Lily wasn't pretty either. Mum kept her very clean but her face went funny and she always looked lopsided because she couldn't sit up properly. She did have lovely long hair though.
"Wait till after my party, Lily," I said, giving her a hug. "We'll play hairdressers and I'll fix your hair with daisy slides. You'll like them. You'll look dead cool in them."
"Ur ur ur ur ur!" said Lily excitedly.
"Try not to get her too worked up, pet," Mum said gently.
"We don't want her roaring her head off when your party guests come," said Dad.
We all waited. We were all a bit worried. I was sure Chloe was going to say something terrible about Lily. And I wasn't sure that Amy and Bella would be ultra-tactful. And maybe even Emily would act oddly about Lily and then what would I do?
My new birthday jeans suddenly seemed much too tight. I had a horrible squeezy feeling in my tummy. I wished I wasn't having a sleepover party. I wished Mum would take Lily and hide her away for the whole weekend.
Amy arrived first. "Hi, Daisy. Happy birthday!"
She gave me a pink plastic make-up bag with silver nail varnish and a pot of silver face glitter. I was so thrilled I forgot all about Lily for one tiny moment.
"Ur ur ur," said Lily in the background, determined not to be forgotten.
Amy jumped, startled. She looked at Lily in her special chair.
"That's Lily," I said. "She's my sister."
"Hi, Lily," Amy said uncertainly.
"Ur ur," said Lily.
"What's wrong with her?" Amy hissed.
"Something happened to her brain when she was born," I said.
"Oh dear," said Amy. "So can't she walk?"
"No."
"Well . . . she can sort of talk," said Amy.
"Yes, she can. And she can shout too!" I said.
I felt a lot, lot, lot better. I did like Amy. Maybe second best to Emily instead of Bella.
Bella arrived next.
"Hello, Daisy. Here, happy birthday!"
She gave me a big box of chocolates with a puppy picture on the lid and a purple ribbon which would come in useful for future hairdressing sessions. Bella glanced at Lily and nodded. Then she looked back at the chocolates. Hopefully.
"Are you going to open them now?" said Bella.
"OK. Oh, they look really yummy!" I said.
I handed the box to Bella.
"You should choose first as it's your birthday," Bella said, which was good of her, because she was staring hard at the biggest white chocolate in the middle.
"You have that one as you gave them to me," I said, offering it to her. Bella didn't need persuading. I chose a round chocolate with a rose petal on top. Amy chose a chocolate wrapped in gold paper.
Bella took the box over to Lily.
"Do you want a chocolate?"
"Ur ur ur," said Lily.
"What did you say?" said Bella.
"Lily can't really say stuff," I said, going over to her. "She likes chocolate, but just a weeny bit, so she can't choke." I broke a tiny piece off my rose chocolate and popped it in Lily's open mouth.
"Poor Lily. Fancy choking on chocolate!" said Bella.
I decided I liked Bella and Amy second-best equal to Emily.
Emily arrived next. She had a star T-shirt on exactly the same as mine! "Happy birthday, Daisy," she said. "Hey, we're the star twins. We can go twinkle twinkle!"
She gave me my birthday present. I felt it first. It was quite squashy, with a little round bit. The round bit went grur-grur-grur when I squeezed it.
"Ur ur ur !" said Lily excitedly, as if they spoke the same language.
Emily looked surprised.
"Hello," she said.
"This is Lily," I said. "She's my sister."
"Hi, Lily," said Emily. She paused. "I like your hair. I'm trying to grow mine but it's taking ages."
"Ur ur ur," said Lily. She smiled as if she understood.
I smiled too. I knew Emily was the nicest friend in the whole world.
I unwrapped my birthday present. It was a beautiful new pair of pyjamas, white with yellow buttons and a pattern of little yellow teddy bears – and in the pyjama pocket there was a tiny toy teddy.
"He's called Little Growler. Press his tummy!" said Emily. "That was him growling before. Lily liked it."
But Lily hadn't realized grur-grur-grur was Beartalk. Lily hates bears. She's even scared of tiny teddy bears like Little Growler.
She saw him – and she started. "UR UR UR UR UR!" Lily wailed.
"Oh goodness, what's the matter?" said Emily.
"UR UR UR UR UR! " Lily screamed.
"What's the matter?" said Amy.
"Has she hurt herself ?" said Bella.
"She's just a bit frightened. She'll be all right in a minute," I said. But she wasn't.
Mum had to cart Lily upstairs to calm her down. Lily wouldn't calm down one bit. She roared.
We heard her being sick.
"Oh dear," said Emily. "Will she be all right now?"
"I think she'll need to go to sleep for a while," said Dad.
We listened. Lily's cries were getting weaker.
