Ella Jones and the Birthday List
By Lucy Edwards
The birthday list is blank.
It’s been blank for twenty-three minutes, which I know because I have asked my iPad the time on four separate occasions and after each one it’s felt like Siri sounded more and more disappointed in me.
I tap the iPad again, as if this will make my screen reader come up with an idea.
It doesn’t.
“What do I want?” I mutter.
From the carpet, my guide dog Miss Maisie gives a snort.
“Yes, thank you,” I say, turning my head towards her. “That’s exactly the sort of thoughtful answer I was hoping for.”
There’s a soft thump, then the familiar brush of something fluffy against my ankle. I reach down and my fingers close around the slightly damp horn of Maisie’s toy unicorn.
“Oh,” I say. “You think I want a soggy unicorn for my birthday?”
I should laugh. Usually, I would. Usually, Maisie and I have entire conversations where she snorts and huffs, and I translate her wise thoughts into human words. But today, the laugh gets stuck somewhere behind my ribs.
My twelfth birthday is on Saturday.
Last year, I knew exactly what I wanted because I could see. I wanted books, a glittery jumper, a cherry lip gloss, and a cake with so much icing on it that Mum said our teeth would get cavities.
This year, everything feels strange.
And the strangest thing is that nobody’s done anything wrong, which almost makes it harder to explain. If somebody had been mean to me, I could point to that moment and say, There. That is why I feel like this. But everyone is trying. Everyone is kind. So why do I still feel as if I’m standing on one side of a glass wall, watching my own life happen without me?
Books are different now. Clothes are different. Make-up is different. Parties are definitely different.
I type the word lip gloss, then delete it. I type audiobook, then delete that too.
Maisie rests her chin on my knee.
Her fur is warm beneath my hand. That helps. Maisie often knows I need her help before even I do.
“What do you ask for,” I whisper, “when what you really want is to feel like yourself again?”
Maisie gives my hand one gentle lick. I put the iPad down.
At breakfast, Dad burns the toast.
He always acts surprised when this happens, as though the toaster has personally betrayed him.
“Only slightly crisp,” he says, scraping it over the bin.
“It smells like a dragon sneezed on it,” I tell him.
From the table, Poppy says, “That is offensive to dragons. They’d never serve toast this dry.”
I smile, because Poppy is funny even when she’s being annoying.
She continues talking very quickly. Something about her rainbow hair, a TikTok, and whether the pink streak on the left side of her head looks cool or like she fell asleep on a highlighter. Mum, who has just got back from a night shift at the hospital, kisses the top of my head and says she’s going to bed before she starts pouring orange juice into the kettle.
Dad places a plate in front of me.
“So,” he says brightly, “birthday girl. Any thoughts about Saturday?”
My hand stills over the toast.
Poppy gasps. “Wait. Has Ella Jones not given us a birthday list yet? Who are you and what have you done with my sister?”
“I’m still thinking,” I say.
“You never think about presents. You announce them. Usually in categories.”
Dad laughs. “That’s true. Last year we had a section called ‘reasonable’ and a section called ‘don’t say no until you’ve heard me out’.”
I press my thumbnail into the edge of my plate.
“I don’t mind what presents you get me,” I say.
For a second, the kitchen goes quieter.
Then Dad says, “Well, no rush.”
Poppy makes a small sound, as if she wants to say something else, but her phone buzzes and she goes back to talking about hair.
The room fills up with noise again.
I sit in the middle of it, knowing I’m loved from every side, and somehow still feel far away.
I don’t understand yet that this is loneliness. I think loneliness has to look emptier than this. I think it has to mean no one is speaking to you, no one is saving toast for you, no one is making dragon jokes across the table. I don’t understand it can sit right in the middle of a busy, noisy kitchen.
At school, my new seat is at the front of the classroom.
Miss Carter explains it in her cheerful teacher voice, the one adults use when they have already decided something is helpful.
“This should make things easier for you, Ella. More space for Maisie, and there’s a plug next to you for your equipment.”
“It’s fine,” I say.
And it is fine.
That is the annoying thing about it. This seat is fine. It is sensible. It is probably exactly what I need. But sometimes something can be helpful and still make your heart twist a little.
Maisie has room beneath the desk. My Braillenote fits properly. I can hear Miss Carter without the scrape and shuffle of everyone between us.
But Finn is at the back.
Finn, who has been my best friend since primary school. Finn, who once spent three weeks trying to convince me that Medusa was misunderstood. Finn, who usually sits beside me and whispers facts so strange they make me laugh at exactly the wrong moment.
He comes over before the bell rings.
“I did save your seat,” he says quickly. “The one next to me. But Miss Carter said this would be better.”
“I know,” I say. “It’s okay.”
“It’s still your seat really,” he adds. “I mean, emotionally.”
That almost makes me laugh. Almost.
“Thanks, Finn.”
He goes back to his desk. His chair scrapes across the floor behind me.
