Sleepovers Read online

  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.

  Four

  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 Alison and Abigail's old 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.

  We nibbled crisps and ate baby slices of cake as if we were sitting up properly at the tea table, but then we started messing around, scraping icing off the top of the cake with our fingers and seeing how many crisps we could put in our mouths all at once. Bella made herself a chocolate cake crisp sandwich. She said it tasted totally delicious. She wanted us all to try a bite but I decided not to. Emily had a big bite to please Bella – and then went very, very quiet.

  "What's up with you, Emily?" said Chloe. "You're not sleepy already, are you?"

  "No. I just feel a bit sick," said Emily in a tiny voice.

  'Yuck! I'm not sure I want to share the mattress with you now. You're not to be sick on me," said Chloe.

  "I won't actually be sick," said Emily, but she didn't sound too sure.

  Amy's mum said we really had to get into bed now. She looked a little fussed about the crisp crumbs and chocolate smears but she couldn't get really cross on Amy's birthday. She made us all go and clean our teeth again and do a last wee, and then we all got into our different beds and she said good night and switched off the light.

  We didn't go to sleep of course. Amy and Bella and Chloe and I talked and talked. Emily didn't say anything.

  "Are you asleep, Emily?" I asked.

  "No," said Emily.

  "You're not still feeling sick, are you?" said Chloe.

  "No," said Emily – but after a minute she got out of bed and ran to the bathroom.

  "Yuck yuck yuck! She is going to be sick," said Chloe.

  "Maybe I should call my mum," said Amy.

  "I'll go and see if she's all right," I said.

  I went to help Emily. When she'd finished being sick I mopped her up and gave her a drink of water and put my arm round her. She was shivering.

  "You're so kind, Daisy," she whispered, hugging me back. "I wish you were my best friend."

  "I wish I was too."

  We both sighed. Then we went back to Amy's room and Emily got into bed with Chloe.

  I very quietly fished in my bag and found Midnight. He came underneath the covers with me and we cuddled up in the lonely little camp bed.

  Five

  It was Bella's birthday next. "I'm going to have a sleepover party too," she said.

  "Who's coming?" said Chloe.

  I worried.

  "We're all coming, silly!" said Bella. "It's going to be great. I'm going to have a h-u-g-e cake."

  "Is it going to be a chocolate cake?" Emily asked weakly.

  "No, it's not. It's going to be a big blue cake, and you don't get blue chocolate."

  "I didn't think you got blue cakes," said Chloe.

  "Ah! This is a special one, because my party's going to be extra specially-special," said Bella. "We're all going swimming. My birthday cake's going to have blue icing because it's in the shape of a swimming pool."

  We all agreed this was specially-special. Even Chloe seemed impressed. "I'm brilliant at swimming. Great idea! Though wait till you hear what I'm doing for my sleepover party," she said.

  "What?"

  "Aha!" she said.

  "I still don't know if I can have a sleepover party," said Emily. "I keep asking my mum and she says there's no point
anyone coming to my house because you can't get any sleep as my baby brother cries all night. I hope she's just joking. Though she doesn't make many jokes now. She's too tired."

  "Never mind, Emily. We don't all have to have sleepover parties," I said quickly. "I'm not sure my mum will let me."

  "Why? You haven't got a baby brother too, have you?" said Chloe, frowning at me.

  "No. I've got a sister, but . . ."

  "But what?"

  I shrugged, my heart thumping. "Oh. You know," I said – though of course they didn't know.

  I started madly hoping that Lily might start to get a lot better so that it wouldn't be so bad. Mum said Lily was improving in leaps and bounds now she was at her new special school. Lily couldn't really leap or bound. She couldn't walk. She couldn't even crawl.

  "But she's on the way to becoming more mobile," said Mum. "She loves her swimming, don't you, Lily? You bob along like a little duck."

  Lily's special school had its own small swimming pool. Lily couldn't really swim. They just held her in the water while she splashed a bit.

  "I can swim ever so fast now, Mum," I said. "Hey, did I tell you, Bella's having a special swimming party?"

  "You told me lots of times, Daisy," said Mum.

  "I do sometimes have to put my foot on the bottom though," I said. "I think Bella and Amy and Emily and Chloe might be able to swim a bit better than me. Especially Chloe."

  "Shall I take you swimming on Sunday morning?" said Dad. "Then you can have a little practice swim."

  "That's a lovely idea," said Mum. She looked at Lily. I worried that they might want to come too.

  "Yes, let's, Dad," I said quickly. "Just you and me."

  Lily couldn't understand but I felt a bit mean even so. I got into her bed at night and snuggled up to her.

  "Do you really like swimming, Lily?" I asked.

  Lily went, "Ur ur ur," as if she really did.

  "Well, when I get a bit bigger I'll take you swimming," I said.

  Lily went, "Ur ur ur ur ur," as if she'd like that very much.

  I went swimming with Dad on Sunday and we had a great time. Dad showed me how to kick out with my legs like a little frog and I swam ever such a long way without putting my foot down once. Then we played jumping up and down and then Dad pretended he was a dolphin and I rode on his back.

  I found a special birthday present for Bella in the swimming pool shop too. Some super-cool turquoise goggles so that she could see under water. I didn't need goggles myself because I didn't actually like going under water.

