"Well, I can’t help," Dad said as he pushed his chair back and rubbed his stomach. "Since it’s my birthday, I’m going to play golf."

Rats! I’d forgotten his birthday again. And I had saved some of my allowance for his gift. Well, I’d think of something later. Right now I needed a project.

I would ask my best friend Kevin. We’d planned to practice at 1 o’clock. If he couldn’t help, I’d have to settle for a C in English.

It’s an unspoken rule at our house. All Saturday chores must be done before play. Our leaves had to be raked and bagged, and my room cleaned. I’d have to hurry to finish on time.

By the time the leaves were bagged I had twenty minutes left, and I needed five of that to ride to Kevin’s house. I’d just have to give my room a quick straighten and clean it next week. I punched my pillow a couple of times to fluff it and flung the covers over everything. Then I tackled the piles of junk on the floor. I dumped all the clothes into the laundry hamper, including the clean ones, piled all my shoes in the small space on the floor of the closet and shoved the door against them until it closed. I stacked all the papers and other school stuff on top of my desk. Then I pitched a half dozen empty soda cans and some wadded up candy wrappers into the trash.

I stood back and surveyed the results. The trash can was overflowing, the bed looked like someone was still under the spread, and the closet door looked as if was ready to explode. Pathetic. I just had to get better organized. But how? Maybe I could buy one of those little day planners like Mom and Sahara used. But it would have to be later. My project was waiting.

When I parked my bike at Kevin’s he was already kicking the ball around. "Come on, Den," he yelled. "You’re late.

"I know. I had to do my chores," I muttered. "Besides, I need your help."

He stared at me. "What kind of help?"

"I need a project for ‘Make a Difference Day’."

"But that’s today," he said. "It’s too late."

"No, it’s not!" I moaned. "We can do something easy. I need this project for extra credit in English."

"Okay, you be thinking while we practice." He passed me the ball.

"Bummer," I mumbled. "I could have done my thinking at home." I caught the ball and tossed it up for a kick. My toe connected dead center and it went sailing.

He caught it. "We could gather aluminum cans," he yelled, then threw me another pass. "Good kick. Try it again."

"Won’t work," I said. "I need something special."

He gawked in disbelief. "What do you mean?"

"The idea," I explained. "Not the kick."

After a couple more passes he spoke, "We could go to the rest home and do errands for the patients."

"You have to have permission ahead of time to do that," I said, then backed up for another kick.

He passed it again, then called, "I have a super idea. We could help at the homeless shelter. They’re always needing someone down there to serve food and stuff."

"Lot’s of other people are doing that today," I muttered. The C on my report card was getting bigger by the minute.

"I guess you’re right," he said, then added, "I could ask my dad. He might have an idea."

"Oh-h-h, I forgot," I wailed. "It’s my dad’s birthday and I need a gift. Got any quick ideas about that?"

Kevin studied the ground. "H-m-m. Does he like pizza?"

"Yeah. But we don’t have it often. Mom and Sahara are watching their weight."

"Order pizza. That new Pizza House down the street has a neat vegetable pizza, and they deliver. Your dad will love it, and so will your mom and Sahara. That’s what I did for my dad’s birthday."

"Neat idea! Thanks, Kevin," I said. "Can I use your phone?"

I met the delivery boy from Pizza House at 5 o’clock, and carried two large vegetable pizzas into the kitchen. Dad is really going to be surprised, I thought.

The smell of peppers, onions and pizza sauce filled the room. What was going on? There on the counter top were eight more pizza boxes. "Where did all these come from?" I yelled. "There must be a whole acre of it in here."

Savannah burst through the door. "Five delivery trucks have been here already. Who ordered all this?"

"Beats me," I said as I stacked my boxes on top of the others.

Just then Mom and Sahara came through the door. "What’s going on?" Mom asked.

Sahara’s eyes swept over the boxes. "Th-th-there’s been a mistake. I only ordered two."

"And I ordered two." Mom giggled.

"So did I," complained. "I wanted it to be a surprise for Dad’s birthday."

Savannah added, "Mrs. Brady ordered two pizzas for me."

Mom laughed harder. "But there are ten pizzas here and only four of us. We each ordered two. So where did the other two come from?"

"Do I smell pizza?" Dad came through the door rubbing his hands together. When he saw all the boxes his eyes nearly popped out. "But I only ordered two."

"It seems everyone else had the same idea," Mom whooped.

Then Sahara burst out laughing. Soon Dad and Savannah joined her. They held their sides and roared.

I sank into the nearest chair and put my head between my knees. I didn’t have a project. I was going to miss the dean’s list. My surprise was ruined and my family was laughing about it. And I had nobody to blame but myself.

Finally Mom grew quiet and wiped her eyes, "Help me clear the table and we’ll eat."

Later Dad asked, "What will we do with all this extra pizza?"

"I don’t know," Mom answered. Cheese strung from her fork. "We’ll think of something."

"Did you do a project, Denver?" Savannah asked.

"No," I grumbled. "Kevin suggested we help at the shelter."

And that’s when it hit me. "We could take all this extra pizza down town and pass it out!" I shouted. "Homeless people probably never get pizza!"

"Great idea," Dad agreed, "and we’ll help." He began stacking the extra boxes. "What a great birthday. I shot a 4 under par, had more than enough of my favorite dinner, and my son will stay on the dean’s list."

Like I said, sometimes God surprises me with a genuine touch of genius. His genius!