Chapter 5

When I woke up in the morning, Paul had somehow managed to make his way into my bed and he had his arms around me, I pulled out of his arms and went to get changed into some of my new clothes. I grabbed the bag I wanted and walked to the bathroom to get changed, when I walked back in the room Paul whistled, I spun around and did a little pose, I was wearing baby blue combats and a lilac alter-neck top, my hair was in a messy ponytail,

“You look fabulous”

“Well I do try” I said laughing,

“Well I got to go get changed, do you wanna do something today, we can invite some people from college round, you know get to know more people”

“If you like, Ill phone my friends and you can get yours around”

“Cool, well I won’t be long”

“Paul?”

“Yeah”

“Play Prince and you die” I said following him downstairs,

“Is that a threat?”

“It’s a promise”

“Oh feisty” he said laughing; he got out of the door before I had chance to severely hurt him. After he had gone about ten minutes later Amy knocked on the door,

“Hello”

“I told you too…” I shut the door right in her face I couldn’t be doing with her, she was the most singley annoying person ever.

I grabbed my phone and got the girls to come round, including Mark, seen as he and Siobhan were now joined at the hip. They arrived about 30 minutes later and then Paul and his friends. Me, Kaz, Hanne, Siobhan, Lisa, Shreena, Mark, Paul, Ben and one of Bens friends Christian, all headed for the back garden, its where my dad had sent us, insisting that the front room was to small for us all.

Its was a nice day, the sun was shinning and it was fairly warm, who said global warming was a bad thing. Christian, Ben’ friend we found out was originally from Norway which got Hanne immediately interested, he was kinda cute I guess, he had blond curtained hair shorter then Ben’ and nice green eyes, its was weird, out of all the guys in the world we happen to end up hanging with, four of them are music freaks.

“Does anyone want anything to drink?” I asked, Ben looked a little nervous, no matter how much he knew Shreena and Lisa liked him it did worry him, when they started edging closer to him, there was mutter of yes’s, what was it with these people, its was a Sunday morning, the sun was shinning and they were just in their separate little groups, I got up and walked to the kitchen and Ben followed me,

“I thought I would come and help”

“Never thought I would see the day Ben Adams tried to get away from advancing girls”

“Never thought I would see the day we hung out together”

“Everybody is being so boring though”

“Well…liven it up, but your stereo with the speakers out of the window, I saw a Bar-be-queue, use it and water balloons always add fun” he said grinning at me,

“Will get my dad to go down to the supermarket soon then, what drinks do you think people will want?” I asked opening the fridge door and kneeling down,

“Well what do you have?”

“Everything”

I got out nine glasses, that was like all of them and then put ice cubes in them, and picked up the bottles of drink and gave them to Ben he could do all the menial work, I placed the glasses on a tray and picked it up,

“This way they can have what they want” I said and started to walk back into the garden, I almost dropped the glasses, as I saw Hanne and Christian all over each other,

“He is a fast mover aint he?” I asked Ben,

“Yep, its why I tend not to take him anywhere with me, but Paul said your friends were coming and I kinda hoped, either Lisa or Shreena would take a fancy to him” I placed the glasses on the table and let people help there selves while I went into the back room,

“Paul can you help me a second?” he walked into the backroom,

“Okay”

“Can you go out side, stand on a chair and take these speakers off me?”

“Sure darl” he walked outside and stood on a chair, taking the speakers off me and placing them on the window sill. I turned the music on when, he had put them down, and then went to the kitchen and wrote a shopping list for my dad, he didn’t know he was going to the supermarket, but at least it would get him out of the house for a bit. I remembered the vegetarian stuff for Siobhan,

“Dad, please could you do me a huge favour?” I asked walking into the room,

“All depends on what it is!”

“Just nipping down to the supermarket for me”

“How much do you want?”

“Just this” I said handing him the shopping list,

“Okay, I suppose”

“Oh and some of those charcoal things for the BBQ”

He sighed and got out of his chair, while I walked back to the back garden, when I got there Ben and Paul were singing in awful voices, I knew they could sing but I think they were just doing it to be annoying, they were singing along with ‘Dancing in the street’ and Paul had even started doing a little dance, the only stopped when they realised I was laughing a lot,

“Sorry to interrupt, your wonderful little sing song, but I need someone to come to the corner shop with me”

“I’ll come” Ben said before Paul had a chance to say anything.

We went out of the front door,

“Paul likes you, you know”

“Yeah, were mates”

“No its more then that”

“It isn’t, yeah he does say a lot of flirty things but that’s the way he is”

“If you say so, but I can see you two together by the end of the year” I just laughed at him,

“Anyway , why are we going to the shop?”

“Water bombs”

“And you needed someone to help you carry them why?”

“Not to help me carry them, to fill some on and attack first, can leave the rest for them lot to use, but surely you want to get first attack?”

“Yeah, cool, good idea” once again we were approached by Amy,

“You shouldn’t have closed the door on me this morning”

“You should get a life and get over it” I said as me and Ben walked past her,

“I mean it Beth, one hand on him and you wont know what’s hit you”

“Amy leave it” Ben said turning around,

“Oh so she has you wrapped around her little finger too?”

“No but you have no idea what is going on , so leave it” Thankfully she did and we carried on walking to the shop, when we walked into the shop, Ben pulled me straight over to the water bombs, we bought about 500 of them, cos you always get those awkward ones the brake when you try and stretch them over the tap or over the end of the hose pipe.

