I should have told him.

Chapter 1

Amber

We never liked birthday parties, we always found them odd. The three of us just preferred it to be us and the aunties, or grandma viv for our birthdays. (Granda viv actually just being finny's mother.) We hate parties, we prefer sleepovers in the treehouse in finny's backyard, or a game we call ghost hunting where we would dress as ghosts to try and lure out a ghost. We also prefer tea parties (Mostly just me) but Finn and Triston like my company so they don't dare say no to having a tea party with me.

What's odd is that even though it's just us three everyone has come for finny's 6th birthday, people like Ariabella, and Sylvie. Finny is the nicest person I've ever met which is probably why everyone is attending the party. Although I'm sure from the expression on his face he didn't expect anyone but me and Triston to come. "Woah.. that's a lot of kids." Triston says the same amount of shock I'm sure is also plastered on my face resident on his. "We are kids." I reply, he sticks his tongue out at me. I stick mine back at him. "Escape no-"

"Amber! Kitchen, now!" I wince. Finny and Triston look at me with raised eyebrows but a glint of knowing in their eyes. "Don't you dare leave without me." I narrow my eyes at the pair of them. They giggle. I make my way to the kitchen in which my mother drags me through the archway as soon as she can reach me. "The cake." My mother announces, I climb on top of a stool and I see a big piece of cake gone. Oops. "How did you even manage to do this? We just got it yesterday and you weren't here yesterday." Auntie Lilah places her fists onto her hips as she stares into my soul. "Well.. Finny.." My mother and Aunties groaned before I could even finish my sentence. "Finny!" Grandma Viv yells out. A few seconds later Finny's head pops into the archway and Grandma viv is motioning for him to sit on the stool next to me. "If you punish us, you punish all three of us." Me and Finny say in sync. "Triston!" we scream. Triston comes running in, and takes a seat next to us. "Alright, whatever suits your boats."

"Amber.."

"It was me, I ate the cake." Finny announces. "Anyways, Amber took a piece of the cake." Grandma Viv continues. Triston chuckles. Finny and I sigh. "Viv?" My mother cuts in. "You did something like that too when you were younger... So why don't we just pretend like we blew the candles out without everyone else and just serve the cake before they all come running and screaming for cake?" My mother laughs, along with Auntie Neriah. "Alright, whatever." Grandma Viv rolls her eyes and shoos us away, we run off giggling.

We run out the door, carefully and quietly making sure we don't get caught.(Which for some reason never works!) Me, Finny's and Tristons houses are next to each other and our mothers got rid of the fences between our backyards. Triston told me and finny to go up inside of the treehouse and that he'll be back in a minute. We climb up using the wood ladder that's given us more splinters than we can count, I recently got one and now have a bandaid over my thumb! "Is your thumb healing?" Finny asks as I crawl over to my little corner of books in front of the trapdoor that we have left open for Triston. "Yep." I quickly answer, his stare runs over my face then at my thumb before landing on the wood ground. "Are you alright Finny?" He nods. "I like your dress. It's pretty, and your hair looks nice as well." he compliments I smile widely. Compliments from finny is like being gifted heaven. "Thank you. You look really nice as well." He nods, his cheeks turn a rosy colour. "Alright! Why are these so heavy?" Triston interrupts, I react quickly grabbing the stuff he climbed up with from his arms, Finny helps. "Are these my gifts?" Finny asks, a bit shocked. Triston nods eagerly. "The trio of moms let me have them to unwrap up here." Triston carefully shuts the trapdoor. "Really?"

"Yep. So hurry!" Finny reaches for a bag and he rips it apart rather than just carefully reaching into it for his gift. He picks up the cardboard box and it reveals a digital camera. He realises it's already set up once he presses the 'on' button. "Nice!" He cheers. He raises the camera and focuses it on me and triston, me and Triston pull a silly face together and he snaps a picture the flash eagerly ready to blind us. We pulled away from each other and I laughed and my mouth hurt from how wide I was smiling, but I didn't care. Finny snaps another photo.

He puts the camera onto a stack of my books and starts the recording, we pull funny faces and do acts of animals. We also record our raid of finny's other gifts.

We finished our raid of his gifts and I now hold an old book named 'the tales of two cities' by Charles dickens. I read it outloud to Finny and Triston who listened intently. The trapdoor creaks before it slams open revealing finny's dad who roars as the three of us scream in terror. We all stand up quickly as Finny's dad climbs in. I dropped the book. He grabs finny and throws him over his shoulder before grabbing me and Triston under his armpits. "I got y'all now!" He roars. "Put us down!" Finny giggles in delight. Finny's dad, Jay, roars as he sees the camera and spins all four of us around. "Ambear?!" Finny says in a dizzy daze. "Finnbear?!" I say back. "Hey!" Triston says, me and finny giggle. "Tribear?!" me and Finny say in sync. All three of us giggle. Finny's dad places us down and we all stumble around. "Those are our.. New nicknames." Triston announces before we all tumble to the ground dizzily.