Unwanted Gift

Unwanted Gift
Chapter	107 of 129 (list of chapters)
Published	March 2, 2020 (2020-03-02)
Page count	10
Major characters	Lucy, Mike, Daisy, David
Minor characters	Paulo, Sue, Abbey, Jasmine, Rachel, Augustus, Haley, Lani Amalu
Locations	Roseville High School, Mike’s house
Collected in	Volume Seven
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Lucy gets the surprise birthday of her life: balloons in her locker, a choreographed song-and-dance number, and mint chocolate chip cake. Mike gets six words in edgewise, a stand-in gift thrown in the trash, and a phone call he’d really rather not answer.

Synopsis

Lucy drags herself to school on a yawn and finds balloons sticking out of her locker. Sue, Daisy and Paulo slide in behind her shouting happy birthday, and once David joins in, the four launch into a full song-and-dance number for the flustered birthday girl. David carries her into class on his shoulders, declaring that “Lucy-baby is TOO GOOD for the floor today!” Lucy calls the attention embarrassing but appreciated. When Daisy explains that they know she had a really tough birthday last year and are looking out for her this time, Lucy lowers her gaze.

Mike appears in the doorway and shuffles to his desk. From his seat, he blushes and says, “Good morning. Happy birthday.” Lucy looks surprised, then smirks and thanks him. Daisy is less forgiving, warning Mike that she’d have made him say it if he’d tried snubbing Lucy like last time.

David then presents Lucy with a blue, ribbon-wrapped box he bills as a “surrogate Mike present”, and she hurls it the full length of the classroom into the trash can without a flicker of expression. The whole room freezes, until Lucy breaks into a delighted grin and everyone recovers except Mike. He bitterly demands to know whether that was the plan for anything he brought, and Lucy answers with perfect calm: “Why would I expect anything from you? We’re not friends.”

Lucy’s friends spend the rest of her birthday with her, without Mike. David produces a mint chocolate chip cake at lunch, and after school the whole group, Augustus included, heads home together. Mike watches them go from the front of the school, alone.

Mike spends the evening at home on the couch with popcorn and a cartoon. He idly watches the television until his expression falls. “It shouldn’t be a surprise anymore,” he thinks. Haley pelts him in the face with the mail, cackling. He’s still picking up the envelopes when his phone buzzes with a call from Sandy. He lets it ring while his expression changes, then lies back and stares at the buzzing phone. After closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, he answers with conspicuous brightness: “Hello? Oh, Sandy, it’s so good to hear from you..”

Character dynamics

David’s “surrogate Mike present” lasts all of ten seconds.

• Lucy and Mike: Mike cautiously wishes Lucy a happy birthday, but she still considers their friendship over. When he challenges her over the discarded gift, she tells him, “We’re not friends”, in front of the whole class. She is repeating the line Mike used against her in December. Lucy has treated the friendship as finished since returning to Roseville in Unspoken Rule.
• Mike and Sandy: Sandy has been quiet for weeks by this point, and Mike does not answer when her name first lights up his phone. For the first time, the comic shows Mike dreading a call from Sandy before he answers. His expression changes as he lies back and lets the phone keep buzzing. He finally takes a breath and greets her brightly, making the cheer in his voice sound forced.
• Daisy and Lucy: Daisy helps organize the celebration because Lucy had a really tough birthday the year before. When Mike arrives, Daisy confronts him and says she would have made him wish Lucy a happy birthday if he’d refused again. She had already taken Lucy’s side against Mike on Halloween, and she is more direct with him here.

Trivia & observations

• The cartoon Mike sulks through is riffing on Toy Story. A rat character yelps Woody’s catchphrase, “There’s a snake in my boot!”, and the snake in question answers “LMAO”.
• Oliver notes that the panel of Lucy hurling the present into the trash went on to become the authors’ Patreon banner.
• Veronica’s commentary imagines the backstory of David’s gift, with David heading to the mall to “channel Mike” as hard as he could and rehearsing the presentation the night before.
• Oliver has confirmed on Tumblr that it’s November 2008 in-comic as of this chapter, with the main cast in their junior year, which puts Lucy’s birthday in November.
• Veronica’s commentary under the wordless birthday montage reads “So much for ‘everyone will leave you’, huh”, poking at Mike’s claim in December that their friends would follow him away from Lucy.
• Haley’s mail attack is her first appearance since Love Again, and her last until Eternal Flame.

Related chapters

• Pillow Talk: Lucy’s previous birthday, exactly one comic-year earlier and the “really tough” one Daisy wants to make up for. It opens with the same balloons-in-the-locker surprise, and Mike walks past Lucy’s desk that day without so much as a hello. Lucy also demands a mint chocolate cake there, and David brings her one in this chapter.
• December: The blowup where Mike told Lucy “So no, we’re not friends” and insisted their friends would follow him away from her. Lucy repeats his line in this chapter. Those same friends spend her birthday with her and leave school at her side.
• Witch Hunt: Days earlier in-story, the Halloween chapter also has the group gather around Lucy while Mike ends the night alone, smiling through a phone call with Sandy.