"Poor Lily, she'll miss all the fun," said Amy.
"She'll miss her tea if she goes to sleep," said Bella.
I crossed my fingers. I hoped Lily would sleep for hours and hours and hours.
Thirteen
Chloe was so late I began to think she wasn't coming. My heart started thumping under my twinkle-star T-shirt. My sleepover party would be just for four. Amy and Bella – and Emily and me! Emily might be my best friend. I felt I was flying right up to the real stars.
But then I came down to earth with a bump. There was a knock at the door. Chloe was here.
"Happy birthday, Daisy," she cooed, all smiles in front of her mum. (My mum was still upstairs sorting out Lily.)
Chloe had a new T-shirt on too. It had sparkly pink lettering. It said: The Bestest Little Girl in all the World. Chloe had pink sparkles on her cheeks and pink lipstick and pink strappy shoes with real heels.
Her present was wrapped up in sparkly pink paper too. I opened it gingerly. I was expecting a parcel of anchovies. But it was a video. It had 101 Dalmations on the cover. But 101 Doubts rushed round my head like little dogs. I didn't trust Chloe. Not one bit.
We went into the living room to play. Mum had tried to tidy it up but Lily's special bouncy chair was still there.
"What a weird chair!" said Chloe.
"It's my sister's," I said.
"But it's ginormous. She must be a huge baby." Chloe blew out her cheeks and waddled like a giant toddler. "Where is she then? Has she crawled off somewhere?" said Chloe, pretending to look under the table.
"She's upstairs with my mum. She's putting her to bed because she got over-excited."
"Oh, poor little baba. You'd better watch out, Daisy Diddums. You might get over-excited and put to bed too," said Chloe. She paused. "Well, what are we going to do, then?"
I hadn't quite sorted it out.
"Let's dance," said Amy.
But I didn't have the right sort of music.
"Yuck, this is all baby stuff – or ancient," said Chloe, flipping through our CDs.
"Maybe we can have tea now?" said Bella.
But it was still a bit early for tea, and anyway, Mum was still upstairs with Lily.
"Shall we go out in the garden and play football?" said Emily.
So we went out in the garden, but nearly all the grass was taken up with the tent. Dad was just sorting out the last few tent pegs, hitting them with a wooden mallet.
"Hi, girls!" he said.
"Ooh, a tent!" said Emily.
"I've always wanted to go camping," said Amy.
"Can we have campfire food?" said Bella.
"We can't play football with that stupid tent there. Shame you've got such a little garden."
"Ah, it's Daisy's special friend Chloe," said Dad, giving her a funny smile. "Are you having fun, girls?"
> "Yes," said Emily politely.
"No," said Chloe.
"We don't know what to do, Dad," I said desperately.
"Ah. I think Mum was going to sort you girls out before tea – but she's still with Lily, is she? Tell you what! Why don't you play party games?"
"Party games? Like what?" I said.
"Like, boring," said Chloe.
"No, no, they're good fun," Dad insisted. "Let's all go indoors and play."
When Chloe turned to go Dad mimed hitting her over the head with his wooden mallet. Emily and Amy and Bella and I all fell about laughing.
"What's so funny?" said Chloe crossly.
"Nothing. We're just having fun," I said.
And we did have fun. Dad showed us how to play all these weird old-fashioned party games like Squeak Piggy Squeak. When Chloe was the pig she sat on my lap so hard I squeaked for real but I didn't care.
Then we played Stations and I was Clapham Junction and Emily was Vauxhall and we had to keep swapping and once we bumped into each other and got the giggles.
Chloe was Waterloo and she bumped into me on purpose and stamped on my toe but I didn't care.
Then we played Murder in the Dark and I got a bit worried Chloe would be the murderer and if she pretended to murder me it might hurt rather a lot. Luckily Bella was the murderer and she just gave me a tiny poke in the tummy and whispered, "Ever so sorry but you're dead now, Daisy." Chloe kept pretending to trip over me all the time I was the Dead Body and each time she tripped she kicked. I tried hard not to care.
Dad saw one time and said, "Hey, Chloe, don't kick Daisy like that!"
Chloe went red as she's not used to being told off.
"I'm sick of playing this silly game. Let's do something else," she said.
So we played Musical Bumps. It was great fun. Even Chloe cheered up and started jumping to the music, even if it was ancient. I wondered if it might start Lily off again but Mum came down at last and muttered to Dad that she was fast asleep.
"So I'll fix tea," said Mum.
Everyone loved my beautiful Daisy cake. Mum even cut the sandwiches with a special cutter so they were daisy-shaped too. We drank our lemonade out of green glasses and had little white iced buns and white chocolate clusters and green grape jelly and vanilla ice-cream.
