Life's a Laugh

Part 6 ~ FRANKIE'S BIRTHDAY

Back at home, WAHOO!

Saturday

Frankie’s 14th birthday party today! She has invited me, Chris, Alex, Cassie, EB, Rosa, Alice, Marieann, Matilda and Verity. Her mum, Tracey, and her sister, Lizzie, came as well. Frankie’s mum works at New Trees Lodge so managed to get us into a hut for a sleepover! The invite said to bring ‘midnight snacks’ so I have packed Chilli Heatwave Doritos, prawn cocktail Pringles and a bag of Haribo! Om nom nom! We are in for a night of fun, baby!

3:00pm

Mum and I collected Chris and have been waiting in the Lodge car park for 20 minutes. There is no sign of anyone being here, ever.

3 minutes later

Alex and Verity have turned up. We still don't know where Frankie is.

2 minutes later

Alex rang Frankie and we are in the wrong place! We need to go down a side road and then it’s on our immediate left.

Half an hour later (3:40ish)

EVERYONE IS HERE!!! This afternoon Tracey has organised an Indian-American experience. This man called Tom took us into an information centre and was telling us about the Indian-Americans and their lifestyle. Then he pulled out some red, blue, black, green and white face paints and we painted each other’s faces! I painted Chris’ and she painted mine. I rode around on an imaginary bull and called myself Chief Sittin’-On-Ma-Bull! Yes, okay, it’s a weird name but Tom said that there was a real chief called Chief Sitting-Bull (named so because he was stubborn!).

By about 10 o’clock, it was dark outside, so we decided to run around out on the field. Before you ask, we were all a bit hyper and it seemed a good idea! We were all wondering/running/leaping around when something flitted over our heads.

“Oh my God!” cried Chris, “there are bats here!”

“Bats!” squealed Marieann, and with that took off towards the lodge.

“Isn’t her favourite book Twilight?” asked Cassie.

“Yeh, what’s that gotta do with anything?” I said.

“Well vampires turn into bats don’t they?”

“Not in Twilight!” yelled Alice from the other side of the field. Alex and Frankie stood up and wondered towards a dark building, which turned out to be a loo block. Suddenly, there was a squeal from Frankie.

“There’s someone behind there!” she cried hurrying back to us, with Alex hot on her heels.

“What?!” yelped Rosa, “what do you mean?”

“There are PAEDOPHILES behind the loos!” screamed Cassie. We all shrieked, half with laughter and half trying to cover our slight fear, and began running back towards the lodge.

15 minutes later

There was a knock at the lodge door and Tracey went to open it. The rest of us were watching Frankie unwrap her presents. We carried on talking, but even if we stopped we couldn’t hear Tracey’s discussion with whoever it was at the door.

5 minutes later

Tracey came back into our area, leaned on the door frame and said “Girls? Did you see anyone out there?” We all glanced at each other.

“No, but we heard someone...” began Frankie.

“Ah, that explains it. You see, the man at the door was...”

“A Vampire?” asked Marieann, going white.

“A Paedo?” asked EB, diving under her duvet.

“...the leader of a group of Explorers.” finished Tracey. We all sighed in unison and Rosa laughed.

“Yes, apparently you scared the hibbie-bajeebies out of his boys.” smiled Tracey. Alex gaped at her.

“We... scared them?!” Chris asked, incredulously.

“Seriously?” asked EB, reappearing from the duvet.

“Yep, so I explained that it was you running round and not a bunch of female rapists.”

I snickered. Everyone looked at me.

“Oh come on,” I said, “You have to admit that’s quite funny!”

“Well,” continued Tracey, “they’re having a camp fire and have invited us over. Immediately, Cassie, Alex, EB and Marieann all squealed. People began pulling on shoes and coats and applying make-up. Chris, Rosa and I sat and watched the kfuffle with mild interest.

2 minutes later

Everyone else started walking out the backdoor, over to where the fire light was coming from, leaving Chris and I to battle with our converse trainers. Just as I pulled my last shoe on, there was a scream from outside. Chris and I glanced at each other, shock clearly etched onto both our faces. We both leaped down from our bunk beds and sprinted outside. Frankie was lying on the floor and clutching her leg.

“Mum, I need to swear, I need to swear, I need to swear!” she was crying.

“Its fine, we’ll get you inside. Swear if want.” Tracey replied. She grabbed Frankie under her arm and Rosa grabbed her other side. Carefully they helped her inside and put her on the nearest bed. The whole time, Frankie was swearing under her breath, “Shit, shit, shit, and shittie, shit, shit...”

11:30pm

Tracey called in one of her friends to look after us, because she was going to take Frankie to the hospital. Frankie’s right leg has swollen by quite a considerable amount :/.

“Poor Frankie.” murmured EB. Everyone muttered their agreement.

“What annoys me,” piped up Cassie, “is that the Explorer boys didn’t do anything! They just stayed where they were!”

“That’s a point,” said Tilda, “aren’t they supposed to help the community?”

01:00am

Everyone had been having quiet conversations here and there, drifting in and out of consciousness. No word yet on how Frankie’s coping. Chris and I have been eating my Pringles in secret because Alice brought 2 packets of sour cream Pringles, both were devoured by Matilda and Cassie within seconds.

02:00am

Still no word about Frankie. Nearly everyone has drifted off to sleep now. Just me, Alex, Rosa and Marieann are still up. Rosa and Marieann are talking and Alex and I are watching stuff on Alex’s iPad.

03:00am

Everyone is still drifting around, feeling groggy and the occasional moan sounds from a bed, normally EB’s.

03:26am

We finally heard the door open and the sound of metal against the floor. Everyone except EB sat up in their beds and peered round the wall.

“Frankie!” cried Matilda leaping out of her bed and helped Frankie sit on the nearest, seemingly unoccupied, bed, taking the crutches from her to lean them on the wall.

“Ow!” squealed EB, sitting up and clutching her stomach.

“Sorry EB,” laughed Frankie, getting to her feet, “didn’t see you there!”

Everyone gathered round and Frankie began to tell us what happened. She showed us her leg which was in a large Velcro support and had swollen a little more. She told us how while she was sat in A&E there was an interesting array of injuries. Two teenage boys were sat together in one corner, one with a traffic cone stuck on his head, the other, a black eye and bruised face. A small toddler was sat opposite Frankie, with a party sausage jammed up her left nostril. But the funniest thing she said she saw was two elderly ladies, their cheeks and shoulders super glued together, knitting needles in hand and wool stuck to, pretty much, every part of their bodies! That had us all laughing for ages!

“What do you think they’d been doing?” asked Rosa, as a horrified expression crossed her face.

“You do not wanna know what came into my head!” said Cassie, shaking her head violently as to shake out any unwanted thoughts. We all looked at her.

4 minutes later

Yeh... we really didn’t want to know... :/ I will have nightmares for weeks!