There was a chocolate cake on the kitchen counter. Hugo watched as Grandma Ruthie stuck little blue sticks in the cake. Then, to his surprise, she struck a match and lit those blue sticks.
“Boone!” Hugo whispered. “Why is she setting that cake on fire?”
“Those are birthday candles, Hugo,” Boone whispered back.
As Grandma Ruthie carried the cake with the lit candles over to the table, she sang the birthday song. You all know the song, but Hugo and Nogg didn’t, so they faked it as best they could, and by the time they had figured out the words, it ended.
Grandma Ruthie put the cake down in front of Boone and placed a different sort of Human spoon beside it. This one was shaped like a triangle with a long handle. It looked a lot less dangerous than the spaghetti spoon. Now, you and I both know that the triangle spoon was actually a cake server, but Sasquatches don’t have such things, so of course Hugo wouldn’t know that.
Boone closed his eyes. Then he just sat there like that, not moving or saying anything.
“Boone?” Hugo whispered.
Boone didn’t answer.
“Boone? Are you sleeping?” Hugo was anxious to start eating the cake. He had barely eaten any of the spaghetti and after the long walk through the woods, his belly was feeling very empty and rumbly.
“I’m not sleeping, Hugo. I’m just thinking of a wish,” Boone replied, his eyes still closed.
Hugo eyed the cake. “I can help you think of one,” Hugo offered.
“I have to think of it myself,” Boone told him.
Hugo sighed, but only in his head. While he waited for Boone to think of his wish, he picked up the triangle spoon to examine it.
“Okay, I know what I’ll wish for!” Boone said suddenly. He opened his eyes and blew out all the candles with one big breath.
After Boone plucked the candles out of the cake, he noticed that Hugo was holding the server. Boone slid the plate of cake toward Hugo.
“Go ahead,” Boone said. “You can do the honors.”
Hugo looked down at the beautiful cake.
“Are you sure?” he asked Boone.
“Why not?”
Hugo smiled. “Here goes,” he said. He plunged the triangle spoon into the middle of the cake, scooped out a nice big chunk, and put it in his mouth.
The triangle spoon worked much better than the spaghetti spoon. In fact, it fit his mouth so perfectly, he wondered why Sasquatches didn’t have spoons like that, too.
When I get back home, he thought to himself, I am going to mention this to Mom.
Hugo took another spoonful of cake, and then another, all the while wishing that his cake was just a little bit bigger. Then he remembered his manners and stopped to wipe some frosting off his chin. That’s when he noticed that no one else at the table had any cake in front of them. Not only that, but Boone and Grandma Ruthie were staring at him with shocked looks on their faces.
“Isn’t anyone else going to have birthday cake?” Hugo asked them.
“Well, we were planning to,” Grandma Ruthie said in an annoyed voice.
Hugo looked over at the kitchen. He didn’t see any other cakes there. Then he looked down at his own cake.
“Is this . . . ?” he asked in a small, horrified voice.
“Yes, that’s the birthday cake,” Grandma Ruthie said. “The only birthday cake.”
“But it was so small that I just thought . . .” Hugo said.
Sasquatches have tremendous appetites, especially when it comes to cake. On their birthdays, everyone gets their very own cake. It would never have occurred to Hugo that the puny little Human birthday cake was supposed to be shared.
“It’s fine, Hugo,” Boone said, though Hugo could tell that he was disappointed.
“It’s not fine. I ate your birthday cake!” Hugo’s eyes were welling up.
Grandma Ruthie couldn’t stay irritated for long and said, “Now, now, we can’t have tears at a birthday party. Never mind, it’s just cake, and cake is a silly thing to cry about.”
That was when Boone made his first command as King for a Day.
“I hereby declare that we go up to my tree house!”
So that’s exactly what they did.
