Sleepovers (5 page)

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.”

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 this 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.

“There are hundreds and hundreds of chocolates!” she said. “So I've won. Give us the notebook then.”

“But they are meant to be all
different
things,” I said.

“You didn't say so,” said Chloe.

“I thought it was obvious.”

“It's obvious
you're
just a bad loser,” said Chloe. “I want my notebook!”

So I had to give it to her, even though Emily and Amy agreed it wasn't really fair. Bella was too busy helping herself to Chloe's chocolates to comment.

I couldn't stick Chloe. I decided that I didn't
want
to go to her sleepover party. But I very, very badly wanted to go to Emily's. I tried so hard to think of a good birthday present for her. Mum took me shopping on Saturday morning and I spent ages and agesand ages looking at pens and crayons and books but nothing seemed
special
enough for Emily.

Lily was in a good mood at first and slumped to one side, daydreaming, but after an hour she started fussing. Loudly.

“Shut
up
, Lily,” I hissed. “Why do you
always
have to spoil things?”

“Hey, hey!” said Mum. “It's not Lily's fault. And she's been really really sweet today.
You're
the one who's grumpy.”

“Well, I can't
choose
,” I said, nearly in tears. “And Emily's party is this afternoon. I can't be the only one not giving her a present.”

“All these birthday presents!” said Mum. “It's
getting a bit much. Still, I suppose it's
your
birthday soon. Are you still keen on this sleepover idea, Daisy?”

“Yes. No. I don't know,” I said.

I didn't want to think about my birthday. I wanted to think about Emily's. I was so looking forward to going to her house – and she had said she'd show me her little teddy, Buttercup.

“I've had an idea!” I said.

We went down to the toy department. I searched along a whole shelf of teddy bears. There were great big growly ones, tiny baby ones, plump teddies in silk waistcoats, soft teddies with velvet paws, smiley teddies and sad teddies and silly teddies with goofy faces. And right at the very end of the row was a little girl teddy. She had pink fur and a little blue pinafore frock embroidered with a tiny white flower.