Sleepovers (12 page)

“It's Daisy's birthday. She should choose,” said Dad.

“I know!” Mum said quickly.
“Why don't you all go and watch the video Chloe gave Daisy for her birthday?
101 Dalmatians
is a lovely film.”

We went into the living room. Chloe carefully shut the door behind us and then slotted the video into our player. We started to watch. It wasn't a lovely film. It wasn't
101 Dalmatians
.

It was another white witchy ghost movie. This one was even worse. It's about a girl walking in the country by herself. She keeps looking round anxiously and you hear these footsteps and then there's this awful waily breathing noise, a bit like Lily having one of her spells but worse, so the girl starts to run and she sees this camping site and she runs harder and shouts but then something grabs at her and you see her face and she screams and screams and screams.

I had to suck my thumb hard to stop myself screaming too.

“Look at little suck-a-thumb!
Baby!
” said Chloe. “She's scared of a silly film.”

“I'm scared too,” said Emily.

“And me,” said Amy.

“Can't we do something else, like see if there's any cake left?” said Bella.

“No, no, you've got to watch the bit that comes next. It's so cool!” said Chloe.

We were at the camping site now. The girl is inside her tent, just waking up and stretching, and then she sees something poking at her tent from the outside and she laughs at first, thinking it's one of her friends. She even calls out to them, but there's no reply, there's just this awful waily noise and then suddenly aterrible white claw rips through the tent and I had to shut my eyes tight and I nearly bit right through my thumb.

“
Watch
it, Daisy. Don't close your eyes!” said Chloe.

“
I
don't want to watch it,” said Bella.

“She doesn't have to watch it if she doesn't want to,” said Amy.

“Shall we switch it off?” said Emily, getting up.

“Sit down, Emily. You're all babies. Of course we're not switching it off,” said Chloe.

But then we heard my Dad calling just outside and Chloe shot up quick and stopped the video. A film on television flashed on instead just in time.

“How are you doing, girls?” said Dad, putting his head round the door. “Are you OK, Daisy?”

“Yes, Dad,” I said.

“I thought you were watching
101 Dalmatians
?” said Dad, looking at the television.

“Oh, we
were
. But we just wanted to peek at this film on the telly too,” said Chloe in this cutesy-pie tone she uses for her own dad.

My
dad didn't look as if he totally believed her. He blinked at the television.

“Well, I don't think you should be watching this old film. I saw it years ago and it gets a bit scary,” said Dad.

Compared to Chloe's white witchy ghost films it was about as scary as
Teletubbies
, but I was glad when Dad switched the television off, even so.

“Anyway, I've come to announce that your sleeping quarters are now fully prepared, noble ladies,” said Dad in a daft voice, bowing low.

He'd got it beautifully cosy inside the tent, with the big cushions from the sofa to sprawl on and the special garden fairy lights rigged up inside the tent so it glowed precious jewel colours, amber, emerald and ruby. There were lots of our
old shawls and rugs and cardis too so that we were still ever so cosy when we were changed into our pyjamas.

Then we talked and talked and talked and talked: about our favourite singers (I copied Emily) and footballers (I copied Emily again) and the boys in our class at school (I didn't need to copy because they're
all
gross). Then we made up our favourite clothes and this time I went first and invented this seriously cool black-and-silver outfit with black high heels and Emily copied
me
because she said she liked the sound of mine so much. We chose our favourite colours (black and silver, naturally) and our favourite animals (Emily
and I both said “bears” together and burst out laughing). Then we all said what we wanted to do when we grew up. Emily said she wanted to be a footballer and if she couldn't she'd teach PE in school and
I
said I wanted to be an artist but if I couldn't I'd teach Art in school. Chloe said I was a useless copycat which wasn't fair because I've always loved Art and I'm good at teaching too. I teach Lily lots, even though she doesn't learn very quickly. Chloe said teachers were boring anyway and
she
was going to be a famous actress. Amy said she was going to be a famous dancer and Bella said she was going to be a famous TV chef. Then she said she felt a bit peckish and at that
exact
moment Mum came out with big mugs of hot chocolate (and a hot blackcurrant for Emily) and a bowl of popcorn.

“Wow! This is the best sleepover party ever,” said Bella. “Even better than mine.”

“It's nowhere near as good as mine,” said Chloe.

“We've all had super sleepovers,” said Emily. “But yours is just great, Daisy,” and she reached for my hand under the rug and gave it a squeeze.

While we sipped our drinks and munched popcorn we swapped our Most Embarrassing
Moments (I'm not going to tell you!) and we laughed so much the bowl tipped over and we had to play hunt the popcorn in our sleeping bags. Then we played Double Dare and some of the dares were amazingly outrageous (I'm not going to tell you again, though I will just say that
one
of us took her pyjamas off and went into the garden and ran right round the tent, but it was dark by then so no-one could see – I hope!)

Then we started to tell ghost stories and that was fun at first but Chloe's started to get a bit too scary.

“Do shut up, Chloe,” Emily begged, putting her hands over her ears.

“Don't be stupid. It's just a
story
. Ghosts aren't
real
,” said Chloe.

“Yes, they are! My granny kept seeing the ghost of my grandad after he died,” said Amy.

“Let's
play
ghosts,” said Bella, and she pulled the white pillow case off her pillow and put it over her head and made funny
who-o-o-o
ghost noises. Then she went
oooh
instead because she'd found some more popcorn inside the pillowcase and went gobble gobble munch munch.

“You are a piglet, Bella,” said Amy.

So Bella made piglet noises and then we all played a daft game of Farmyard and got the giggles so badly our tummies hurt. Then we sang all the songs we knew and then we played making up a poem together.

I started it.

“We are the special Alphabet Girls.”

“Some of us have straight hair, some of us have curls,” said Emily.

“We all like to dance if we get the chance,” said Amy.

“We eat lots of chocolate yum yum yum,” said Bella.

“Chloe and Emily, Amy and Bella, and Daisy Diddums Fat Bum,” said Chloe.

“Daisy isn't a bit fat,” said Emily.

“
I
am, but I don't care,” said Bella. “Daisy, do you think your mum might have some
more
popcorn in the kitchen?”