The Magical Land of Birthdays

to assemble them. First, they used a round cookie cutter to make a hole right in the center of each layer except the top one, which they set aside. Then they stacked the cake layers, one on top of the other, using sweet, sticky frosting to hold them together.
Mama pushed the massive container of sprinkles over to Amirah. “Would you like to do the honors?” she asked.
“You know it!” Amirah exclaimed. With the holes in the cake layers carefully positioned, there was a secret hollow inside, just waiting to be filled with sprinkles. From the outside, no one would be able to tell. But once they sliced open the cake that night . . . well, just thinking about how surprised everyone would be by the cascade of sprinkles made Amirah shiver with excitement.
Amirah concentrated hard as she got ready to pour the sprinkles into the cake. One mistake, and they could spill all over the counter, tumbling down to the floor. The last thing Amirah wanted to do was waste something as special as sprinkles!
In the quiet kitchen, Amirah and Mama could both hear the soft rustle as the sprinkles poured into the cake hollow. Amirah needed to use almost the entire container to fill up the cake. Luckily, only a few sprinkles bounced off the top of the cake and landed on the counter.
“Perfect,” Mama declared. “Now for the top layer . . .”
As Amirah placed the final layer on the very top, she realized she was holding her breath.
“Phew!” Mama said as Amirah carefully positioned the top layer of the cake. “That’s one tall cake!”
“Just wait until we add the unicorn’s horn,” Amirah said, giggling. She’d already covered an ice cream cone with edible gold dust to make it glimmer like magic.
“First things first,” Mama replied. “Frosting, unicorn ears, unicorn eyes—”
“And don’t forget the mane!” Amirah reminded her.
Mama and Amirah joked and laughed as they spread a thick layer of creamy white frosting over the cake, concealing all the layers. Then they gave the unicorn two pointy ears, made of white chocolate, and black eyes, one of them winking. Amirah’s favorite part was using different pastry tips to swirl frosting into a curly mane that cascaded around the unicorn’s head.
Then, the final step: placing the unicorn’s golden horn right in the middle of its forehead.
“Does it . . . does it look okay?” Amirah asked Mama.
“It looks incredible!” Mama exclaimed. “I’m going to get my phone. We need to take some pictures of this masterpiece!”
Alone in the kitchen, Amirah stared at the unicorn cake. It looked so delicious—and those breakfast pancakes suddenly seemed like hours ago. What she wouldn’t give for a taste of her special cake . . . not even a whole bite, just a nibble, like a sneak preview . . .
Of course she couldn’t do that, though. Of course it was impossible. The unicorn cake had to be utterly perfect for everyone who would be at her party tonight. Amirah knew she would just have to wait.
Or would she?
There were cake crumbs left in the pans.
Smears of frosting in the bowls.
And a smattering of sprinkles on the countertop.
Amirah smiled to herself. She wouldn’t have to cut into the unicorn cake to taste it after all!
She moved quickly, pressing her thumb into the crumbs, then scraping some frosting out of the bowl. Finally, she added a few sprinkles on top.
Then she licked them up!
Amirah didn’t think it would be possible for that gorgeous cake to taste even better than it looked, but somehow it did. She had never tasted anything like it before. It was sweet but not too sweet, butter and sugar and vanilla coming together in perfect harmony. The fluffy cake . . . the sugary frosting . . . the sprinkles dancing on her tongue . . .
Suddenly the colors in the room were falling away. Streaks of them, brighter and brighter, like the tail of a shooting star, like a firework glittering through the darkness. Amirah felt herself tumbling, over and over, as though she were falling, falling, falling through a cascade of colorful sprinkles until she landed with a gentle plop on a soft surface . . .
She blinked.
How did she get outside?
Wait—was she outside?
She sat up in the grass—no, not grass, something else, something soft and bright green like grass, but it was . . .
Confetti? Amirah thought.
Slowly, the world came into focus; the mosaic of sprinkles shifted as they arranged themselves into patterns. Their edges blurred together into a crystal blue sky with puffy cotton candy clouds . . . rolling meadows of grass-green buttercream frosting dotted with colorful cake ball flowers . . .
“I know this place,” Amirah whispered. She’d seen it before, in her dream. In the distance, she heard a song . . . and that was familiar too.
Whizzzzzzzz!
Amirah ducked as something zipped past her head—
Whizzzzzzzz!
And again—
Whizzzzzzzz!
And again!

Amirah dropped to the ground and waited to see if anything else was going to zoom through the air toward her head. All she could hear was the sound of her heartbeat thundering in her ears.
That’s when Amirah realized that the music, wherever it was coming from, had stopped.
“Are you okay?”
Amirah looked up to see a boy running toward her. There was a note of urgency in his voice, as if he’d seen her sudden nosedive. He held out a hand to Amirah and helped her to her feet.
“Thanks,” she said. “What were those things? I didn’t get a good look.”
The boy smiled sheepishly. “They were, uh, musical notes,” he said. “I found this cake guitar and first I kind of took a bite—it was delicious— and then I wondered if maybe I could play a song. I was jamming on it and the next thing I knew, these musical notes made of cookies were flying into the air! And then I got a little carried away and I guess the musical notes did too. Sorry about that!”
“Don’t worry about it,” Amirah replied. “Your song was cool.”
“I’ve played a lot of guitars before, but I’ve never seen anything like that,” the boy continued, shaking his head in astonishment.
As the