Rosie had been looking forward to her fifth birthday for weeks. She could hardly wait for her party with all her friends. Her excitement grew with each passing day as she helped with the preparations.
Rosie’s mom baked the most delicious cakes in the whole world and loved to try new recipes. It always smelled delicious in their house. For Rosie’s birthday, she was making three different kinds of cakes. A chocolate cake, a cheesecake, and a strawberry shortcake.
Rosie wasn’t sure how she wanted to decorate the house and garden, or how her invitations would look. She did know that she wanted to invite each guest personally. As she rummaged through the drawers in her room looking for inspiration, she found a bag full of brightly colored balloons.
“I know!” she thought. “When I hand out the invitations, I’ll give each of my friends a balloon. That way, when they come to my party, we can blow them up and decorate the yard together.”
Rosie’s mom helped her make the invitations and they delivered them to her friends’ houses that afternoon on the way to pick some fresh strawberries.
The next morning, Rosie’s parents woke her up with a birthday song and a strawberry shortcake with five colorful candles on it. Grandma and Grandpa had already arrived. The table was decorated and covered with beautifully-wrapped presents.
Rosie was very happy. She was especially excited about her new scooter. She went outside to try it out.
She practiced keeping her balance and soon managed to ride the scooter quite well. She was so focused that she lost track of time and was surprised when the first guests started arriving for her party. She showed them her new scooter and demonstrated her new tricks.
Daniel the rabbit had already blown up his purple balloon and was holding it high in the air. The hedgehog had done the same with her red balloon. The mouse brought his yellow balloon. The badger, the fox and the squirrel arrived next, each with their blue, green and orange balloons.
Everyone greeted Rosie, wished her a happy birthday and handed her their gifts. To keep their paws free for the party, Rosie’s friends all tied their colorful balloons to her scooter.
It already had many colorful balloons attached to it when the mouse came to tie up his. Just then, a strong gust of wind caught the balloons and swept the scooter—and Rosie, who had been standing on it—into the air.
The mouse, who had still been tying his balloon’s string was now clinging to the handlebars as they rose higher and higher. Before long, they were above the roof on Rosie’s house.
That’s when they noticed that Daniel had been swept up too! He was hanging onto the back of the scooter and his ears were standing on end out of fear. The hedgehog, who had tried to help keep the scooter and his friends on the ground, was dangling from Daniel’s foot.
Rosie was the first to regain her composure.
“Hold on tight! I’m going to pull you up!” she said as she reached out her hoof to the rabbit and pulled him and hedgehog onto the scooter. Safer than before, the four of them stood on the scooter as it continued to float above the village.
They were able to relax a bit since they were no longer in immediate danger.
“Everything is so beautiful from up here—and tiny!” said the mouse.
“But how are we going to get back down?” the rabbit worried.
Meanwhile, all the party guests were watching anxiously from below. Grandma and Mom were worried they would all fall.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Grandpa.
“We need to think of something!” said Rosie’s dad. The badger, the fox and the squirrel were pacing nervously.
Just then, a tiny sparrow flew past the strange balloonists and noticed that something was wrong. He circled them several times and said, “You don’t look very happy up here. Can I help you?”
“We need to get back to the ground, but I’m not sure how you can help. You’re so small!” said Rosie.
“Just you wait,” said the little sparrow as he puffed up his chest.
With great flourish, he flew toward the red balloon and popped it with his pointed beak. The scooter and its four passengers descended a bit towards the ground. Then he popped the yellow balloon and so on until they finally landed gently in a meadow.
Everyone thanked the sparrow and Rosie invited him to join her birthday party. They all took off towards the rest of the guests who were still quite worried. When they arrived, everyone was relieved no one had been hurt. They all happily returned to the celebration.
When everyone was seated at the table, Rosie said, “I didn’t wish to be a flying piglet for my birthday, but it was the best surprise I could have imagined!”
