It was the beginning of a new, glittering summer in 2012, when I first suspected that something unusual was about to happen. My eleventh birthday was only a few weeks away, and there had been too many suppressed giggles and ecstatic chatterings for me to assume that this was any normal birthday. I am not the type of person who would literally try to ruin surprises, but when that inevitable curiosity creeps up inside me, I feel like an overinflated balloon. It is difficult not to burst.

One morning before my birthday, Mom easily told my siblings and I to go outside and wait for her in the car. She is good at keeping secrets, and I got no hint of a surprise. My two younger sisters, however, ran out the door exploding with laughter, and I followed suspiciously. The air smelled sweet of June, and I could hear the echoing ring of cackling hens as they fought over nesting boxes. I got into the car, and by then Mom had come out. She started the car and we drove off. When my youngest sister threatened to betray the birthday secrets, Mom intervened. She told me that we were going to get two goats, and that one of them was going to be mine. I had wanted goats ever since I had seen them at the zoo when I was five. The goats were a total surprise.

When we pulled into the driveway at the breeder’s house, the breeder came up to greet us. The air was sweet and warm. The skirt of my cotton dress blew gently in the wind, which carried the sound of maaing goats.The breeder’s daughter gave me the baby goat to hold, and her sharp hooves bit into my sleeveless arms. Her fur was softer than kitten fur, and as I stared at her cloud blue eyes, she looked at mine.

We couldn’t take the two goats (who were mother and daughter) home with us that very day, because the baby goat had a brother that still needed to be weaned. I longed to bring the baby goat and her mother home, where I could go out almost any time to see them. During those next few weeks, my dreams at night were of goats and I thought of those two almost all of the time. Then, one day, we got to bring the goats home for ourselves. The registration paperwork was filled out, and, at last, the goats were ours. Today we have more goats, and I still love them, just as I did then. But when I think of that birthday… What a Surprise!