her to tell her how Alice is. She suggested meeting up with her and her best friend from school some time, which would be cool. Then Sarah took up a microphone.
‘Thanks so much, everyone, for coming to Vanessa’s big birthday bash.’
‘If you put this on TV, I’ll sue!’ shrieked Vanessa in the background.
Sarah turned to her and whispered, but loudly enough for the mike to pick it up, ‘You can’t, Vanessa, it’s all in the contract.’ She turned back to all of us. ‘I have to remind you all that you can’t post any photos or video from tonight online until after the show airs. That’s all part of the agreement you and your parents signed. Anyway, the buses have arrived to take home the girls from St Dominic’s and the theatre class. Have a good evening.’
We all started filing out of the house. As we did, the camera crew started coming around to people and asking them to tell them what we thought of the party.
‘Ooh,’ said Cass. ‘I hope they come up to us.’
And then they did.
‘So girls,’ said a producer. ‘This was quite a party, right? Can you tell us what you thought of it? And can you speak in complete sentences – like, say “This party was great” rather than “It was great”? So, tell us all about it.’
And, for a moment, I thought, ‘Aha, this is my chance to get my own back for the way Vanessa behaved when my mum’s book came out and the time she screamed at me at the Battle of the Bands!’ But I don’t know what came over us because we couldn’t do it. Neither of us could. To say something, I dunno, snide about her on telly when we had, after all, come to her party and she’d just been totally humiliated at that party just seemed … too mean. Thousands of people would see it.
I know I don’t like Vanessa, and I know we just came to her birthday bash because we thought it would be mental, and I know we bitch about her in school, and I know she had no problem with humiliating me in public herself, but laughing at her on telly just didn’t feel right. It felt properly bitchy. Afterwards, Cass told me that she felt the same way.
So I just said, ‘I’ve never been to a party like this one.’
And Cass said, ‘This party was very spectacular.’
And that was it. We said bye to Jane and got on the bus.
When we had sat down, I said, ‘You know, we just got thechance to have public revenge on Vanessa for all the times she’s been rude to us and we didn’t take it. I think we must be much better people than I thought we were. That was pretty good of us, wasn’t it?’
‘I think if we were properly good we wouldn’t even think of that,’ said Cass, and she’s probably right. But still. I think it was quite saintly of us.
The bus journey home was quite different from the journey there. We were all kind of knackered and we’d spent the last bit of the party just hanging around. So there was no singing. Ellie and Jessie talked a bit about the musical auditions. Ellie really wants to work with Mrs Limond, who is this old lady who used to be an art teacher at our school and who returns every year to oversee the costumes. We have never met her, but she is famous because apparently she is a bit eccentric and mysterious. We have seen her costumes, though, because we were at the musical last year (and I went to see Rachel’s year’s production before I started at our school) and they are actually amazing. Anyway, normally I’d have been quite interested in what Ellie was saying because, after all, mysterious old ladies who make magical costumes are always interesting, but I felt like I’d sort of crashed down to earth after the madness andexcitement of the party. So I just sat there and stared at the window and said ‘Oh?’ every so often in what I hope was an interested voice.
Anyway, that was Vanessa’s party. I can’t believe it ended up with Alice in hospital. She texted me last night to say she was still waiting in A&E, but they don’t think there’s
‘Thanks so much, everyone, for coming to Vanessa’s big birthday bash.’
‘If you put this on TV, I’ll sue!’ shrieked Vanessa in the background.
Sarah turned to her and whispered, but loudly enough for the mike to pick it up, ‘You can’t, Vanessa, it’s all in the contract.’ She turned back to all of us. ‘I have to remind you all that you can’t post any photos or video from tonight online until after the show airs. That’s all part of the agreement you and your parents signed. Anyway, the buses have arrived to take home the girls from St Dominic’s and the theatre class. Have a good evening.’
We all started filing out of the house. As we did, the camera crew started coming around to people and asking them to tell them what we thought of the party.
‘Ooh,’ said Cass. ‘I hope they come up to us.’
And then they did.
‘So girls,’ said a producer. ‘This was quite a party, right? Can you tell us what you thought of it? And can you speak in complete sentences – like, say “This party was great” rather than “It was great”? So, tell us all about it.’
And, for a moment, I thought, ‘Aha, this is my chance to get my own back for the way Vanessa behaved when my mum’s book came out and the time she screamed at me at the Battle of the Bands!’ But I don’t know what came over us because we couldn’t do it. Neither of us could. To say something, I dunno, snide about her on telly when we had, after all, come to her party and she’d just been totally humiliated at that party just seemed … too mean. Thousands of people would see it.
I know I don’t like Vanessa, and I know we just came to her birthday bash because we thought it would be mental, and I know we bitch about her in school, and I know she had no problem with humiliating me in public herself, but laughing at her on telly just didn’t feel right. It felt properly bitchy. Afterwards, Cass told me that she felt the same way.
So I just said, ‘I’ve never been to a party like this one.’
And Cass said, ‘This party was very spectacular.’
And that was it. We said bye to Jane and got on the bus.
When we had sat down, I said, ‘You know, we just got thechance to have public revenge on Vanessa for all the times she’s been rude to us and we didn’t take it. I think we must be much better people than I thought we were. That was pretty good of us, wasn’t it?’
‘I think if we were properly good we wouldn’t even think of that,’ said Cass, and she’s probably right. But still. I think it was quite saintly of us.
The bus journey home was quite different from the journey there. We were all kind of knackered and we’d spent the last bit of the party just hanging around. So there was no singing. Ellie and Jessie talked a bit about the musical auditions. Ellie really wants to work with Mrs Limond, who is this old lady who used to be an art teacher at our school and who returns every year to oversee the costumes. We have never met her, but she is famous because apparently she is a bit eccentric and mysterious. We have seen her costumes, though, because we were at the musical last year (and I went to see Rachel’s year’s production before I started at our school) and they are actually amazing. Anyway, normally I’d have been quite interested in what Ellie was saying because, after all, mysterious old ladies who make magical costumes are always interesting, but I felt like I’d sort of crashed down to earth after the madness andexcitement of the party. So I just sat there and stared at the window and said ‘Oh?’ every so often in what I hope was an interested voice.
Anyway, that was Vanessa’s party. I can’t believe it ended up with Alice in hospital. She texted me last night to say she was still waiting in A&E, but they don’t think there’s
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