A birthday party disaster led to a big surprise for 9-year-old Mahlon of Bend.

Mahlon recently moved from Portland to the high desert with his family, which includes three siblings, his father and his mother, who writes the blog "Life on Peanut Layne."

On Oct. 24, his mother, Kristen Layne, wrote a blog post about Mahlon's birthday party that none of his friends attended.

"What was supposed to be a fun filled birthday party weekend, complete with pizza, cake, games, prizes and friends, went horribly wrong," wrote Layne.

Up until this year, Mahlon had been homeschooled, so in his first year of public school, he was looking forward to a party with friends and not just his siblings. He was especially excited because his party was "Diary of a Wimpy Kid"-themed and "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" is his favorite book.

"When the party time came and passed, and none of the party guests were here yet, I started to get a little nervous," wrote Layne. "I had asked parents to RSVP on the invitation, but hadn't received a single reply."

Ultimately, no one showed up for the party. Layne and her husband were devastated, though she wrote that Mahlon handled the disappointment well, even bringing the gift bags he'd made for his friends to school on Monday.

But after Layne's blog post pleading with people to RSVP for parties went viral, one of Mahlon's dreams came true: he got a call from the writer of "Diary of a Wimpy Kid," Jeff Kinney.

"Not only did Jeff take time out of his super busy day to talk to him, but he FaceTimed him as well and gave us a personal tour of his office/studio," wrote Layne in a follow-up post.

"M is now telling anyone who will listen that he has a new friend and he wants to be just like Kinney, and has been working feverishly on his own comic book series all afternoon," she continued. "To really top it all off, Jeff is also sending him an extra special gift that I will post about when the time is right, because it's unbelievably awesome."

Beyond calls from his favorite celebrity, Mahlon has received an outpouring of love, gifts and stories of failed birthday parties from all over. His story has even appeared on Time.com.

Layne wrote that Mahlon hopes his story makes a difference for other kids.

"He wants to make sure that each and every child has a very happy birthday," she wrote, "and that no one feels sad and lonely on their birthday."

-- Lizzy Acker

503-221-8052

lacker@oregonian.com, @lizzzyacker