Birthday

"Know what?" crowed the little boy. "It's my birthday!"

"Congratulations!" I said. "How old are you now? Twelve?"

"Noooo!" he chortled. "I'm not twelve. I'm THIS much!" He held up four pudgy little four-year-old fingers.

"Oh, you're FOUR!" I said.

"Yeah!" he agreed.

"Congratulations," I said again. "Four is a very big number."

He went off to explain the situation to a few other adults, including some, like me, whom he knew reasonably well, and some whom he didn't know at all. "Know how old I am?" I heard again and again. "THIS much!" And out would go the four pudgy four-year-old fingers while the people--those who knew him and those who did not--reacted with appropriate surprise and astonishment.

When he'd finished working the room, he began all over again. "Guess what?" he said to me. "It's my birthday!"

"He's told me that three times already," remarked the teenager who was standing next to me.

"Well, it's very important news," I reminded her, and bent down, the better to talk to the birthday boy. "Congratulations," I said again.

"Do you know how old I am?" he demanded, and out went the four fingers: "I'm THIS many!"

"It certainly is a lot," I agreed.

"And do you know how old I was yesterday?" he asked.

An additional wrinkle. Fortunately, it sounded like a subtraction problem, and I'm pretty good at subtracting. I pondered. "You were three," I guessed.

He looked at me. He looked at his fingers. He looked at me again. A look of utter astonishment began to creep across his face.

"You're right!" he said. "But...how did you KNOW????"