Walking back to the house, we actually started to talk about, the ‘old times’,

“You were lucky you got to do want you wanted in P.E, but we had to play netball, while it was basically snowing”

“That was fun to watch, you lot shivering in your little skirts”

“Pervert”

“No, Im a male, hormones were going mad when we were playing football, then we would watch you when we finished”

“Do you know how uncomfortable that was, we didn’t like it”

“We know” he said laughing,

“When we get in the house be quiet, and go upstairs into the bathroom, so going to get them out of my bedroom window”

“Do you think its clever, doing that before we eat and stuff”

“Okay good idea, do that afterwards, but we need a reason to go to the shop” I said as we walked in the house,

“Grab that extra bottle of coke, from the fridge, and stick these in your pocket” Ben said handing me the balloons, I took them off him and stuffed them in my back pocket, and walked through the kitchen stopping briefly at the fridge and grabbing the coke.

When we entered the back garden, its was not quite what I expected to see, Paul had Shreena pinned to the ground and was trying to make her eat grass, I stopped playing that game when I was about 8. Shreena was laughing but trying to keep her mouth closed too,

“Yo Paul man, I don’t think grass is part of the human diet” Ben shouted,

“Wanna bet” he ran straight into Ben knocked him over and proceeded to make him eat grass,

“I am the man” Paul said when he had finished, Ben put just grabbed on ice cube from one of the abandoned glasses on the table and dropped down the back of Pauls top”

“ARGHHHH…cold” he turned around and glared at Ben, but he pointed at me, Paul lunged for me and put the ice cube down the front of my top,

“You bastard that was him” I said pointing at Ben,

“Well I can get it if you like” Paul said his hand heading to my the top of my top,

“No you’re okay” I said as I let it drop to the ground.

When my dad had brought the stuff back from the supermarket, Mark played Chef, although Siobhan had a knack of distracting him. He finally mastered how to flip burgers and make out with her at the same time. Now that’s a lesson to teach your kids ‘ Its perfectly safe to be near something hot and kiss your girlfriend at the same time’, the day was turning out good now, everyone was talking to each other, I could see us, being friends all through college. I looked over to Kaz, Hanne and Christian, they were laughing about something but I don’t know what, Lisa was now stamping on the char grilled burger, and Shreena was staring at Ben, Paul and Ben were talking about something Im not sure what, and I sat and watched it all, all my new friends, all together, its was perfect.

We had not gotten into a game of truth or dare and its was Bens turn to be dared,

“I dare you Ben to wear these tomorrow” he said as he produced the underwear I had bought yesterday,

“Where is the hell did you get these? And how am I supposed to fit in them?”

“Well Beth bought them yesterday…”

“You forced me Marazzi”

“Anyways Beth bought them yesterday and you can try, other wise it’s the forfeit for you”

“Which is?” Ben asked, Paul thought for a moment,

“You have to streak, through the street”

“Okay I will wear these, but you lot tell no body” Ben said as he put them in his pocket. It was Bens turn now and he choose Christian,

“Yo Chris truth or dare?”

“Erm… not doing your dares they are way dodgy…truth”

“Oh I had such a good dare, erm…I have to think now...”

“And that’s hurts Benji’s head” I said ruffling his hair and laughing,

“Hey don’t touch the hair” he said making it all neat again,

“Okay…tell us the worst thing you did at school”

“Okay well one year when we went on holiday and bought one of those things that you put in water and it grows, and this one was a penis one. At school we had this fish tank, its was huge , I mean massive it was the schools pride, and well I put it in the tank after school one night, and the next morning before I got to school, the tank had been taken away, because all the fish had died” everyone was in stitches that was funny.

Now there didn’t seem any point in doing it anymore, no one could beat that, it was only midday and yet it’s seemed so much longer we were having so much fun.

Me and Ben snuck back in the house and back up stairs, we filled about ten balloons and then went to my room and opened the window,

“Hey!” I shouted they all looked up and we attacked em, before they had chance to get us we ran down stairs and carried on the onslaught, when we had finished Ben and I admired our work,

“Did it rain or something?” I asked Ben in sarcasm, he was to busy laughing to even say anything, but before I knew it I was soaked to the bone, I turned around and saw Paul drop the offending bucket, I looked at Ben and he to was soaked, so I pulled the rest of the balloons out of my pocket, and put them on the table,

“Chicken is such a fun game in teams, now one team will have to have five and one have four…”

“Its okay, if you don’t mind Im going to go home” Shreena said standing up,

“What? Why?”

“I just want to okay” she snapped, she got up and left, normally Lisa would have gone after her, but she couldn’t be bothered, she was to busy watching Ben take his top off and stand there in just his jeans, and with the water shinning over his body, im sure she was going to explode.

“We have as many games as we can, and basically that’s it” I grabbed a bucket and put some water in the bottom, and the filled as many balloons as could fit in th e bucket and put them in the middle of the garden, I found a piece of string and put the through the middle of the lawn.

Hanne, Siobhan, Mark and Christian had decided they were going to on one, team which left me with a drooling Lisa,  an excited Paul, Ben (not really a bonus, Mr. clumsy 2003) and me.

Much to say with the team I had we lost.

We sunbathed until about 6,

“Beth, your all red” Paul said looking at me, I threw the after sun at him,

“Could you put some on my back please?”

“Sure” he could have just put some on my back, but oh no he had to climb on top of me too. Hell I wasn’t going to complain, Paul straddling me is pretty much perfect.

When 8 came everyone headed off, home.

I went upstairs and ran by self a nice hot bubble bath, and soaked in that for an hour and then went in to my room and crashed on my bed, I looked to see what was on, but my mind kept going back to today, new friends and maybe a new beginning, but I really wish, I knew why Shreena left.