22

Movie

On the Sunday afternoon we all met up at the cinema for Chloe’s party. The others were already there collecting the tickets by the time Matt dropped me off. Nadima hadn’t shown up yet, but there was still loads of time before the movie, so I wasn’t worried.

I handed Chloe her present. ‘It’s from me and Lily,’ I said. ‘We chose it together.’

Chloe ripped off the paper, pulled out the T-shirt and held it up. ‘OMG I love it!’ she cried. ‘Thank you!’ Lily and I grinned at each other.

I glanced over to catch Kara’s reaction. I thought she’d be jealous, but she was too busy grabbing centre stage for that.

‘Ooooh!’ She snatched the T-shirt off Chloe and held it up against herself. ‘I want one!’

There was still no sign of Nadima. I was beginning to get anxious.

‘I wonder if she’s going to come,’ said Elly.

‘Maybe she felt a bit shy,’ said Lily.

‘What if she doesn’t know where the cinema is?’ said Chloe.

‘She’ll look it up on her phone, like we would!’ I laughed, but actually I was properly worried by now. What if she’d got lost? I should have offered to give her a lift.

‘I’ll call her,’ I said. But just as I was digging my phone out of my pocket Nadima came rushing through the doors.

‘I sorry. I sorry!’ she panted. ‘I get off bus. Is wrong stop! I run!’

‘It’s fine!’ I said. ‘Don’t worry!’

I literally can’t tell you how relieved I was.

Nadima handed Chloe a small colourful paper bag. ‘Happy Birthday,’ she said.

‘Thank you!’ said Chloe, opening the bag. She took out a bright yellow bath bomb and looked at the label. ‘“Lemon Sherbet Fizz-Bomb”!’ she read.

Nad looked confused. ‘No! Is not bomb! Is for bath!’ she said, and everyone burst out laughing.

‘They are called “bath bombs”!’ I told her.

‘Ahhh!’ She nodded then rolled her eyes exaggeratedly at her mistake and repeated, ‘Bath bombs.’

‘Come on,’ said Kara. ‘I need to check my make-up,’ and she headed off to the loos. So of course we all trooped after her, and the others all started touching up their make-up too. It was ridonkulous! We were going to be sitting in a dark cinema – so who was going to see them? Nadima and I just stood and watched. I’m sure she was thinking the same as me.

Lily held out her make-up bag to Nadima. ‘Do you want to borrow some mascara or some lipstick?’ she asked, slowly.

Nadima shook her head.

‘Maybe she’s not allowed to wear any,’ said Elly.

‘Nadima and I don’t need any make-up,’ I announced solemnly. ‘We’re already stunning enough,’ and I started doing some poses in the full-length wall mirror. Nadima copied me and we strutted and pouted like supermodels. ‘Somebody call Vogue!’ I said, and everyone laughed.

‘Do you have to wear that?’ asked Kara, pointing at Nadima’s headscarf. ‘You can take it off here, if you want. We won’t tell,’ she added, and she mimed taking off a headscarf.

I was a bit worried because I didn’t want Nadima to get into trouble, or feel awkward. But she just grinned at Kara and shook her head. ‘I like,’ she said.

Kara shrugged and went back to plastering her eyelashes with mascara. I was beginning to realise how strong Nad was. Way too strong to be pushed around by Kara, that was for sure. Finally everyone was ready so we got some popcorn and went in.

I have absolutely no idea how much of the movie Nadima understood. But it looked like she was having fun. She laughed out loud a couple of times and she definitely got it when the lousy two-timing boy cheated on his girlfriend and went on a date with another girl. But of course that might have been because all the girls in the audience booed and hissed at him! LOL.

When we were back in the foyer she tapped Chloe on the arm, took a deep breath and said, ‘Thank you for inviting me to you birthday party. It is very kind of you. You are very nice. I hope you have good birthday.’

I could see Chloe was really impressed and pleased by Nadima’s little speech. But Nadima hadn’t finished.

‘Now I sing “Happy Birthday to You”!’ she announced.

We were gobsmacked!

‘Seriously?!’ I cried.

She nodded and grinned. ‘Is from YouTube!’

Then she started off singing on her own (which must’ve taken huge guts, when you come to think of it) so we all joined in. Everybody in the cinema was looking at us, but we didn’t care. And I’m telling you, WE WERE AWESOME! Especially when Kara went and sang in harmony. We sounded like a proper group.

It was typical of Kara to show off, I thought, but for Lily’s sake I said, ‘You have a fab voice, Kara!’

‘Thank you!’ she replied, then she grabbed Lily’s arm. ‘Hey, we should form a girl band!’ she cried, and she linked arms with me and Lily, so I linked up with Nadima, and Elly and Chloe tacked themselves onto the end next to her. And we all did a swanky walk out of the cinema like we were shooting a music video or something. Everyone stared at us. It was brilliant!

It was a fantastic afternoon, and everyone had had a real laugh. Why couldn’t it be like this all the time?