Sleepovers (2 page)

“Mum says I can have a big birthday cake,” said Amy. She smiled at Bella. “
Chocolate
cake!”

“No, have an iced cake in a special shape. They're seriously cool,” said Chloe.

“Amy can have what she likes. It's her sleepover,” said Bella.

Chloe frowned.

“We can
all
have sleepovers on our birthdays,” said Emily quickly. “Then we can each choose the way we want them to be. If we're allowed. My mum's going nuts looking after my baby brother but I
think
she'll let me have a sleepover.”

“Mine will too,” said Bella.

“My mum lets me do anything I like,” said Chloe. “So does my dad.”

I didn't say anything. I hoped they wouldn't notice. But they were all looking at me.

“Can you have a sleepover too, Daisy?” said Emily.

“Oh sure,” I said quickly, but my heart started thumping under my new school sweatshirt.

It wasn't my birthday
yet
, thank goodness.

I couldn't have a sleepover party. I didn't want to tell them why. I might have told Emily by herself. But I didn't want to tell the others. Especially not Chloe.

I TOLD MUM
about Amy's sleepover party while we were having tea.

“That's lovely, Daisy,” she said, but I could tell she wasn't really listening. She was too busy concentrating on feeding my sister, Lily.

“There now, Lily, yum yum,” Mum mumbled, spooning yoghurt into Lily's mouth. Mum's own mouth opened and shut. Lily's mouth didn't always open and shut at the right time. It snapped shut so the spoon clanked against her teeth, or suddenly gaped open so the yoghurt drooled down her chin.

Mum mopped at her. Lily's arm jerked up
and she tried to grab the cloth.

“There! Did you see that, Daisy? Lily's trying to wipe her own chin.
Clever
girl, Lily!”

“Mm, clever girl,” I said.

My sister Lily isn't clever. She isn't my little baby sister. She isn't little at all. She's my big sister. She's eleven years old but she isn't in the top year at school. Lily doesn't go to my new school. She didn't go to my old school either. She never used to go to school at all, she just stayed at home with Mum, but now she goes to this new special school. That's why we moved, so that she could go there. It's a special school because Lily has special needs. That's the right way to describe her. There are lots and lots of
wrong
ways. Some children at my old school used to call Lily horrible names when they saw Mum pushing her in the street. They used to call me names too.

I don't think Emily would call Lily horrible names. Or Amy or Bella. But I'm not at all sure about Chloe.

I'd shut up about my sister Lily since I'd started to go to this new school. I didn't want anyone calling her names.

Though
I
call her names sometimes. I get mad at her. She isn't like a real sister. We can't play
together and swap clothes and dance and giggle and mess about. She's not like a big sister because she can't ever tell me stuff and hold my hand across roads and watch out for me at school. She's not like a little sister either because she's too big to sit on my lap and she's too heavy for me to carry around. It's even getting a struggle to push her in her wheelchair.

Something went wrong with Lily when she was born. She won't ever be able to walk or talk. Well, that's what Dad says. Mum says we just don't know. Dad says we do know, but Mum won't face facts. Mum and Dad have rows about Lily and I hate it. Sometimes I almost hate her because she's always in the way and she cries a lot and she wakes us all up in the night and she takes up so much time. But I always feel lousy if I'm mean to Lily. I get into her bed at night
when Mum and Dad are asleep and I whisper sorry in Lily's ear. I cuddle her. She doesn't exactly cuddle me back but she acts like she's glad I'm there. She makes these little soft sounds. I pretend it's Lily talking to me in her own secret language. I whisper secrets to her under the covers and she whispers “ur-ur-ur-ur-ur” back to me. It's as if we're having our own tiny private sleepover just for us.

I got into bed with her that night and told her all about Amy's sleepover. I've told her all about Amy and Bella. I've told her heaps about Emily and how I wish she could be my best friend. I've told her heaps about Chloe too and how I wish she didn't sometimes act like she was my worst enemy.

“What's that you're saying, Lily?” I whispered. “Oh, I get it! You say that Emily's probably going to get seriously fed up with Chloe being so mean and moody all the time. You think she's going to break friends with her and be
my
best friend instead?”

Lily went, “Ur ur ur ur ur.”

I gave her a grateful hug. Sometimes I was almost glad she was my sister.

AMY AND BELLA
and Chloe and Emily and I all got very excited about the sleepover party. We talked about it all the time at school. We talked about it so much that our teacher Mrs Graham got cross with us.

She got especially cross with Chloe because her voice was the loudest. She kept her in at playtime. I had a lovely playtime with Emily. She said she liked my long hair and wished she could brush it, so I undid my plaits and then we played hairdressers and I was a posh lady going to a dance and Emily was fixing my hair for me, and she gave me a facial too, with soap from the washbasins in the girls' cloakrooms. I didn't wash all the soap off properly so my face felt a bit stiff
when we went into the classroom. It went stiffer still when I saw Chloe glaring at me. I knew she was going to get me.

“You mean pig, Daisy!” she yelled as soon as it was going-home time. “It was all
your
fault.
You
were saying something stupid about how you've never been to a sleepover before so
I
said you can't have had any friends at your old school and then Mrs Graham got cross with me when
I
didn't start saying stuff, it was
you
. Why didn't you tell her it was all your fault?”

“It wasn't really Daisy's
fault
,” said Emily.

“Yes it was! She wouldn't own up. She let me take the blame. She's horrible. I don't know why we have to have her tagging around with us all the time,” said Chloe.

“Don't be like that, Chloe,” said Emily, putting her arm round her. “Here, do you want a chocolate biscuit? I saved it for you.”

Chloe wouldn't take the chocolate biscuit so Bella ate it.

“Are you really having a chocolate cake for your birthday, Amy?” said Bella. “Yeah, my mum's friend's making it. And we're having egg sandwiches and sausages on sticks
and cheese and pineapple and fancy ice-creams and special fruity drinks with teeny umbrellas,” said Amy, her eyes shining.