You Did Not Invite Me To Your Birthday Party

Angry Face is so Angry with Pink Face, I gesture for her to sit in the chair the farthest from my chair. She glares at me hard, stomps over and plunks her butt down in my cushy office chair. I’m a counselor, I’m trained not to care that I have to sit on the two inch hard blue chair. Pink Face is shocked. She looks at me to see whether I’m going to do anything about it. I’m not. “Or there,” I say with gusto, as if it was my idea. Angry Face glares at me harder now. It takes every fiber of my being not to stick my tongue out or give her the bird, but I’m Trained to be an adult, so I try my best to remember that as my butt is yelling, “Kick her Out of our chair!” at the top of butt’s lungs. “So, I say to Pink Face sweetly, “What is the problem here?” Pink Face professes not to know. “Are you and Karla friends?” I ask her. She nods; then turns white after getting a little I-hate-you-glance from her friend Karla. “So you have no problems with Karla, and you want to be friends,” I reiterate, trying to ignore the fact that Karla is playing on my computer now, with her back to us. Pink Face, known to her teacher as Shamaz says, “I can’t think of anything. She just stopped talking to me, and told me she hates me and stuff.” My my I think. I would certainly want to be her friend. We have to fix this. “Karla, it’s your turn,” I say sweetly, “You need to turn around here. Karla has been in my office a lot, she knows I always wins, so she turns. Her face does not seem as angry now that she’s watched the little Mr. Bill video on U-tube on my computer. “What problem do you have with Shamaz?” I say.”We would like to fix this.” She will not tell for a long time, at last two minutes, getting a bit of satisfaction at how uncomfortable she is making her good friend Shamaz. I refuse to talk too. Karla and I have had standoffs up to ten minutes, and we both know I always win. “Why don’t you go over there and draw a picture or something, while Karla decides when she wants to talk,” I tell Shamaz. This makes Karla furious, because if there is anyone who is usually drawing a picture in my room with my ten thousand colors, it is usually Karla who loves it. She cannot stand the idea of any other child using her colors. “I’m ready!” she says. Shamaz stops mid walk, comes back and sits down. “SHE did not invite me to her birthday party!” Shamaz yells. I look at Shamaz. “Is this true?” Shamaz shakes her head no. “I’m not having a birthday party.” “Not this year!” Karla yells. My eyes have to paste themselves into place so they will not roll because it’s Karla, and she’s hyper-vigilant about the rolling of the eyes, which indicates she is being ridiculous again. Pink Face looks surprised. “What birthday party?” Karla says, “You know the one!” I can tell by Shamaz’s demeaner that she truly does not know. After a bit of babying and coaxing we get down to the bottom of it. It was a birthday party Shamaz’s mother threw for her when she was five and Karla had not been invited. Well, I can certainly see why that came up now. Them being 6th graders and all. This my friends, is my life as a school counselor. In the end, they sat at my kiddy table talking laughing and drawing pictures together. I do not think the colors were shared, however.