"I love the way it all matches," said Amy.
"It looks almost too lovely to eat," said Emily.
"Almost," said Bella, tucking in straight away.
We all tucked in. We ate and ate until we were very nearly full. Then I had to cut my birthday cake ever so carefully. As the knife sliced through the thick icing and soft sponge and gooey jam I made my birthday wish.
"I wish Emily could be my best friend," I whispered to myself.
Then everyone sang Happy Birthday To You. When they got to "Happy Birthday, dear Daisy," Chloe sang "Diddums Daisy" but I didn't care.
The birthday cake was delicious. I hoped Mum might make cakes more often! She washed all the daisy hairslides for us because some had got a bit sticky with icing and then she handed them out.
"There are four left over. Can I have them seeing as I've got the longest curliest hair?" said Chloe.
"No, dear, those slides are for Lily," said Mum.
"Daisy's sister? Babies don't wear hairslides!" said Chloe.
I held my breath. But Bella asked if it would be terribly piggy if she had just one more slice of birthday cake. Dad laughed and offered her the whole plateful.
"I wouldn't do that! She'll eat it all!" said Amy.
"And she doesn't ever feel sick," said Emily.
"You're just a greedy-guts, Bella," said Chloe. "You'll grow into a great big whale and never be able to wear decent clothes."
"Whales don't need clothes. They swim around and spout at silly little tadpoles like you," said Bella.
She pretended to spout at Chloe, but she still had a large mouthful of cake. Chloe's Bestest
Little Girl in the Whole World T-shirt got sprayed with crumbs. We all fell about laughing. Chloe didn't find it funny at all.
"You disgusting pig, Bella," she said, and she pushed her off her chair.
"Hey, hey, that's enough!" said Mum. "I think it's time you all got down from the table. Daisy, run and find one of your T-shirts, poppet, so Chloe can wear it while I put her own in the washing machine."
Chloe followed me up the stairs. Amy and Bella and Emily came too. I tiptoed past Lily's door.
"Why are you walking like that?" Chloe asked.
"Sh! Lily's asleep," I whispered.
Emily and Amy and Bella all started walking on tiptoe too. Chloe went STOMP STOMP CLACKETY CLUMP in her heeled shoes . . . but thank goodness Lily didn't stir in her room.
Everyone squashed into my room.
"Goodness, isn't it weeny?" said Chloe.
"No, it's not," said Bella.
"It's a lovely room," said Amy.
"It's the nicest room I've ever seen," said Emily.
It's not. It is weeny. Lily has a proper size bedroom because she's got so much stuff and Mum sometimes sleeps on a campbed beside her if she's having a bad spell. I have to make do with the tiny bedroom – but Dad's put up special shelves on my
wall with a roof on top, like a big open dolls' house so all my books and paints and stuff have different "rooms". Mum's made me a duvet cover and curtains patterned with dolls' houses and on my window sill I have my real dolls' house. A very tiny family of teddy bears live inside. Midnight is too big but he sometimes likes to squeeze up really small and visit them.
"Dolls' houses are for babies!" said Chloe.
"No, they're not. My gran collects dolls' houses and she's an old lady," said Emily. "I'm not really allowed to play with her dolls' houses though."
"You can play with mine," I said.
"We're not playing baby doll games," said Chloe. "Come on then, Daisy, show me all your T-shirts."
I showed her my blue T-shirt with the dolphin and my pink T-shirt with little flowers and my black T-shirt with the silver mermaid (only the silver comes off so she hasn't got a tail any more).
"Is this all you've got ?" said Chloe.
She chose the dolphin T-shirt though she sneered at it and said it was stupid. She had a good look through all my clothes and didn't think much of any of them and she was mean about my shoes too because they came from the wrong shop.
"I wouldn't be seen dead in shoes like that," she said, throwing herself onto my bed and waggling her wonderful pink strappy heels in the air.
"Can I try your shoes on, Chloe?" said Amy.
Bella tried them on too.
And even Emily.
"Can I try them on, Chloe?" I asked.
"No fear. I don't want your smelly old feet in my shoes," said Chloe.
I wished the dolphin on her T-shirt would swim off with her to the bottom of the sea – and then leave her there, with her head in the sand and her legs in their pink strappy shoes waving in the air.
Fourteen
When we went downstairs – Emily, Bella, Amy and me tip-toeing, Chloe clackety-stomping – Mum and Dad were in the kitchen having their tea.
"Are we going to play some more Musical Bumps?" said Amy.
"Boring," said Chloe.
"Are we going to have some more tea?" said Bella.
"Boring," said Chloe.
"Are we going to go in the tent now?" said Emily.
"Boring," said Chloe.
"What would you like to do then, Chloe?" said Mum.
"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.