[alli55]

The sleepover that changed my life


Chapter 5 Rollercoaster ride


As soon as I’d said the word, “Dare”, I got that tight feeling in my stomach that you get when you’re really anxious about something.

Abi, Bethany and Paige were all sat in just their underwear, after our game of Truth or Dare had gone down a road I wasn’t keen on travelling. I was still wearing my t-shirt, which was baggy enough to pretty much cover my knickers as well. Not that showing my knickers was what was worrying me; the others had seen them already. No, it was further up that I was worried about: I had a major thing about my flat chest. It was why I always wore baggy t-shirts.

When Paige had picked me, I had not wanted to be seen as too lame to play, so had chosen Dare even though I was sure I knew what was coming. I was going to be losing my t-shirt. I’d held on to it as long as I could but I was resigned to the fact that it was about to go.

But when I looked at Paige she seemed to be struggling with something. Was she thinking of taking pity on me?

“Give me a minute,” she said, “I’ve got to get the right words.”

Now I knew why she was struggling. She had to think of a way to dare me to take my shirt off that hadn’t already been used in an earlier dare, because of our ‘no exact repeat dares’ rule. All too briefly I had a glimmer of hope, until I remembered how smart Paige was.

“I’ve got it!” she exclaimed, looking pleased with herself. “Megan, I dare you to let everyone take your shirt off you and then leave it off for the rest of the game.”

I had to hand it to her, Paige was clever.

I knew I couldn’t put it off any longer, so slowly I got to my feet and stood in the middle of the circle. As the others moved towards me something occurred to me, some small hope that I could cling to. Since they were all going to be taking my shirt off me, there wouldn’t be anyone just sitting and looking at me. Maybe they wouldn’t notice my flat chest. A much louder voice in my head pushed that thought away: of course they’d notice, how could they not notice!

At that moment I felt the bottom of my shirt being lifted up, so I raised my hands above my head and shut my eyes tight. I could feel the shirt going up and up, then felt it coming off my shoulders. Hands appeared on my neck and chin as they struggled to get the shirt over my head. Then it was gone, no doubt winging its way into the corner.

I lowered my arms and felt a hand squeezing mine. I knew it would be Abi, so I returned the squeeze. The hand stayed in place, but then a different hand squeezed my other hand. I opened my eyes to see Paige standing next to me, looking at me a bit concerned. I smiled weakly and squeezed her hand too.

I knew at that moment that she and I could be really good friends.

I let go of the hands, but Abi held on to mine. I looked at her and shook my hand to indicate to her that she could let go. She did and we all sat back down.

Once we were back in our places, Abi leaned in close to me and whispered, “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I whispered back.

She looked me in the eye intently.

“Really,” I insisted, “don’t worry, I’m fine. No worries.”

Then I said loudly, “Must be my turn. So, Abi, Truth or Dare?”

As Abi decided what to choose, I glanced at the other two. Paige was watching Abi, but Bethany was looking at me and I thought I caught a smirk as she realised I was wearing a training bra. I blushed and turned away to avoid making eye contact with her and hoped she wouldn’t say anything. I had tried wearing proper bras but my tiny breasts didn’t need any support and I found the training bras more comfortable. I made a promise to myself that I would switch to proper bras from now on.

Abi chose Truth, which fitted my plan perfectly. If I could get her to spot the subtle signals I was trying to send her, Abi would take her truth and bring the game to an end, allowing everyone to recover their clothes.

It had been fun, I couldn’t deny that, and I had enjoyed playing, but I would be quite happy to just watch a film or something now.

However, I wanted to go out with a really good question, and I thought I had one. Not only that, it was one that I didn’t absolutely know what her answer would be.

“Abi,” I asked my BFF, “if you had to choose between Aaron and Max who would you go out with?”

“Oooh,” she replied, showing me that it was a good question. She had made no secret of the fact that she liked both Aaron and Max, so Bethany and I waited with interest as she struggled to choose.

“Max,” she said after a bit, “no, Aaron, … no, wait, … yes, Aaron.”

“Wow, that was hard!” said Bethany. “Maybe you should just double date them!” and she and Paige laughed.

I was too busy looking at Abi to laugh with them. I wanted to know whether she had picked up my signals about ending the game.

I don’t know whether she had or not, but she was about to send me on an emotional rollercoaster. To say that what she did next took us all by surprise would be the understatement of the year!

“I dare everyone to stop the game and let’s go to the kitchen and get something to eat,” she said …

Phew!

