Soapbox

Birthday Surprise

So I’ve got this kid… and , as I believe I have mentioned before, she really likes getting gifts. One week before her 7th birthday, her grandma gave her a box. It was an oval-shaped box, covered in quilted fabric and looked like a very small overnight case. The box had a lock on the front, and two keys attached.
"This is for your birthday, Kathleen." she told her. "The box is for you, and also what is inside- but don’t open it until your birthday!"

I offered to keep the box for her, to reduce the temptation, but Katie wanted it in her room, right beside her bed, so she could gaze upon it. Naturally, however, she was in a fever to know what was inside.

The next morning she was speculating at great length about what it could be, and her father managed, without actually saying it was so, to plant the idea in her head that the contents was alive.

Alive? Impossible, she thought- but she ran up to get the box to check out the possibility.
When she set the box down on the kitchen floor, she said, "You know, it feels heavier than it did last night…"
"Well sure" said Dad. "It put on weight."
"Dad, it can’t be alive. If it was, it couldn’t get any air."
"I think a little air could get in there" I contributed from around the newspaper. "Why don’t you experiment and see? See if you can slip a piece of paper under the lid." When the paper did, in fact, slide under, she decided the idea was worth more investigation.

Katie got another paper and wrote ALIVE? YES/NO on the top. She had already proved that air could get in, so she made a check in the YES column. Then she shook it.
"I don’t hear anything in there…"
"Uh-oh" said Dad. "Now you’ve made it mad, shaking it like that."
"Mad?"
"Well, let’s just say, when you do open it; don’t stand too close, just in case."

Back to the investigation. Something alive would need food, and clearly this could be given no food.
"Maybe there’s food in with it already" Dad suggested.
"Or maybe it’s an egg. You don’t need to feed an egg." her brother added with the glee of an older sibling who’s figured out the joke.
"You know," I said, " With snakes, once you feed them, they don’t need to be fed again for at least a week."
"Eew! Grandma Betty wouldn’t give me a snake! You wouldn’t let me have a snake anyway. Would you?"

No.

Well OK, so the lack of food didn’t rule out it being alive, so another tick went in the YES column. Next she got the toy stethescope from her vet kit and listened.
"It’s not moving, so it’s probably not alive."
One more test to go. She let the dog in the back door and took him over to the box. "Here boy, check this out." He sniffed it once or twice and then headed over to see if there were any Cheerios on the floor under the table.
"Ok, that settles it. If there was something alive in there, Boomer would smell it. This present is definately NOT alive!"
I was impressed with her critical thinking skills. Still, I noticed she handled the box very carefully as she took it back to her room.

"Ted’" I said when she had gone, "Tomorrow while she’s at school, I think I’ll open the box and put something heavy inside. Then the next day, I’ll take it out. That should confuse her a bit."
Ted put down his orange juice. "No no- even better. First put in that sound box you took out of that annoying meowing cat she has. Wrap it up so it’s muffled and stick that in. Then the next day, take it out and put in some pebbles or marbles. It will meow one day and rattle the next!" We laughed until we were nearly in tears at our own cleverness.

But Kathleen turned out to be the most clever one of all. The next morning I unlocked the box and on top of the beautiful hand-made doll clothes inside, I put a rock. (cleaned off, of course.) It doubled the weight of the box. That night I asked her, "Katie, have you had any more ideas about what might be in your box?"
"No, I’ve decided to stop worring about it. I’ll just leave it alone and I’ll find out on my birthday."
And so she did! Fortunately, I remembered to take the rock out before then.
What a smart little girl I have, to rob me of all my fun. Served me right, of course!