Ellie stood before her new castle with eyes wide and mouth open. There'd been many times when she'd ballooned her cheeks like a chipmunk and held her breath while her brother counted off the seconds, but she'd never been as breathless as she was now.
"Is it really mine?" she whispered.
Ellie's father placed his hands on her shoulders and stared up at the playhouse castle with her. He squeezed her shoulders lightly and leaned down to speak softly into her ear. "All yours."
He released his grip and expected her to scamper up the rocks into her new world of make-believe. Instead, she stood still a moment longer and then ran the other way, back into the house. Ellie's father waited, then shrugged. His daughter was never predictable.
Ellie raced out of the house ten minutes later. She was dressed in the blue dance recital tutu she'd worn the year before. The straps were too tight and cut into her plump shoulders, but Ellie's father knew that the satiny blue fabric always made Ellie feel beautiful. She'd nearly worn the costume out. Ellie hadn't stopped there. She'd added all the plastic, baubled necklaces from her ballerina jewelry box, and the paper crown she'd decorated heavily with glitter last week. Around her neck she'd wrapped a winter scarf that Ellie's aunt Carolyn had knitted. Ellie's father wasn't sure where she'd gotten the idea that a scarf or boa was glamorous, but perhaps the shiny thread of silver running through it was enough to make Ellie think the scarf was befitting a princess.
Fully decked out in her regal attire, Ellie slowly marched up to the castle. She stopped at the entrance and stood in her wobbly plastic dress-up heels and clapped her hands before she finally opened the door to her castle and walked inside.
Satisfied, Ellie's father watched his little princess assume residence in her castle. This was a birthday she'd never forget.
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