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The sleepover that changed my life


Chapter 1 Four girls and an uncle


Hi! My name’s Megan, I’m 22 years old, and I’m from Canterbury.

No, it’s not my introduction on some tacky TV game show! I just want to let you know who’s writing this story: me. It’s my story.

I’ve called it the sleepover that changed my life because that’s what happened. I know it sounds dramatic and maybe when you’ve read the story you’ll think I’m overplaying it, but to me that’s how it feels and that’s how it was.

In many ways it seems so long ago now – it is nine years after all, and that’s a big chunk of my life – but I can still remember it vividly. Not all the details of course; for some of those I’ve had to look back through my old diaries. But lots of it is still as clear as if it happened a couple of hours ago.

But that’s enough waffle! Let’s get on with the story!

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Abi had been planning her sleepover for weeks, so it was a really big deal when she was told the week before that it couldn’t happen. She came to school that Monday morning with a face like thunder, snapping at everyone. Eventually she calmed down enough for me to pluck up the courage to ask her what had upset her.

Abi was my BFF (in fact, she’s still my closest friend). We had known each other since pre-school and been best friends since we were six, and in all that time I don’t think I’d seen her that angry about anything.

It turned out there was some important mental health thing over the following weekend that her parents wanted to take her sister to and so Abi had to go as well, which meant that the sleepover couldn’t happen. Abi’s sister, Jade, is three years younger than her and had (still has, actually) some mild mental health issues which her parents thought this weekend thing might help with.

It seemed fair enough to me, but when I said that to Abi she exploded again.

“It’s not fair!” she raged. “It’s always Jade this, Jade that, Jade, Jade, Jade! No-one ever thinks of me!”

“Can’t we just re-arrange it?” I asked.

“The whole point of it being this weekend was that she wasn’t going to be around, because she was going with my Dad and my Uncle Ryan to some football thing in London. Otherwise she’s always in the way, so it won’t be the same.”

“Oh,” I said, “right.” I decided to drop the subject.

But a smile crept over Abi’s face, and she looked at me and said, “I think I’ve got an idea.”

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The day of the sleepover arrived and, yes, it was going ahead. Abi’s idea had worked. Her parents had taken Jade to the mental health thing, but since her Uncle Ryan had had his weekend plans wiped out, Abi had reasoned with her parents that he would be free to supervise the sleepover. They had agreed to it so long as he was willing, but had told Abi that she had to ask him herself.

“That was easy!” she had told me. “He can never say ‘no’ to his eldest niece. I can wrap him around my little finger!”

I looked at myself in the mirror and tried to decide what to do with my hair. I normally wore it in a ponytail, mainly to keep it from getting in my way, but also, being a redhead, if I wore it loose it tended to be a bit too in-your-face for my liking. I wasn’t particularly shy, but I wasn’t really out-there either, if you know what I mean.

So ponytail it was as usual, and also as usual I was wearing a baggy t-shirt and a pair of skinny jeans. That was my standard look.

I leaned closer to the mirror and peered into my own eyes to see what colour they were. That sounds ridiculous I know, but I have really weird eyes – some days they look nearly green and some days they look nearly blue. Today was a nearly blue day.

I turned away, grabbed my bag and headed downstairs.

Abi only lived about a five-minute walk from me, so I was soon ringing the doorbell.

She answered the door and let me in. She was wearing a blue sleeveless top that seemed to shimmer when she moved and a navy skirt that ended just above her knees. It looked good on her, since her arms were much more tanned than mine. She was taller than me and had the look of someone who was sporty and fit, whereas I was just small and skinny. Her shoulder-length brown hair suited her, though she didn’t like its colour and had got into trouble the previous summer for dyeing it blonde. She could be a bit of a rebel sometimes!

“This is going to be so good!” she said, as we took my bag upstairs to her room. Her smile disappeared, though, when she confided, “But I’m just a bit worried about including Paige.”

Paige hadn’t been to any of our sleepovers before, mainly because she was in Year 8 and we were Year 9s. But she was a long-time friend of Bethany, who had suggested we invite Paige along. Bethany had moved into our tutor group at the start of this year, and we had become really good friends with her. So when Bethany said Paige was nice we trusted her judgement; she also said Paige was a really good laugh.

We talked for a while, the normal BFF things, until we heard a car door shut outside and then a car drive off. Looking out of the window, we could see a girl standing on the pavement, with a bag next to her, looking first at the house and then up the road. She seemed to be waiting, unsure what to do.

“There’s Paige,” I said.

“What’s she doing?” Abi asked. “Why doesn’t she come to the door?”

“She’s probably waiting for Bethany. Remember she doesn’t really know you,” I pointed out.

Paige looked really quite young. She had blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail and was short, maybe even shorter than me. She was wearing a red dress with some sort of black pattern on it. It looked a bit too much like something you’d wear to a children’s birthday party. It wasn’t a look that was going to ease Abi’s worries about her.

