Nicky, Ricky, Dicky and Dawn Birthday

Chapter 4

“Bye, Dawn!” Josie called cheerily, and then she realized that the quadruplets and Anne had left her alone in the store without any backup, and a whole line of impatient customers were waiting to check-out.

There was a landline in their room. Dawn pulled the door open and earned three glares. Dicky was using the landline.

“Yeah, so, the party tonight’s only for Nicky, Ricky and I,” he was saying. “You don’t have to get a fourth present. What? Who’s Dawn?” Dawn crossed her arms.

“Dicky, I have to use the phone.” She said.

“Sorry, I’ll have to call you back later.” Dicky shot Dawn a dirty look. “Some thing just walked in.” Dicky hung up and stood, purposely knocking Dawn in the shoulder on the way to his bed.

The four of them shared a room, with Dawn’s bed all the way to the right next to the landline, and the other beds laid out in a row with only a bedside table between each one. The desks were pushed up against the opposite wall, next to the door.

Dawn sat down on her bed and dialed Mae’s number.

After three rings, Mae answered.

“Hey, it’s Dawn.” Dawn said. She lay her head down on her pillow.

“I know, I have caller I.D., remember?” Mae replied. “Happy birthday, by the way! What’s up?”

“Well, you know that party tonight?” Dawn started.

“Yeah, the one at Stanky’s?”

“That’s the one. Well… I kind of decided to ditch the party and have my own.”

“What? You’re going to have a different birthday party?” Mae sounded shocked. “But for the past nine years your party has always been at Stanky’s. Your brothers actually agreed to a new place?”

“No, no, no, Mae,” Dawn sighed. “The Stanky’s party is still going on, I just decided to have a separate party.”

“…you’re not celebrating with your brothers this year? But --” Mae was cut off by Nicky turning on the stereo. He plugged in the iPod and cranked the volume all the way up to the max. Dawn couldn’t hear herself think, let alone her best friend over the phone. She put her hand over the receiver.

“Could you turn it down?” She yelled over the music.

“No!” Nicky yelled back. Dawn rolled her eyes. They weren’t making this easy on her.

“Sorry, Mae, I’ll have to call you back.” She shouted into the phone. She couldn’t hear what Mae said next, so she just hung up. Right after she hung up, Nicky shut off the music.

“I’m going to go take Dawn’s name over everything that’ll be at our party.” Ricky said, standing up. “Including the cake.”

“You can’t do that, I made the cake!” Dawn argued.