Bother Me

Chapter 8: Party Poopers

"And, I'll invite you, and you, and- oh, of course you!" Bailey said as she was tapping some things into her phone, sprawled out on her bed. Daisy was sitting next to her, and she gave the dog a quick kiss on the head before Natalie walked into the bedroom.

"Hey, whatcha doing?" Natalie said coming in and grabbing some pencils.

"Why do you care, freckles?" Bailey barked.

"Aha- don't ever call me that again."

"Okay, how about Gnat?" Bailey teased.

"Dude." Natalie glared at Bailey.

"What? You're short."

"Says you. I'm average, thank you very much. And you're shorter than me," Natalie remarked.

"It's not my fault, I happen to come from a short family. Anyway, what do you want?"

Natalie put her pencils in her pockets. "I want to know what you're doing," she replied.

"Why?" Bailey whined.

"Because, whenever I don't know what you're doing, you're usually getting yourself into some kind of trouble."

"Oh, please, name one time I did something that caused 'trouble'."

Natalie didn't even hesitate to say, "That time when we were at camp and we went to Frog Creek and you fell in the water because you were taking selfies instead of watching where you were going on the dock."

Bailey looked up from her phone and whispered, "I thought we were never to speak of that again."

"Well you asked."

"Oh, shut up."

Natalie flung her hair back behind her. "So, what are you doing?" she annoyed.

Bailey grunted. "Natalie, could you please just get out of my hair?" she complained.

"You mean your super fine, golden pieces of spaghetti hanging out of your scalp?"

Bailey sat up and got ready to punch Natalie. "Say that one more time and I'll-!" she shouted.

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry. Anyway, what are you up to?!"

Bailey sighed aggressively. "Alright fine I'll tell you," she said, giving up. "I'm hosting a party."

"Ooh, where?" Natalie asked enthusiastically as she brought out a paper to doodle on.

"Here. You're gonna have to leave."

"Um, excuse me, but I live here, too."

"And?" Bailey asked, as if that wasn't a reason.

Natalie started sketching out a design and said, "You can't just kick me out of my own apartment."

Bailey flopped back down on the bed and said, "Ugh, fine, but you'll have to stay out of the way, cause you're not invited."

"Wait, what? Why not?"

"Because you're obnoxious."

Natalie rolled her eyes. "Oh yes," she started, "I'm the annoying one. But Bailey, we're roommates, we shouldn't try separating from each other."

Bailey pat Daisy and put her on her lap. "We may be roommates," Bailey began, "but get this straight: we're not best friends."

Natalie stopped doodling. "Excuse me? Hello, we've known each other since our grade 9 year in high school!"

"Yeah. 'Known'. I'm sorry, but it's my party, not yours."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. What you gonna do about it?" Bailey challenged.