the movies, but we did that last year. I want to do something different.”
“How do you celebrate birthdays, Emily?” Mrs. McIntire asked.
Emily thought a moment. “In England, we used to have a tea party and—”
“A tea party!” Molly broke in. “Oooh! That’s perfect! Can we do that for my birthday, Mom?”
“I don’t see why not,” said Mrs. McIntire. “Emily can tell us exactly what to do.”
Emily glowed. “Of course, I haven’t actually had a big birthday party in a long time. Not since the war started, really, because it’s impossible to get sweets and special foods,” she added quickly. “But when I was much younger, I had a party with ten girls. The room was decorated with flowers and ribbons, and we played games and ate lovely treats.”
“Like princesses!” said Molly. “That’s what my birthday party will be: the princesses’ tea party!” Then Molly had a wonderful idea. “Emily, why don’t you share my birthday with me? It will make up for the parties you’ve missed. We’ll have a tea party, and we’ll be the princesses, you and me. We’ll dress up so we’ll look alike and everything. It will be the most wonderful birthday party anyone ever had. What do you think?”
Emily’s cheeks were as pink as posies. “I think it would be very nice indeed,” she said.
Molly knew that was an excited answer, coming from Emily. Emily must be very, very pleased, just as pleased as Molly was herself.
Planning the Party
“You see,” Emily said, “in England we do invitations like this.” Emily pushed her wispy hair behind her ears, hunched over the paper, and wrote
Mrs. James McIntire requests
the honour of your presence at a tea
to celebrate the birthdays of
Miss Molly McIntire and Miss Emily Bennett
Saturday, the twenty-second of April
four o’clock at her home
“That’s wonderful!” said Molly. “It’s so English.”
Emily smiled.
“The only thing is, I’m a little worried because I don’t think any of my friends really drink tea,” said Molly. “So probably we should have cocoa instead.”
Emily said slowly, “In England it’s always real tea. I suppose you could put lots of hot milk and honey in the tea so that your friends will like it.”
“I guess so,” said Molly. “Usually at birthday parties we have cold milk with peanut butter sandwiches or hot dogs. Of course, at Alison Hargate’s party we had ginger ale.”
Emily shook her head. “In England we have tea sandwiches, not peanut butter or hot dogs. Tea sandwiches are very thin, not like American sandwiches. And the crusts are cut off.”
“Well, that sounds okay,” said Molly. “What’s in the sandwiches?”
“Meat paste or watercress,” said Emily.
“Meat paste?” asked Molly. “What’s that?”
Emily explained. “It’s a paste sort of like peanut butter, only it’s made out of ground-up meat. Maybe ham or liver.”
“Liver?” said Molly, horrified. “I don’t think my friends will like that.”
Emily sighed. “I suppose we could have just bread and butter…”
“Butter is rationed,” said Molly. “It will have to be bread and margarine.”
“Very well,” said Emily.
“Anyway,” said Molly, “everyone mostly just eats the ice cream and cake at a birthday party.”
“In England we don’t have ice cream at tea,” said Emily.
“No ice cream? Not even when it’s a birthday tea party? You just have plain old cake?” Molly asked.
“Oh, no, indeed!” said Emily. “Not plain cake. At a tea party you’d have something special. Let’s see,” she thought. “It’s not proper to have treacle pudding at tea. You’d have little cakes or a tart. Yes, I think probably a tart. A lemon tart.”
“Wait a minute,” said Molly. She wasn’t absolutely sure what a lemon tart was, but she didn’t like the sound of it. “Are you saying we’ll have a lemon tart instead of a regular cake?”
Emily said, “Yes.”
“But—but what do you put the candles in?” Molly sputtered. “And what do you write Happy Birthday on?”
Emily didn’t answer.
“Listen, Emily,” said Molly. “My very favorite birthday thing, I mean what I myself like the best, is a big layer cake. It’s not a birthday without a cake. And Mrs. Gilford has even saved enough of our cocoa ration for chocolate frosting this year. I know you’ll like it.” Emily didn’t say anything, so Molly went on, “Maybe we could make the cake look English. We could make it in the shape of a castle or something…” Her voice trailed off. The two girls sat in stony silence.
At last Molly said, “What if we have an American cake, but all the rest of the food is English?”
“Then it wouldn’t be a proper English princesses’ tea at all,” said Emily.
“Yes, it would,” said Molly.
“No,” said Emily briskly, “it would not.”
“Okay, okay,” said Molly. “As long as you’re sure that’s what the princesses would have.”
“Oh, yes,” said Emily. “I’m sure.”
“Then let’s go tell Mom about the food,” Molly said to Emily. But to herself she said, Margarine sandwiches, milky tea, and a lemon tart. Maybe this tea party was not such a hot idea after all.
But all the girls at school thought the tea party sounded absolutely wonderful. All week long, while they were playing jump rope and dodgeball and hopscotch in the fresh spring sunshine, all anyone talked about was “Emily’s tea party.”
“How
