“What else are we doing besides spending the night?” Jenna asked on Saturday afternoon as she and Alice dumped their things on Sophie’s bed.
“I’m sure Sophie has something planned,” Alice said, “don’t you, Sophie?”
“No,” Sophie said. “It’s more fun if we get together and then think of something to do.”
“I like it that way, too,” Alice admitted. “I was running out of beauty ideas.”
“My mother had to cut some of those beads out of my hair, they got so tangled,” Jenna said.
“What’d your grandmother say?” Sophie asked.
“She’s going to wait until I’m thirteen. She said I’ll care about hair then.”
“Thirteen.” Sophie shuddered. “You don’t have a sister who’s thirteen,” she said. “It’s scary. All kinds of weird things happen.”
“You make it sound like a horror movie,” said Alice.
“Thirteen-year-old boys are pretty horrible, too,” said Jenna.
It made them all feel very cheerful, knowing they were still nine and didn’t have to face horrible old age for what felt like many years. They sat in a row on the back steps to think up things to do. There was hardly enough time in the afternoon to fit them all in.
First, they put on a play in Mr. Hartley’s van. He had cleaned it out, and when he heard what they wanted to do, he hung up a moving pad to act as a curtain. The play roughly involved a queen (Sophie wearing her tiara), whose princess daughter (Maura, being dragged around like a sack of potatoes by her loving nursemaid, Alice) was frequently and noisily rescued from all kinds of vague threats by a brave horse rider, Jenna.
John wanted to be in it, too, as a spy. The girls wouldn’t let him, but they did allow him to stand on a box and sell tickets. Mr. and Mrs. Hartley were the only ones in the audience, but they both applauded enthusiastically.
Thad came home as the play was ending. Mr. Hartley told him he had to mow the lawn before he went back out, so he took turns driving Sophie and Alice and Jenna around the yard in a breathtaking display of skills. Alice’s face was beet-red with the glory of sitting next to him.
After that, they had a cookout and a formal family-job-list burning that Sophie insisted on. They had to burn a plain piece of paper because John had ruined the real one, but it felt every bit as good to watch it disintegrate into little charred pieces that floated into the sky. Everyone clapped and cheered, even Jenna and Alice. When the last bits of paper had disappeared, Mr. Hartley took the boys to a movie, leaving the house entirely to the girls.
They took turns soaking in lavender bubble bath in Mrs. Hartley’s huge tub, and then applied generous amounts of wonderful-smelling body powder that left their white footprints on the bathroom floor.
As a grand finale, Nora gave them all facials.
“Five dollars for all three of them?” she was saying under her breath to her mother as Mrs. Hartley followed her into the bedroom. “Do you know how much I’d be paid in a real spa?”
“You’re paying her?” Sophie protested.
“For heaven’s sake, Sophie, lie down!” said Mrs. Hartley. “We’ll let her experiment on you first, in case your skin turns green.” Jenna and Alice giggled.
Sophie lay down on her bed and put her hands on top of her chest. Nora covered her with a towel and pulled her hair away from her face with a terry cloth band, just like a real spa.
“Stop moving your mouth,” she commanded as she smeared what felt like cold mud over Sophie’s cheeks and nose.
“I can’t help it,” said Sophie. “It tickles.”
“Hold still, or I’ll plug up your nose holes.” It was a very unprofessional threat. Luckily, Sophie started laughing so hard, Nora had to join her.
“Oh, Sophie, you should see yourself,” said Alice and Jenna, giggling.
When Sophie finally got up to look in the mirror, her face was a blue mask with perfect circles for her eyes and mouth. Nora put masque on Alice and Jenna, and then Mrs. Hartley took their picture before they washed it off.
Nora went to spend the night at a friend’s so they could use Sophie’s and her room. After Mrs. Hartley helped them set up the small TV from the kitchen, she went down to pop them some popcorn. The girls piled all their sleeping bags on the floor between the two beds for Jenna, who said she loved sleeping on the floor.
They ate popcorn and drank soda and watched a movie, and it was with great satisfaction that Sophie could yell, “No boys allowed!” when John jiggled the doorknob.
“You can say that again,” said Jenna.
“Some boys aren’t so bad,” said Alice. “I think Thad’s cute.”
“Don’t start getting all mushy,” said Sophie.
“When was I mushy?” asked Alice.
“You’re always mushy,” said Jenna.
“Mushy, mushy, mushy,” said Sophie.
“It sounds so funny, when you say it like that,” said Alice.
“The mushy mushroom mushed in the mouse’s mouth,” said Jenna. “Say it five times, fast.”
The more they tried, the funnier it sounded. Mr. Hartley finally had to knock on the door and say, “Time to settle down in there, girls,” which sent them into gales of stifled laughter. They buried their faces in their pillows to muffle the sound.
If the success of a slumber party can be measured by the number of times the parents have to knock on the door and tell everyone to be quiet, then Sophie’s slumber party was a great success.
In the middle of the night, two raccoons ambled across the Hartleys’ backyard and stopped at the garbage cans next to the back porch. One of them sniffed around on the ground, looking for scraps, while the other scrambled nimbly up the steps and reached out with its paw for the lid of the closest can.
The bungee cord Thad had stretched across the top was securely fastened under the edge of the lid. On top of it was the pile of bricks Sophie had run out to collect from the garage, in her pajamas, right before she went to bed.
Disappointed and still hungry, the raccoons moseyed down the driveway and out into the street, looking for a house where the people weren’t cooperating for the good of the family quite as much as the Hartleys.