Annabel's Perfect Party

by Holly Webb

  “You all right, Bel?” Becky asked anxiously. “You’re awfully quiet.”

  Annabel grinned. “I’m fine. You two are brilliant. That was almost worth messing up a French test for!”

  Chapter Seven

  Max turned up for afternoon registration in his tracksuit bottoms and a chocolate-stained sweater. He had to explain what had happened to every teacher they had that afternoon – it just got funnier each time the triplets heard it, although they had to make an effort to look apologetic to keep up the pretence that it had all been an accident.

  Wednesdays were practice evenings for the girls’ junior football team. Katie had been going along to these for a couple of weeks now, with Megan, because Mrs Ross was trying them out for places on the team, Katie as a forward player, and Megan as goalie. It was pretty impressive to be considered in their first term at the school. The only other girl in their year that Mrs Ross had picked out was Cara, Amy’s friend. As far as Katie and Megan could see, being good at football was the only decent thing about her.

  Mrs Ross was really nice, but she made them work incredibly hard, and after an hour’s practice Katie and Megan were exhausted, and Katie was thinking longingly of going home and having a bath, she was so muddy. Mrs Ross collared her as she was dragging her mud-encrusted football boots towards the changing rooms.

  “Katie! You did very well today, I was pleased with you. I’m going to do some swapping around in the team for the next few matches, and I’d like you to play. OK?”

  Katie was speechless. OK? It was brilliant! She’d thought next term, maybe, she’d get a game, but not yet.

  “I’m going to try Megan and Cara too, later on in the term.” Mrs Ross smiled at her. “You look pleased. I think you’ll make a very useful addition to the team. We could do with some more strong forward players.”

  Mrs Ryan wasn’t keen on the girls walking home from school completely on their own, so she came to pick Katie up from football, to be met at the gate by a jubilant, bouncing daughter. Katie was so excited it took a good minute for Mrs Ryan to work out what she was saying.

  “Katie, that’s wonderful. Do you know when you’ll be playing?” she enthused, as soon as she’d translated Katie’s hysterical squeaking.

  “Not for a couple of weeks. Oh, Mum, it’s so unfair, if only Dad was coming a couple of weeks later, he could have seen me play.”

  Mrs Ryan sighed. “I know. But I’m sure he will be able to one of these days. We’ll send him photos of you, sweetie.”

  Meanwhile Becky and Annabel were in their bedroom, Becky stretched out on her bed reading a cat magazine, lusting after a gorgeous spotty Bengal cat that looked a bit like a baby leopard, and Annabel curled into a most uncomfortable-looking position on the floor, drawing. She knew she ought to be learning her French, but twenty minutes solid had been as much as she could cope with in one go. Becky had promised to test her later. For the moment she was relaxing, although in a slightly depressing way. Her big A3 pad was covered in delicate, detailed little drawings – designs for birthday parties. Annabel loved art, and combining it with clothes and parties was even better. She sat up and stretched – her bottom had gone to sleep – and looked sadly down at her page. This party was magic-themed. It had quite a lot of the glitteriness from her and Saima’s original idea, but with added cool costume bits – sparkly wings, pretty gauzy dresses. Annabel gazed at it critically. Cute, but a bit seven-year-old. She supposed that she and Becky and Katie were too old for dressing up . . . but the costumes were still fun to draw. Annabel looked over at Becky, engrossed in her magazine, kicking her feet rhythmically back and forth as she read, one hand creeping perilously close to her mouth as she gradually forgot she’d given up sucking her thumb. Maybe not. Becky looked up. “What’re you drawing, Bel?”

  Annabel made a face. “Parties,” she sighed. “Imaginary parties, seeing as we’re not getting the real thing.”

  Becky shut her magazine and wriggled closer to the end of the bed so she could hang over the edge and talk to Bel on the floor. She put out a hand and hooked the pad round. “Oh, sweet!” she exclaimed, laughing at the sparkly designs Annabel had created. The fairy costumes twinkled – Annabel had been using her favourite metallic pens to add the final touches. “Do you think Mum might change her mind?” Becky asked hopefully, seeing herself in a pair of green and gold wings.