Behind me.
I face the front, Maisie tucked against my feet, and listen as the room settles around me. Pencil cases unzip. Someone whispers. Someone laughs. Finn laughs too.
The sound lands softly and sharply at the same time.
Nobody has pushed me away. Nobody has been cruel. Finn saved my seat.
That makes it worse.
If Finn had forgotten me, I could be angry. If he’d given my place away, I could decide he was horrible and never speak to him again, which would be dramatic but at least quite simple. But he had saved it. He had remembered me. The distance between us has opened up anyway.
Because the place where I used to belong is still there, and I don’t know how to get back to it.
In my bag, the birthday invitations wait.
There are six of them. Mum helped me write them last night, then I added little raised stickers to the corners so I could count them myself.
One for Finn.
One for Amira.
One for Theo.
One for Grace.
One for Lily.
One for Poppy, because she said sisters deserved formal invitations, especially if cake was involved.
At break, I take Finn’s invitation out.
I hold it between my fingers. The card is smooth and thick. Mum chose ones with stars on them, and Poppy had said they looked “very Ella, but in a cute way, not an embarrassing way”.
Finn is standing near the lockers. I can hear him talking to Theo about a documentary he watched on wolves.
I could walk over. I could say, “Here. Birthday. Saturday. Come.”
Easy.
Except it isn’t easy, because handing someone an invitation feels like handing them a tiny piece of my heart and asking them not to drop it.
Then someone laughs nearby, and another voice says, “Is Ella still having a party? I wasn’t sure.”
My fingers tighten around the card.
I slide it back into my bag.
I’ll do it at lunch, I think.
At lunch, I tell myself I’ll do it after school.
After school, I tell myself tomorrow is better.
The invitations sit in my bag all day, heavy as stones.
I know what I’m doing, even though I keep pretending I don’t.
If I give them out and people say no, then I’ll know. I’ll know they don’t want to come.
I’ll know I’m different in the way I’m most scared of being different.
I’ll know everyone else has found a way to carry on their lives without me.
I leave my last lesson before most of the corridor fills up, because sometimes the rush of bodies and bags and shouting feels like being caught in a river. Maisie guides me neatly along the side that’s just a wall. We walk around someone’s PE kit dumped on the floor, past the science rooms and towards the library.
I don’t mean to go in.
But it’s quiet, and quiet feels easier than being brave.
“What’s that I heard you put on the table?” a voice says.
I jump.
“Sorry,” the girl says. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”
I know the voice. It belongs to Maya from Year Eight. She’s blind too, and everybody knows her because of her sparkly cane and the perfect winged eyeliner she does herself. She has bone-conducting headphones and walks with so much confidence people move before she even has to ask.
“It’s okay. They’re my invitations,” I say, quickly sliding my hand over them.
Maya pulls out the chair opposite me. “Birthday?”
“Maybe.”
“That’s a vague answer.”
“It’s on Saturday.”
“Happy almost birthday.”
“Thanks.”
There’s a pause. I hear her fold her cane and rest it against the table.
“So,” Maya says, “are the invitations for giving to people, or are they just having a nice day out in the library?”
I feel my face heat up.
“I’m going to give them out.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Ah,” she says. “Tomorrow. The favourite day of people avoiding things.”
I don’t answer.
Maya doesn’t fill the silence straight away. I like that. Adults always rush to fill silence with helpful sentences. Maya lets it sit there until I feel annoyed enough to speak.
“I’m not avoiding it,” I say. “I just forgot they were in my bag.”
“All day?”
“Yes.”
“Impressive.”
I let out a tiny laugh, then press my lips together because suddenly I don’t trust myself.
Maya’s voice softens, but only slightly. “I did something like this after I lost my sight.”
I keep my fingers on the top invitation.
“I stopped asking people to come close,” she says. “Then I got upset when they felt far away.”
My throat tightens.
“I’m not lonely,” I say.
The words come out too fast.
“I’ve got lots of people in my life. I’ve got Mum and Dad and Poppy and Finn. And Maisie.”
Under the table, Maisie’s tail gives one gentle thump at her name.
“That’s why it’s confusing,” Maya says.
I swallow.
“I thought lonely meant nobody cared.”
“Sometimes it does,” she says. “People think loneliness is about how many people are around them. But sometimes it’s about whether you feel able to reach them.”
I don’t understand at first.
Then I do.
I think about sitting at the front of the class with Finn’s laugh behind me.
I think about Dad asking what I want for my birthday.
I think about Poppy waiting for me to be the sister who always knows what she wants.
I think about myself saying, “I don’t mind,” when what I really mean is, “Please notice that I’m lonely.”
“People care,” Maya says, “but they can’t read your mind.”
She pauses.
“And sometimes you don’t know how to show up in a world that’s accessible to them but not you any more.”
Maya taps the table once with her nail.
“People get weird after sight loss,” she says. “Some become too helpful. Some become too quiet. Some wait for you to tell them what to do but you don’t always know.”
