Swinging into the kitchen, I see Mum bent over a mountain of sandwiches that are piled high on the kitchen table.
“Lily, I need you to get me some paper plates from the shop,” she begins, trying to balance the last cheese-and-ham triangle on top of sandwich mountain. With this in place, she looks up to see me standing in front of the table. “Oh, Maisie, it’s you. Where’s your sister?”
“She’s just getting ready,” I say, remembering my promise to Lily.
There’s a smudge of cream near the corner of Mum’s mouth, the freshly baked smell of cake making my own mouth water.
“You’ve got something on your face,” I tell her, lifting my hand to the corner of my mouth to show Mum where this is.
With a guilty expression, Mum reaches up to wipe her cheek.
“The other side,” I say.
Finding the right place, Mum dabs the cream with her fingers and then licks the evidence away.
“Making all this party food is hungry work,” she says with a grin. “Do you think we’ve got enough?”
I look at the jam-packed plates and bowls laid out like the Himalayas across the table. There are chicken drumsticks and mini-quiches, slices of pizza and sausage rolls, hotdogs, burgers, sandwiches of every description, bowls of crisps, and cubes of cheese and pineapple speared on cocktail sticks. And that’s just the savoury stuff. On the side I can see cupcakes, meringues, chocolate éclairs and fruit kebabs.
“Just a bit,” I reply with a grin, the excited smile on my face matching Mum’s own.
I sneak a crisp out of the nearest bowl.
“But I need more paper plates,” Mum says as I start crunching. “Just to make sure we’ve got enough for everyone. That’s why I want Lily to pop out to the shops.”
Leaning towards the door, she shouts up the stairs.
“Lily!”
Quickly swallowing my crisp, I interrupt Mum before she calls out again.
“Let me go and get them.”
At this suggestion, Mum’s face creases into a frown.
“Don’t be silly, Maisie – it’s your birthday. You can’t be running round getting things ready for your own party. Lily can get them for me.”
It might be my birthday, but that’s not the reason Mum doesn’t want me to go to the shops. She never lets me go to the shops. Not on my own anyway. The convenience store is only over the railway bridge, halfway down the parade, but Mum says it’s too far for me to go there on my own. I thought things would be different now that I’m ten.
“But I want to go,” I say, putting on my best “it’s my birthday” face.
Mum still looks doubtful. She glances over her shoulder towards the patio doors. Through the window I can see Dad pegging out the guy ropes, the gazebo now standing upright in the centre of the lawn. Too busy at the moment to give Mum the back-up I know she’s waiting for.
“I’m not sure, Maisie,” she finally replies. “I think it’s better if Lily goes. You see, I want you to help me choose what party games you want to play.”
I’ve got three A levels and ten GCSEs. I’m studying for a degree in Mathematics and Physics at the Open University. I wish Mum would stop treating me like a baby.
“I don’t want to play any party games,” I snap. “I want you to let me go to the shops on my own. I’m ten years old.”
I nearly shout this last bit out and Mum looks really shocked. She’s used to Lily blowing her top, but I almost never lose my temper. I just need her to know how important this is to me.
“Please, Mum.”
A frown still creases Mum’s forehead, but as she looks at me I see the worry lines around her eyes start to soften and, for a second, I think that she’s going to say yes. But then Lily walks through the door and ruins everything.
“What’s up?” she asks.
Lily looks completely different to how I left her in the bathroom. Dad’s long-sleeved T-shirt is long gone and instead she’s wearing a tie-dye vest and denim shorts. The dark shadows beneath Lily’s eyes are now disguised with a layer of concealer and her pale skin shines like starlight, but I can just glimpse the plaster sticking to the underside of her wrist.
The frown on Mum’s face disappears at Lily’s appearance.
“There you are,” she says, dusting her hands on the front of her apron and then reaching for her purse on the side. “I need you to pick up some paper plates from the shop.”
I start to protest, but Mum quickly presses the twenty-pound note she’s pulled from her purse into my hand.
“And we need some more drinks too. Coke, lemonade, orange juice – you choose. It’ll take the two of you to carry it all.”
I’m about to carry on arguing, but Lily just plucks the twenty-pound note out of my hand.
“Come on, Maisie,” she says, giving me a pointed look. “It’ll be fun. We can chat about stuff on the way.”