  “I don’t know – she didn’t seem cross with us when we got home, did she? Perhaps we should talk to her about it. Let’s ask Katie what she reckons when she gets in from football. Actually, that sounds like them now,” she added, jumping up and darting to the window.

  It was, and two minutes later Katie was rushing up the stairs to tell them her news.

  “Imgoingtobeonthefootballteam!” she yelped. “MrsRossisgoingtoletmeplayinagameafterhalf-term!” She was just as incoherent as she had been with Mum, but Becky and Annabel had no trouble understanding. Quite a lot of the time they didn’t really need to finish their sentences – it was something they did more for other people’s benefit than their own.

  Becky and Annabel hugged her excitedly, just as pleased as she wanted them to be. Katie heaved a sigh of pure satisfaction, and noticed Annabel’s drawing pad. “What are those, Bel?”

  “Oh, I was so depressed about our party being off that I couldn’t concentrate on anything else. Especially French. They’re party designs. That one’s for a magical party, and there’s some others underneath.”

  “These are really cute,” said Katie, picking up the pad for a closer look. “Awww, Becky look! She’s got Pixie in this one!”

  “I missed that! Where?” Becky bounced over immediately. “Oh, with little wings tied on her. That’s gorgeous. Will you draw it bigger for me, Bel? I want it on the pinboard.” The triplets had a huge cork board on one wall of their room for drawings and stuff.

  “OK, if you really like it.” Annabel flushed, pleased. Sometimes she felt like Becky and Katie thought her drawing was a bit silly. “I put her in because of the name, Pixie – magic, you see? I can’t imagine it working, though. We’d be dripping blood if we so much as waved a pair of wings at her.”

  “Mmm,” agreed Katie, remembering what she’d got the last time she’d attempted to give Pixie a friendly cuddle when the little black cat wasn’t in the mood – three deep scratches down her arm as Pixie raked her claws over it. She flicked back through the pages – a slightly mad-looking space-themed party with a cake like the moon rocket from the Tintin books, and lots of planets hanging from the ceiling; an Arabian Nights-looking design, with everyone in silky harem pants and veils; and – “Ooh, Bel, this is nice!” said Katie.

  “Which one? Oh, yeah, the winter one. Just a silly idea, really – I mean we’re hardly going to flood the back garden and freeze it so we can ice-skate, are we?” But as Annabel watched Katie showing Becky the glittering icicle decorations and the snowflake invitations she’d designed, and the gorgeous scene of skaters on a snowy lake, she suddenly had her second Brilliant Idea. . .

  Mum called them down to help make the tea just then – sausages and mash – and in all the chatter over the meal Becky and Katie didn’t notice that Annabel was a bit distracted. When they’d done the washing up, they dragged her off to her homework spot on the stairs, and proceeded to teach her French vocab until it was practically coming out of her oreilles. When she was getting almost every word right they called it a day and went off to do the rest of their homework. Katie and Becky both did theirs in their room – it had originally been two bedrooms, but Mr and Mrs Ryan had converted it into one big room for the girls. Now they had space for a big desk for homework. Annabel stayed on the stairs, racing through her English comprehension questions, and the write-up of their science practical, so that she could do some serious thinking. Then she took Mr Hatton’s detention slip out of her rucksack, made a disgusted face at it, and went downstairs to talk to Mum.

  Mrs Ry
an was mostly in the fridge when Annabel got to the kitchen, and as she only had socks on her feet she managed to get right next to her mother without her noticing. “What are you looking for?” she asked interestedly.

  Mrs Ryan jumped, and hit her head – she narrowly escaped decapitating herself on the freezer cabinet. “Ooww! Bel! That really hurt – how did you manage to creep up on me like that?” she said, backing out.

  “I didn’t!” replied Annabel indignantly. “You were just so much in the fridge you didn’t notice. Did you want a yoghurt?” Mrs Ryan was addicted to Mr Men chocolate yoghurts. “They’re in the door – look, you put them in there to make them easier to get at.”