“No,” I whisper. “I don’t.”
“Then start small,” she nudges one of the invitations towards me, “with one person.”
Before I can answer, the library door opens and a teacher calls, “Maya? Your taxi’s here.”
Maya stands and unfolds her cane.
“Happy almost birthday, Ella.”
Then she’s gone, her cane tapping neatly away from me.
I sit there for one more minute with Maisie breathing beneath the table and the invitations under my hand.
Lonely.
The feeling swallows me.
At home, I try to sneak the invitations back into my room. I dump my bag next to my bed then jump as I realize Poppy is sat on it.
“Why are you in my room?” I ask.
“Because mine has clothes on the chair and I needed somewhere to sit.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It makes perfect sense if you don’t think about it.”
I hear the rustle of paper.
“Poppy,” I say slowly, “what are you holding?”
There is a pause.
“Oh my god,” she says. “Ella. Why are all your birthday party invitations still in your bag?”
My stomach drops.
“I forgot to hand them out.”
“All of them?”
“Yes.”
“For the whole day?”
“That can happen.”
“To some people, maybe. But you remembered that Dad bought the wrong cereal three Tuesdays ago.”
I reach for them, but she moves away.
“Were these invitations planning to attend your birthday instead of actual humans?” she asks. “Because I’m not sure they’ll bring good presents.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter. It’s your birthday.”
“I said it doesn’t matter.”
My voice comes out sharp.
Poppy goes quiet.
I hate the quiet more than the shouting.
Then she says, “Ella?”
I sit on the edge of the bed beside her. Maisie comes over and pushes her head between my knees, as if she has decided this meeting requires dog supervision.
“I didn’t give them out,” I say, “because I didn’t know if anyone would still want to come.”
Poppy doesn’t speak.
Now that I have started, the words tumble out.
“I don’t know how to be at school any more. I don’t know where everyone is. I don’t know when people are smiling at me or looking away. I don’t know if Finn still wants me beside him or if he just feels bad. I don’t know if people invite me because they want me there or because everyone keeps telling them to be kind.”
My eyes sting.
“And everyone keeps saying I’m doing brilliantly, but I don’t feel brilliant. I feel like everyone else got given a map of what to do in life and I didn’t.”
I rub my sleeve over my face.
“And I know that sounds silly because I have so much help around school. I have all the route-finding things. Maisie, my cane skills, my apps, my labels. Everyone keeps helping me find rooms and doors and pavements. But nobody can tell me how to love myself now I’ve lost my sight.”
Poppy’s shoulder presses against mine.
“I thought you wanted space,” she says.
“What?”
“You kept saying you were fine. And every time I talked about stupid stuff, like my hair or TikTok, I thought maybe I was making things worse. So I stopped. I didn’t know what I was allowed to say.”
I think about all the times I’d waited for Poppy to be Poppy again, without realising she’d been waiting for my permission.
“You’re allowed to be annoying,” I say.
Her laugh is small.
“Good. Because I am excellent at that.”
I wipe my face with my sleeve.
Poppy picks up one invitation and puts it into my hand.
“Right,” she says. “Tomorrow, we give these out. Together.”
“What if someone says no?”
“Then I glare at them until they reconsider their entire personality.”
I laugh.
A proper laugh this time.
Maisie snorts, pleased with us both, and drops her unicorn across our feet.
Poppy groans. “She’s invited too, I assume?”
“She’s the guest of honour.”
“Typical. Upstaged by a dog at my own sister’s birthday.”
“It’s my birthday.”
“Yes, but I’ll be there, so emotionally it involves me.”
I lean my head against her shoulder.
The lonely feeling doesn’t vanish. It stays, tucked somewhere inside me, but now I know its name. And it feels less powerful with Poppy beside me, Maisie at my feet, and one invitation warm in my hand.
I still don’t know exactly how to be this version of me.
But for the first time in ages, I don’t think I have to work it out on my own.
Meet the Author, Lucy Edwards
Lucy Edwards is an award-winning blind broadcaster, keynote speaker, content creator, author and disability activist based in the UK. Founder of the beauty brand Etia and accompanied by her guide dog Miss Molly, she delivers keynotes for brands, businesses, schools and conferences on disability inclusion, accessibility, resilience and life as a blind woman.
"In Ella Jones and the Birthday List I wanted to show that loneliness doesn’t always look like an empty room, sometimes it’s a noisy kitchen where you’re loved from every angle but still feel a million miles away. When Ella finally finds the words for that feeling, and lets the people around her step closer, that’s the moment everything shifts, and that’s the conversation I hope families will have after reading this together.
“This short story is my letter to any child who’s ever sat in a crowded classroom or a busy birthday party and thought, ‘Why do I still feel on my own?’ Giving loneliness a voice for Ella, and actually using that word on the page - felt really important, because once you can name a feeling you can ask for help with it, and that can be life-changing for a little one."