  I was still a bit worried about swimming even after my special practice with Dad – but it was fine on Bella's birthday. Emily wasn't very good at swimming either, so most of the time we paddled by the fountains and the plastic palms and played we were shipwrecked on a desert island. Chloe was too busy showing off how far and how fast she could swim to bother about us. Amy was quite good at swimming too, but Bella was the best. She really was brilliant. Bella's dad called her his little water-baby. Bella wasn't exactly little but she was certainly a star at swimming. She especially loved swimming underwater. So my turquoise-goggles birthday present was a big success!

  When Bella's dad drove us all back to Bella's house we found Bella's mum had her birthday tea all ready for us. It was a HUGE tea. There were six different kinds of sandwiches: egg mayonnaise; chicken; prawn; banana and cream cheese; bacon, lettuce and tomato; and peanut butter and grape jelly. There were six different kinds of cake too: alphabet fairy cakes; chocolate crispies; chocolate fudge cake; blackcurrant cheesecake; carrot cake; and the special ginormous swimming-pool birthday cake. It had five little marzipan girls in swimming costumes standing in the middle. It was the most special birthday cake in the world. If I'd been Bella I wouldn't have wanted to eat it, I'd have wanted to keep it for ever.

  Bella and I are very different. She cut it all up with a special cake knife and ate two huge slices straight off, and all the little marzipan girls.

  "Wait till you see my birthday cake," said Chloe.

  "What's it going to be like?" said Emily.

  "Aha! " said Chloe.

  I was sick of Chloe. I was starting to worry about the sleepover part of this party. I was sure I'd be the one left out again. But guess what, guess what, guess what! Bella's mum and dad moved into the spare room. Bella and Amy and Chloe and Emily and I got to sleep in their great big double bed, all of us in together!

  It was the greatest fun ever. I was on the outside but I had Emily next to me. I secretly tucked Midnight in the other side, under the covers. We all got the most terrible giggles so that the whole bed wobbled. Bella had a big box of birthday chocolates and kept passing them round. Emily didn't have any. I had two. Amy had three. Chloe had five. Bella had thirteen!

  We didn't settle down to sleep for ages – and then we got the giggles again because whenever one of us turned over we all had to. Midnight turned too and Emily felt his furry paws. She gave him a special cuddle.

  "He's so sweet," she whispered in my ear. "I've got a little teddy called Buttercup. Well, he was a present for my baby brother but he just chews his fur so Buttercup's mine now. You'll see him when you come to my house for my sleepover party. If my mum lets me have one."

  Six

  Emily's mum did let her have a sleepover party.

  "You're all invited, of course," she said. "There's too much baby junk in our dining room to have a proper party tea so mum says we can all go out for a picnic. I hope that's OK?" Emily looked a little anxious.

  "It's more than OK. It's a simply great idea. I love picnics," I said. We didn't go on many picnics ourselves because Lily got upset anywhere strange and could only eat properly in her special chair with straps.

  "I like picnics too," said Amy.

  "Me too. Yum yum. I especially love picnic food," said Bella.

  We all looked a little anxiously at Chloe.

  "A picnic is a good idea," said Chloe. "Though wait till you find out my idea for my sleepover party."

  "Do tell us, Chloe," Emily begged.

  But Chloe just went, "Aha." I was starting to

  think she was just doing it to annoy. Maybe she didn't have any ideas at all, good or bad.

  Chloe saw me staring at her.

  "What about your sleepover party, Daisy?" she said.

  "What about it?" I said weakly.

  "Well, have you got it all sorted out yet?"

  "Oh . . . yes. Well. Sort of," I said. "I don't know a hundred per cent I can have my own sleepover party."

  "Don't you worry about it, Daisy," said Emily. "I had to beg and beg and beg before my mum said yes."

  "But it won't be fair if Daisy doesn't have a sleepover party. She's been to Amy's and Bella's. She's coming to Emily's. And she might be coming to mine. If I invite her. So she's got to have one herself. Otherwise she can't be in our Alphabet Girls club and go round with us," said Chloe.

  "That's not fair," I said. "It was me that invented the Alphabet Club."

  "Well, it's a stupid club anyway. We don't really do anything," said Chloe.

  I was furious. I'd been absolutely brimming over with ideas for things we could do. I'd studied the special alphabet signing language for deaf people (there were all these hand diagrams in my dad's old diary) and I'd tried to teach them to the others so we could have our own secret alphabet language. But Chloe got bored after two minutes and wouldn't try. She wouldn't let the others learn either. I'd suggested we write letters to each other and every time a word contained our letter we'd write it in a special colour. Guess what. Chloe said this was too fiddly, and pointless anyway. So then I suggested we have a competition where we all had shoe boxes and we had to collect in it as many things as possible beginning with our own letter. The one who got the most would get a prize. I even spent my own pocket money on the prize, a special shiny notebook with ABCs all over the cover.

  Amy and Bella and Emily thought this the best idea ever. Chloe said it might be fun. I was pretty proud of t
his idea myself. I really hoped I might get the notebook. I collected Dad's diary and a tiny doll and a drawing pin and a little china dog and dental floss and a Disprin and a dandelion and a mini-doughnut and a plastic dinosaur and a sparkly glass

  ring like a diamond. So things were looking good. But Chloe spoilt it all. She filled her shoebox to the brim with chocolate buttons. She must have bought bags and bags of them.