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