… before grinning wildly and adding, “dressed as we are!”

What!!??!!

The three of us looked at each other, then back at Abi, in complete disbelief. Had she really said that?

“Are you serious?” Bethany voiced what we were all thinking.

“Uh-huh,” replied Abi.

“You’re doing it as well,” said Bethany. It was a cross between an instruction, a plea and a question.

“Yeah,” said Abi.

Bethany put her hand into the middle of our circle. “Alright, I’m in,” she said. Abi put her hand on top of Bethany’s.

Knowing the layout of Abi’s house, I was trying to work out how she was going to do this. There were only two ways into the kitchen: from the outside passage between the front of the house and the garden, or from the main room downstairs. Outside would be freezing cold and the door would probably be locked anyway, whilst downstairs was where her uncle would be. I couldn’t see how it could possibly be done, and I said so.

Paige, who had quietly put her hand on top of Abi’s, looked at me and quickly withdrew it.

“Don’t worry about Uncle Ryan,” Abi told us. “I’ll get him to move so he won’t see us.”

“But he’ll know what we’re doing,” I countered, “and he’ll tell us we’re not allowed.”

“Well, if he does, then obviously we can’t do the dare and the game’s over,” replied Abi. “Is that fair?”

That was the bait that hooked me! The chance, the very good chance as I saw it, that the game would be over was too good to resist.

“That’s fair!” I said as I put my hand in. Almost immediately I felt Paige’s hand rest on top of mine.

We were actually doing this!

Abi led the way as we crept quietly down the stairs. At the bottom she halted, turned to us and whispered, “Wait here.” She pushed open the door to the main room just enough to stick her head around it.

Her uncle must have noticed because we heard him say, “Abigail, what can I do for you?”

“I need you to do me a favour,” Abi began slowly.

“Yeah, what favour?” came her uncle’s voice.

“We’re hungry, so we want to go into the kitchen to get some bits to eat,” Abi explained.

“So what’s the problem?” asked her uncle.

Abi paused as she tried to gather the courage to get her next words out, then cautiously said, “We’ve been playing Truth or Dare, and we, um, aren’t exactly wearing all our clothes.”

“I see.”

“And our dare is to go to the kitchen like we are,” Abi continued, “so we need you to go somewhere so you won’t see us.”

After a pause, we heard her uncle say, “Hmmm, the only place I could go would be the loo and I’m not sitting in there while you ransack the kitchen!”

I felt a wave of relief wash over me as I anticipated the end of the game.

“Pleeease,” said Abi in the cutest way she could.

“How about if I sit here but put a cushion over my face so I can’t see anything, and you shut the kitchen door with a bang so I know when you’re all in there?” replied her uncle. “Would that do?”

“Yeah, that’d work,” said Abi, and pulled her head back and turned to face us.

I couldn’t believe her uncle was going along with this. Crap and double crap!

Abi was so pleased with herself. “He can’t say ‘no’ to me! See, wrapped round!” and she stuck out her little finger.

She put her head back around the door. “Ready?” she asked.

“Ready!” came a muffled voice in reply.

“Let’s go!” she said to us, and pushed the door open fully.

We walked in: Abi cautiously; Bethany confidently; Paige nonchalantly; and me trembling. The first thing we each did was check to make sure her uncle really couldn’t see us. He looked so funny sat on the sofa with his hands pressing a large cushion to his face! Quickly we made our way into the kitchen and Abi slammed the door shut. We had made it!

We began raiding the cupboards for things to eat and ended up selecting a multi-pack of bags of crisps in different flavours. We took three or four bowls to pour the crisps into, grabbed a bottle of water each, and decided that we had everything we needed.

Abi moved next to the door and shouted, “Cover up again, we’re coming back through!” and waited for the okay.

It never came.

Instead her uncle said, “Since you’re playing Truth or Dare, how about I give you all a dare?”

We looked at each other, wide-eyed and open-mouthed. Abi was flustered, not knowing how to reply. She looked at us for help, but we were no use.

“Um, not really,” she said, hopefully.

“Oh well,” came the reply, “you can always stay in the kitchen all evening.”

Seriously?

Abi had got us into this mess, but now she didn’t have a clue what to do to get us out of it.

“Ask him what the dare is;” suggested Paige, “maybe it will be fine. I mean you trust your uncle, don’t you?”

Abi perked up. She did trust her uncle, and Paige was right, the dare would probably be perfectly okay.

“What’s the dare?” she shouted through the door.

We stood there, waiting to hear our fate.