  “Oh yes. Thanks, Bel.” Annabel handed her mother a yoghurt, and Mrs Ryan grabbed a teaspoon from the dresser. Annabel beamed at her. This was excellent timing. In the middle of a chocolate yoghurt was absolutely the best time to ask Mum anything.

  “Spoonful?” Her mother waved the teaspoon at her. Annabel sat down opposite her mother and leant over the table to lick the spoon.

  “Mmm. Nice. Mummy, can I talk to you about something?”

  “You can’t have any more pocket money till next week.”

  “I didn’t want any, why did you think—”

  “Sweetness, you only call me Mummy when you’re after something. OK, if it’s not more pocket money, what have you done? Have you broken something upstairs?”

  Annabel sighed. The triplets tended to think of their mother as a bit scatty – Annabel had inherited the scattiness, but somehow, it had come out tripled in her. Mum had an annoying habit of being really on the ball just when they least expected it, though.

  “I haven’t broken anything. But I did get into trouble at school.” She was looking at the table as she said this, and now she flicked a quick glance across at her mum. How was she going to take this?

  Mrs Ryan put the yoghurt down. Bad sign – she obviously didn’t want to be distracted by it. “Hmmm?”

  “I did really badly in my French test.” Annabel paused, and then gabbled the rest. “I only got six out of forty and Mr Hatton put me in detention.”

  “Six?” squeaked her mother in horror. “How did you manage to only get six? You don’t find French that hard, do you?”

  “No, of course not,” said Annabel disgustedly. “I forgot to learn it, that’s all.”

  “Oh, that’s all. Really, Bel, I suppose this was what you were supposed to be doing the night you and Katie had that argument,” said Mrs Ryan crossly. “Well I have to say, I think you deserve to be in detention.”

  Hmmm. This was not going well.

  “Oh, well, I suppose at least you’re honest enough to tell me about it,” sighed Mrs Ryan, picking up the yoghurt again, but staring into the pot as if something horrible had drowned in it.

  Annabel summoned up her best smile. “Mmm. You have to sign the detention slip. . .”

  Having got that out of the way, Annabel decided it would be best to leave the yoghurt to work its magic for a couple of minutes before she got to work on the more important part of her mission:

  “Mum, you know on Tuesday you said we couldn’t have a party. . .”

  Chapter Eight

  Annabel had come back upstairs that night looking fairly smug, but Katie and Becky put it down to her not having got into trouble with Mum about her French – Bel was lucky that way. She avoided having to talk too much to her sisters by grabbing her French vocab book and curling up in bed with it, saying she needed to do some serious learning – after all, they could hardly argue with that.

  The next morning, though, there was no avoiding the subject of parties. The French disaster and its aftermath, followed by Katie’s exciting news, had nearly driven Mum’s birthday party ban out of Becky’s and Katie’s minds. But as soon as they got up on Thursday morning, Becky remembered.

  “Katie, Mum’s in a good mood at the moment, isn’t she? With your being in the football team? Do you think if we asked her ever so nicely, and promised her we wouldn’t fight about it, we could convince her to let us have a party?”

  “Maybe,” conceded Katie cautiously. “She was really pleased about the football. It might be worth a try. What do you reckon, Bel?”

  Annabel, who’d been brushing her hair and grinning to herself in the mirror, realized that she ought to be taking more of an interest here, or the others would really start to suspect. “Mmm. I think so. Let’s try.” She couldn’t hide a smug, excited sort of smile, but luckily the others just thought she was keen on the idea.

  The triplets were particularly polite at breakfast, handing each other things without being asked, and smiling a lot, as if to say that the idea of them fighting about a party was absurd – they were devoted sisters. Of course, they were, but today they were making sure that everybody knew it.

  After a while of extra-quiet, extra-polite toast-munching, punctuated by milk-slurping from Annabel who was having cereal, Katie caught Becky’s eye and waggled her eyebrows in a way that made her look positively demonic. They had decided earlier that as Becky hadn’t actually been part of the argument that had got Mum so angry, she had better be the one to bring the subject up again.

  “Mum?” wavered Becky, while Katie nodded encouragingly at her.

  “Mmmm?” said her mother through a mouthful of toast.

