Hey all!
I don't know when everyone starts, but I started school this Tuesday. Now, I know this story is fairly... well, summery, but let's pretend that it is summer. XD
In Afton's POV
Charlie snapped the oven door shut, and sighed happily. Supper was in the oven, chores were done, the whole house had been cleaned. Everything was just right. The extra bonus? No one had bothered her in hours, which had contributed to the productivity level.
Charlie was reveling in the calm silence. Then she heard us coming up the stairs and sighed, this time worriedly.
"What now?" She mumbled.
"We still need to finalize the time, and we have to find some games somewhere... Could I leave you in charge of that?" I suggested.
Amy smiled. "Of course! We also need to talk to Heather and Charlie." She said consulting the list diligently.
I whirled around as I bumped into Charlie.
"Ah, Charlie! Just the person I was looking for!" I said.
"OK, I'll bite. What are you two doing?"
I held out my hand. "Amy, the papers, if you will."
She passed me the stack of paper we had amassed.
With a flourish, I held them out for Charlie to see.
She was silent.
"Pretty amazing, hey?" I prodded.
"Um, what is it?"
"Only our plans for the biggest, best, pool party of the summer!" Amy answered.
"The best pool party ever!" I corrected, throwing the papers into the air. "I need everything to be perfect! Now what do you think?"
"Um, it's great, except..." Charlie hesitated. "Well, we don't have a pool."
There was a long silence. I blinked.
"Small problem, not insurmountable. Amy? You can find a location, right?"
"Um," She looked slightly unconvinced.
"I'm counting on you." I added.
"...Of course. I'll find somewhere." her eyes glowed proudly.
"OK then! Let's go finish up the invitations."
"Afton." Charlie said tentatively, "I just, well... just don't get too carried away."
"Phht. As if. I never get carried away."
"Well, there was that time with the owl and the raisins..."
"Come on, Amy," I said. I hate that story. "let's go talk to Heather."
Amy scrabbled around to pick up the papers I had thrown, and was about to follow me to the basement, when Charlie put a hand on her shoulder.
"Amy, Afton does get carried away. So if she starts getting a little crazy, just let me know and I'll talk to her.
Amy laughed. "Thanks Charlie, but I think I'll be fine. This is going to be fun!"
"Suit yourself." Charlie shrugged. "Here you dropped this."
Amy smiled, "Thanks."
Amy scanned the list of people we were inviting to the party.
"Are we really inviting all these people?"
I read through the fifty or so names over her shoulder.
"Oh, we missed Betty Herman."
"Isn't she that girl that was gossiping about you?"
I nodded.
"Then why would you invite her?"
"Oh, Amy." I sighed, "Why throw a great party, when no one is there to see it?"
"Um, OK. I guess that makes sense."
"All right, so I'm going to go talk to Heather. I think she's over visiting Molly. I'll leave you to address those invitations, and don't forget to write the date, time and place on them."
"Don't worry Afton! You can count on me." But I was already gone. Amy sighed. "You're welcome."
Heather was helping Molly organize bookshelves for Charlie.
"Oh, Heather! There you are!" I said in fake surprise.
"Hi Afton." Heather's voice was pleasant, but by the look on her face, I knew she knew I was going to ask for help.
"I think you're the only one that can help me." I said dramatically.
"What do you need Afton?"
"Well, I'm planning a pool party, and I need some entertainment..." I trailed off delicately.
"Um, isn't it getting a bit late in the year for pool parties?" she was trying to distract me from the question in question, but I would not be deterred.
"Don't worry about that, we've got it all worked out, but what'd you say? Will play for us?"
"Um, I guess it depends on the songs you want..."
"High Hopes by Panic! at the Disco!" I said promptly.
"Uh, I'm not sure if that will work to well on a banjo -"
"Thanks, Heather. I knew I could count on you." I cut in.
"But I -"
"The party is this Saturday at 3:00 so if you could be there by 4:00 that would be great." I smiled to myself. Don't let them talk and they can't say no.
Molly rolled her eyes at my back and sighed. "You didn't even say 'yes'."
"I guess I didn't say 'no' either. Well, I'm off to learn a new song before Saturday." Heather said.
"I'm done, Afton!" Amy said proudly as I walked in. "All ready to be mailed. Now we just need to talk to Charlie about those dessert thingys you wanted."
"Amy," I sighed as I flopped onto my bed, " This has been such a busy day for me..."
"Well," She said slowly, " I could talk to Charlie for you."
"Oh, Amy! You're so sweet, I would really appreciate that."
What can I say? I know how to get people to do what I want.
"Hey, Amy. How's it going?" Charlie asked looking up from the gravy she was thickening on the stove.
"Oh," Amy considered for a second. "Fine. Just busy. I actually needed to ask you something."
"Sure, ask away."
Amy set the invitations on the counter.
"I needed to ask you if you would be willing to make a dessert for us."
"What kind of dessert?" Charlie asked
"Um, I can't remember... I think it was.. Puff... Puff something."
"Oh! I know exactly what it is. Those are super easy. I'll have them ready for you." Charlie smiled in relief.
"Thanks Charlie." Amy's smiled faded suddenly. "Is something burning?"
Something was burning.
