I shoved my eight-year-old brother.

“Mom! She pushed me!” he complained.

“Don’t push. And you…“ She gave my brother a warning glance. I sneered at him. He stuck out his tongue.

After dinner, we gathered around the cake. Dad snapped pictures while Mom lit the candles. “I wanna blow,” my little sister, Lisa, said.
“Okay, you help me blow.”

Everyone sang Happy Birthday, and then Lisa and I blew out the candles. I looked around with an expectant air. “What’s wrong?” Mom asked.

“Aren’t there any presents?”

“Oh, yes, presents. I’ll be right back.”

She returned, lugging a box that appeared much too heavy to contain skates.

“There you go.”

I stared at the box, sizing it up. My heart fluttered with anxiety. Unless they were playing a trick by using a much-too-large box, there were no sidewalk skates in this huge package.

What could be so heavy and require such a huge box? A puppy! I put my ear to the box, but no whimpering or whining emerged.

“Well, open it,” Dad said.

“Okay.” I ripped away the bright wrapping paper to reveal a plain brown box. Dad took out his pocket knife and cut away the packing tape. I looked inside at a set of books. They had that wonderful new-book smell, but they weren’t skates and they weren’t a puppy.

“Encyclopedias,” Mom said.

“I want encyclopedias!” my sister shouted in typical younger-sister fashion.

No, you don’t, I thought.

“Thank you,” I said and forced a smile.

“Hey, what’s this box on the floor?” Dad leaned over, reached under the table and emerged with another present.

Lisa’s eyes lit up. “Is that one for me?”

“No, honey, it’s for your big sister,” Mom said.

I wasted no time removing the paper and getting the second thing on my list: sidewalk skates.

The next morning, I skated up and down the sidewalk next to our apartment. Mom called me inside. Though the cold February wind had left my cheeks raw, I didn’t want to stop.

“But I want to skate,” I complained.

“Your dad wants to take a drive out to the country.”

We piled into the car. My dad knew a lot of people that we often visited. I always hoped there were kids or animals. Usually there were neither.

We pulled up in front of an old farmhouse, and my interest piqued when I saw the big Collie dog.

My enthusiasm waned when we stepped from the car, and I watched it disappear inside the barn.

The farmer and his wife approached.

Dad introduced them as Mr. and Mrs. Peterson.

We all said our ‘helloes’. “What’s your dog’s name?” I asked.

“Her name is Fancy,” said Mrs. Peterson.

We followed them inside and they showed us around the small farmhouse. Mrs. Peterson pointed out the size of the rooms and how many closets there were. I couldn’t understand why she thought we needed to know these things.

After our tour of the house, we went back outside. Dad talked with Mr. Peterson while his wife went to the barn to try and coax the dog from her hiding spot. I followed close behind, hoping to catch a glimpse of the shy creature.

“I don’t know why she’s so shy,” Mrs. Peterson said as she gave up and we rejoined the others in front of the house.

She explained that she and her husband were planning to retire and wanted to move to town. I had lived all of my life either in the city or in town. Looking around at the fields, the old barn to explore and the river to the north, I couldn’t imagine a more perfect place to live.

Dad approached with the farmer and we all gathered around to listen to their conversation.

Mr. Peterson smiled at me, his deep-set blue eyes sparkling. He turned to my dad. “So if you don’t mind, I think I’ll just leave her here. She wouldn’t be happy in the city with all the people around.”

I couldn’t figure out who he planned on leaving behind, or why he seemed to need my dad’s permission to do so.

“Well, we’ll take really good care of her,” my dad said. I looked at my brother. He shrugged and shook his head.

My brother and I knew better than to butt in when adults were speaking. My sister had no such qualms and, because she was so cute, could get away with it. “Who you leaving behind?” she asked.

“Fancy is going to stay here on the farm with you,” said Mrs. Peterson.

My heart pounded in my chest and I felt like shouting for joy.

“That all right with you, sis?” Dad asked me.

As the realization that this farm would be my home and I would finally have a dog sunk in, I could no longer contain myself. I leapt into the air and shouted, “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

Everyone laughed.

A few months later, we moved to the farm. The wait felt like a year.

When we arrived, it took me weeks to gain Fancy’s confidence. My patience paid off, however, and once I gained her trust, she followed me everywhere.

She continued to hide in the barn whenever a car pulled in the drive, but I worked with her every day and by the end of that summer, she conquered her fear of strangers.

There were no sidewalks, but the barn had a concrete floor. My brother and I moved everything to the side walls and skated around our personal roller rink. Dad put a basketball goal on the side of the barn and we played ‘Horse’ and ‘Around the World’ every evening until the sun set.

The year of my twelfth birthday was the year this country girl found her home.





I was born in Chicago and, until that summer, had lived either in the city or in a town. Moving to the country felt like stepping into one of James Herriot’s books. We had chickens, cats, dogs, pigs, and a horse. For a city girl that always dreamed of living in the country, it was heaven on earth.