Sleepovers (3 page)

“Like grown-up cocktails,” I said.

“Is Daisy still coming to your sleepover?” said Chloe.

My heart started thumping.

But Emily was quick. “Course she is. We're all coming. Hey, I can't wait till it's
my
sleepover party. If my mum lets me have one.”

“
My
mum will let me. She lets me do
anything
. I'm going to have the best sleepover party ever, you'll see,” said Chloe.

I was pretty sure I wasn't going to be invited to Chloe's sleepover party. I didn't care. But I did desperately want to go to Amy's.

“Of course you can still come, Daisy,” Amy whispered in my ear.

I gave Amy a quick hug. I decided I liked Amy almost as much as Emily.

I went shopping with Mum to buy Amy a birthday present. I thought I might buy her a grown-up fountain pen as she liked writing. I
wanted to spend a long time choosing, but Lily was with us too, of course, and she was having a bad day, crying a lot.

People started staring at us and it made Lily more upset. She cried and cried very loudly.

“
Do
hurry up and choose Amy's present!” said Mum.

I couldn't decide which colour fountain pen Amy would like best. Bright red? Lime green? Sunny yellow? Sky blue? Amy liked wearing all different bright colours. I didn't know which was her favourite.

“Daisy! We'll have to go,” Mum said.

Lily was bright red in the face herself – and screaming.

I suddenly saw a plastic case of special metallic roller pens all different colours: pink and orange and emerald and purple and turquoise, even gold and silver. I thought how great it would look writing with all these different colours.

“Can I get these for Amy, Mum? Please?”

They were more expensive than the fountain pens but Mum was so keen to get us out of Smith's that she didn't argue.

I hoped Amy would like her special coloured pens.
I'd
have liked a great big set like that. I'd had a lovely purple metallic pen but Lily had got hold of it and spoilt the tip so that it could only write in splotches.

I would have loved to try Amy's pens (just to make sure they worked all right) but as soon as we got home and Mum got Lily changed and fed and calmed down she wrapped Amy's pen set in a piece of pink tissue paper and tied it with my old crimson hair ribbon.

Amy's present looked beautiful. I wished
I
looked beautiful on Saturday afternoon when I was ready to go to the party. Emily had promised me she wouldn't be wearing a proper party dress, just her favourite trousers and T-shirt, so I hadn't
worn my dress either. I had serious doubts about my dress anyway. It had embroidered teddy bears all across the chest. I'd liked them at first but now I felt sure Chloe would say I looked babyish. I had teddies on my pyjamas too, but I hoped that wouldn't matter. They were very old pyjamas and getting a bit small but they were my favourites. I also had my
own
teddy. He's very little and a deep shade of navy blue. I call him Midnight. I can't get to sleep without him, but he's so small I hoped to hide him in my hand so Chloe couldn't tease me.

Dad drove me over to Amy's house. I was very, very, very glad I didn't have to walk there with Mum and Lily.

“You have a lovely time, Daisy,” said Dad, when we got there.

I didn't say anything.

I hoped and hoped and hoped I
would
have a lovely time.

I WAS VERY
glad I hadn't worn my teddy dress. Everyone was wearing tops and trousers. Emily said she specially liked my top with the silver starry pattern. I twinkled just like stars.

Amy liked her metallic pens a lot. “Wow! I
love
these pens. Now I've got one of every single colour. Let's try them out, eh?”

“We don't want to do writing at a party,” said Chloe. “Let's play some music and dance.”

So we all trooped into Amy's living room. It had big red velvet sofas and fluffy white rugs and lots and lots of china ornaments. We can't have velvet and furry things at home because Lily makes too much mess, and she waves her arms about too much for any china ornaments to be safe.
We
waved our arms around wildly while we were dancing but Amy's mum didn't fuss at all, and she let us have the music up ever so loud.

Amy's two big sisters showed us how to do this brilliant dance. Bella kept turning the wrong way and mixing up her left and right but Alison and Abigail were very patient. I got a
bit
mixed up myself at first but I caught on quite quickly. Quicker than Chloe, actually. Amy knew the dance already so she was very good at it – but not as good as Emily. Emily is magic at dancing.

We did this special dance over and over until we all knew it backwards (though Bella still
faced
backwards if you didn't watch her). Then we performed it like a real girl group to Amy's mum and her dad and her nan and they all clapped and clapped and said we were great.

Then we had our tea and there was the chocolate cake Amy had promised. It was chocolate sponge inside with three layers of chocolate cream and there were even little chocolate drops all round the frosted chocolate icing on the top of the cake. I had a big slice and it tasted wonderful at first but I couldn't actually finish it. Bella finished it for me. She had her own slice
and
a second helping. Bella is astonishing.

When we were all full – even Bella – we watched cartoons on television for a bit, and then we went upstairs with Alison and Abigail and they let us dress up in their special glittery clubbing clothes and stagger round in their high heels. We looked
wonderful
. Almost grown up!

Amy is so lucky having big sisters like Alison and Abigail. Abigail is only three years older than Lily. I imagined what it would be like if Lily's brain hadn't been damaged and she could dress me up in cool clothes and teach me dances.

I felt a little bit sad but then we watched some more funny shows on television – Amy can get ever so many different channels – and I cheered up. I felt especially pleased that when we all sat together on the beautiful red velvet sofa I was in the middle, with Amy one side and Emily the other.

I didn't get so lucky when we all went up to Amy's bedroom to sort out who was sleeping where. Amy has bunk beds so Bella got to go on the top bunk above Amy. Amy's mum had made up a mattress on most of Amy's floor for two more girls.

“That's fine for Emily and me,” said Chloe.

“It's a very big mattress,” said Emily. “I'm sure there's heaps of room for Daisy too.

“No, it would be much too much of a squash,” said Chloe firmly. “Daisy had better have that camp bed thing in the corner.”

So I had to make do with the camp bed. It didn't really matter at first because we didn't get
into
bed for hours after we got into our pyjamas. We all played trampolines on the mattress and sang along to tapes on Amy's cassette recorder and painted our nails all different colours with nail varnishes.

Amy's mum put her head round the door at ten o'clock and said she thought we should start settling down. We didn't settle down for ages and ages. After we'd all gone to the bathroom together and cleaned our teeth (and squirted each other with Amy's dad's shaving foam) Bella said she felt peckish. Amy ran down to the kitchen
and came back with a big bag of crisps and the remains of the birthday cake.