  “We were wondering. . .” Katie rolled her eyes in disgust and made a “Get on with it!” face. “Well, we were wondering about what you said about our birthday party? That we couldn’t have one because we were fighting? We’re really, really sorry and everything, and we thought maybe, if we come up with something that we’d all like, could we still have a party? If we were brilliantly good?”

  All three of the triplets fixed their eyes on their mother anxiously. Annabel was faking the anxious look, but she was very convincing. She couldn’t resist quickly dropping one eyelid in a wink at her mother, though, when she was certain the other two weren’t looking.

  Mrs Ryan looked thoughtfully up at the ceiling, and then at her toast, enjoying teasing Katie and Becky. Then, “As it happens,” she said slowly, “I was thinking about that myself.” She got up and went over to the dresser, picking up a big brown envelope. Then she tipped the contents on to the table – a cascade of sparkly, silvery cards.

  The triplets stared at them in amazement. Then Katie said, “Can we touch. . .?”

  “Of course, darling. Read one,” answered Mrs Ryan, smiling hugely.

  Katie gingerly picked up one of the cards, and her sisters leant over to look at it with her. On the front was a snowflake, cut out of shining, pearly paper that caught the light in loads of different colours somehow. She opened it up and read out, “‘Please come to our party! Annabel, Becky and Katie would love you to come and celebrate their birthday’ – Mum, this is brilliant! You changed your mind?”

  “What sort of party is it, though?” asked Becky, sounding confused, but excited. “Oh, and when is it? Is it that same Saturday, the day after Dad comes?”

  Katie checked the date. “Yes, from 2 p.m. until 8 p.m. Wow, that’s ages. What are we going to do, Mum? We were going to ask you if we could try and work out something we’d all like, have a sleepover, maybe, but we hadn’t thought of anything much yet.”

  Mrs Ryan gave them a smile that looked scarily like Annabel at her very smuggest. “I’m not telling you, I’m afraid. You’ll find out on the day – it’s a surprise. Now, there are ten invitations there – all you have to do is give them out, and tell whoever you’re giving them to to get their parents to phone me and tell me if they can come. Then I can give them their instructions.” Another deeply smug smile.

  “Their instructions?” echoed Katie, intrigued. “Mum, what are you planning? This sounds so cool!”

  Mrs Ryan just looked down at her watch. “You need to get going, girls, or you’ll be late. Don’t forget the invitations, will
you? We haven’t got a lot of time left before the party.”

  There was no danger of that. Katie swept them up and back into the envelope, and then bore it reverently out to the hall to put it in her rucksack. Becky followed her, and Annabel loitered at the kitchen door until she was sure they were out of earshot.

  “Mum, you’re a star! Those invites look gorgeous – how did you do them so quickly? Katie and Becky loved them!”

  “Well, let’s just say I’m going to fall asleep on the sofa this afternoon. It was just lucky I had the paper and the glitter, that’s all. Annabel darling, do you really think you’ll be able to keep all your plans a secret from Katie and Becky? You know keeping quiet isn’t your strong point! Wouldn’t it be easier to tell them?”

  Annabel looked very determined, and set her mouth in a firm line, frowning at her mother. “I am not telling them! Sorry, Mum – I didn’t mean to snap, but I really don’t want to tell them. They laughed at me when I tried to keep my idea of the party a secret the first time, it was so annoying. They didn’t mean it that way, but it was like, Oh, poor Bel’s so ditzy, she can never keep secrets – well, I’m going to show them now. This is going to be the best birthday they’ve ever had, and I’m going to organize it perfectly, and it’s got to be a complete surprise. You mustn’t tell them, Mum!”

  Mrs Ryan was surprised. Annabel never being able to keep secrets – even down to what was for pudding or what she was going to wear the next day – was a family joke, she just had this need to tell people about things. Her mother hadn’t realized that it upset her. She’d been noticing over the past few weeks that now they were at secondary school the triplets really seemed to be growing up and changing – amazingly fast. “Don’t worry,” she soothed. “I won’t. It’s a lovely plan, Bel. I’m very proud of you, you know.”