Once they put out the fire, there wasn't much left of my beautiful handmade invitations.
"Oh, no." Amy groaned, "What am I going to do? Afton was counting on me."
"Don't worry, Amy." Charlie said gently, "I'll help you make new ones."
"Really?"
"Sure. Let's get to it!"
That Saturday...
OK, maybe I was a little upset that Amy asked Charlie for ice cream puff sandwich cookies, not cream puff swans. But I thought I handled it pretty well. I calmed down fairly quickly after Charlie said she wouldn't have made cream puff swans anyway.
I followed Amelia, carrying the cooler.
"Amy," I sighed, "I'm not mad at you."
"You aren't?!" Amy asked hopefully. Maybe I wasn't as patient as I thought.
"No, I'm sure it'll be fine."
"So," I changed the subject, "Whose pool did you arrange to use?"
"Um, pool... oh. Oh. You wanted a pool."
"What? Then what did you... No." A horrible thought had occurred to me. "Oh, please no."
I ran ahead, and froze when I saw it.
We were at the river crossing. I took in the muddy banks, slimy rocks, and dirty brown water.
I had been holding my breath, now I let it out.
Just make the best of it. I thought.
"Amelia, what games did you have planned?"
Amy sat down on the cooler, and beamed at me.
"I was thinking first we could have a clam hunt. Next we could try catching some crawdads, there are tons of them under the rocks. Then we could play my favorite game, clam skip. That's the one where you take all the clam shells you found and see who can skip them farthest."
"Clam skip. Right." I said distractedly. My mind was in high gear, trying to figure out how to save this. It couldn't be a perfect party now, but we might still be able to scrape together a good party.
"OK, Amy here's the plan. I'll go and collect the clams - um, scratch that." I remembered what she had said about the crawdads. "You go collect the clams, I'll get the food set up. This can still work."
I had arranged the sandwich cookies, and they actually looked pretty good.
"I got a whole pile of clams!" Amy called from the water.
"Good," I said as came and sat on the grass with me. "I think we're ready. Now we wait."
So we waited...
and waited...
and waited...
but no one came.
Amy got bored and went swimming.
I got tired of waiting too. So I pulled out the laptop, and opened up Instagram. I had a ton of notifications, but I was used to that. I had about forty-five comments on my post about getting this pool party ready. I began to scroll through them, expecting heart emojis and things like 'Looks amazing!' but that wasn't it at all.
They were all laughing. I was confused, what was so funny? I noticed I had been tagged in a post, I went to that post and I then understood why they were laughing. I opened up all my different social medias and found they were all swamped with the same picture.
"Amy." I tried to keep my voice steady, "Can you come here please."
"What's up?" she asked as she looked over my shoulder.
"What is this?" I pointed at the picture on the screen.
"Oh. That's one of the invitations Charlie and I made. Do you like it?"
That was it. Everything was ruined. My perfect party was in shambles. I exploded.
"Like it?! It looks like a kindergartner's art project gone wrong! Everyone thinks I'm an idiot for sending those to the whole school. People are going to make fun of me for months! No one is coming to my party and good thing too, because it's all been ruined, and it's all your fault!"
"But..." Amy looked hurt, "I was just trying to help. I didn't mean to -"
"I think I've had enough of your help!"
Amy froze, then she turned and ran down the shore, out of sight.
I flopped on the grass. All of that effort, all that time. Nothing to show for it. I knew I had been unfair to Amy, but what I said was true.
Just to postpone the moment when I would have to go find Amy, I pulled the laptop over and began clearing out my email. Deleting all of the messages without reading them, until one caught my eye.
It was from Charlie.
Afton,
I know you have your heart set on a perfect party, but just remember what really matters. Family comes first.
Charlie
I thought about that for a moment. Remember what really matters. Amy. I thought about how I had been treating her for the last few days. Family needs to come first.
I needed to make it up to her. I grabbed the laptop, and I began to write a post...
I finally found Amy sitting on the shore, looking out at the water.
"Hey, Amy. Can I sit with you?"
She was silent.
"Amy I need to show you something."
She was quite far a bit longer then she said, "I guess so."
I slid the laptop onto her lap. It was open to my newest post.
Amy began to read it out loud.
This week I set out to make the perfect party, but things kept going wrong. From the place, all the way down to the invitations, nothing worked out. I know you've all seen the pictures of what you're all calling "The worst invite ever'. But my sister sister made them, by hand, to try to help make my party better. In fact, she didn't make them for you, she made them for me. If you've got a problem with my sister, who is the sweetest, nicest person ever, then you've got a problem with me.
Don't bother coming to the party. From all the things all of you have been saying, I can tell you aren't really my friends, and this party is only for my best friends.
So my sister and I are going to have the perfect party.
"So, what do you say best friend? Ready to have the best last night of the summer ever?"
Amy smiled, she was about to answer when they were interrupted by footsteps.
Heather ran up, breathing hard. Then I remembered, I had forgotten to tell her that the party was canceled.
"I'm..here...sorry...late..."
"Wait," Heather looked around, "Where is everyone?"
Well, once we explained what had happened Heather decided she may as well spend the evening with us.
We laughed and talked late into the night.
And I finally realized that it was a perfect party, because I spent it with the best people possible.