Just then another car drew up, and out got Bethany. She immediately hugged Paige and then grabbed her bag out of the car and waved it off. We watched as they turned to start coming to the door, then ducked down out of sight and headed for the stairs. Abi was halfway down the stairs when the doorbell went, and she quickly opened it and let Bethany and Paige in. After hugging Abi and me, Bethany introduced Paige, and I gave her a hug to welcome her into the group and Abi did the same.

Bethany looked stunning, as always. She was mixed race, and her darker skin colour allowed her to wear things that just wouldn’t have looked good on someone paler. Today she was wearing an orange crop-top and blue denim shorty-shorts that showed off her curvy figure really well. She was about the same height as Abi but she seemed to have really long legs. It was no wonder that she got so much attention from the boys at school.

I could only dream of being like her.

Once we had dumped everyone’s bags upstairs, we headed back down to find out what the plans for dinner were. When Abi’s uncle gave us the option of ordering pizza, there was never going to be any other choice. We all made our selection, left him to order it, and went back upstairs. Amidst the usual girly talk, we decided to all paint our fingernails and set to with equal amounts of polish and remover as we tried this colour and that.

Before we knew it, the doorbell rang again and Abi’s uncle was shouting, “Pizza’s here girls!” up the stairs. We piled downstairs, waving our fingers about wildly and blowing on them to try to dry our nails. We each found our pizza and were going to go back upstairs when we were stopped in our tracks.

“You know the rule, Abigail!” said her uncle. “No hot food allowed upstairs. You’ll have to sit down here and eat it.”

There were two sofas that could seat three each, so we three guests piled onto one sofa and left Abi to sit with her uncle on the other.

She gave us a ‘look’ and said, “Thanks guys, desert me why don’t you!”

Paige answered, “Sorry, but we don’t know your Dad.” I suppressed a giggle.

“Oh my God, he’s not my Dad!” exclaimed Abi quickly. This time I couldn’t keep it in.

“Well there’s no need to be that embarrassed about the idea!” said her uncle, appearing put-out. More giggling from me.

“No, it’s not … I didn’t mean …” began Abi, turning bright red. By now I was creased up.

Her uncle put his hand on her knee. “I was only teasing,” he said to her as she flapped her hands in front of her face to try to fan the heat away. The three girls on our sofa were all in fits of giggles. Abi could also see the funny side and began to laugh with us.

When we had all regained our composure, Abi introduced everyone.

“This is my Uncle Ryan,” she said to us, and then pointing to each of us in turn she told him, “and this is Bethany, Paige and Megs, … um, sorry, I mean Megan.”

I should think so! Only Abi is allowed to call me Megs.

We talked as we ate, and now it was our turn to be embarrassed. I mean what do you call someone else’s uncle? You can’t really call him “Uncle Ryan” because he’s not your uncle, but you definitely can’t keep saying “Abi’s uncle” every time you want to speak to him, so what do you do?

“You can just call me Ryan,” he said, putting us out of our misery as we stumbled around for a workable option. “And you,” he said, turning to Abi, “can decide for yourself what to call me.”

“How about ‘Dave’?” suggested Abi.

“That’s fine, ‘Gertrude’!” replied her uncle. Playfully, she poked her tongue out at him.

Abi had a really nice uncle, I decided, though she already knew that.

After we’d finished, her uncle asked Abi what our plans for the evening were.

“We’ll be up in my room,” she told him. “You don’t need to keep checking on us, we’ll be fine.”

“I’m sure you will be,” he replied. “Well, you know where I am if you need anything. Have fun!”

She looked at us and grinned. “We will,” she said as we all trouped out and headed up the stairs.

We all sat on Abi’s bed, looking at some of her fashion mags, offering opinions on the various models and clothes and what sort of look would suit each of us. This moved on to analysing, or more like criticising, the way some of the others girls at school looked and dressed. I didn’t like this and didn’t really join in, mainly because I could well imagine at other people’s sleepovers I would be the subject of such criticism. Eventually everyone else got bored of this as well and it went quiet for a minute.

Abi spoke up. “We need to liven this sleepover up!”

We all agreed. But how?

Abi already had the answer. “How about a game of Truth or Dare?”

Bethany was keen, Paige said she was up for it, and so all eyes turned to me.

To be honest, it wasn’t a game I particularly liked because everyone else always seemed better at thinking up dares and questions than I was. But as we had played it at nearly all the sleepovers we’d had since we’d started secondary school, I had expected to be playing it this time and had googled some good dares and questions earlier that day. All I had to do now was try to remember them!

Since Abi and I had played plenty of times before, I knew the sorts of things we were likely to end up doing and I was mainly alright with them. Paige was younger than us so I was pretty sure that she would play the game at a similar level. Bethany though was a different matter. She was one of the oldest girls in our year and she was extremely confident in herself. She was the reason why I wasn’t absolutely certain I wanted to play.

But everyone else did, and I wasn’t about to be the party-pooper, so I said, as confidently as I could, “Count me in.”