JESS
‘Constance … ? Do you think you could … um … stop bouncing on the sofa?’ I ask, standing in the doorway of the spacious living room in my father’s house.
My half-sister is quickly joined by her twin and, within nanoseconds, all eight girls are jumping up and down on Lola’s new corner sofa and cushions go flying this way and that.
I think of the table in the dining room, where slices of pizza lay haphazardly on plates, hardly eaten. It was probably a mistake giving them the orange fizzy stuff that came free with the pizza delivery but it’s too late to do anything about that now. Rookie mistake, I bet. If Lola hadn’t had to shoot off and leave me in charge for half an hour, there’s no way this would be happening, but it was as if, the moment the front door slammed behind her, they all turned feral.
I check the time on my phone. She’s only been gone ten minutes. It feels like at least an hour. And I’ve been instructed to make sure the girls eat a bit of salad too. Fat chance. I couldn’t even get them to finish their slices of pizza before they started jumping up from their seats and running about the house like tiny demons.
‘Constance!’ I yell, as my other half-sister climbs on one of her friend’s shoulders. I heard someone dare her – Jamilla, I think. Or possibly Evie – to dive from there onto one of the two large beanbags the twins like to sprawl across while watching TV.
Constance just shoots me a winning smile and launches herself from the other girl’s shoulders, then lands bottom-first on one of the beanbags. There is a horrible ripping sound and tiny polystyrene balls shoot out over the floor.
The other girls squeal in delight and, before I can stop them, they’re taking it in turns to jump from the sofa onto the beanbag, spraying the filling out until it’s snowing in my father’s living room.
I battle my way through them and manage to grab hold of the loop on top of the beanbag and pull it off the floor. Charity tries to pull the bag away from me, but I’ve got a good grip and my anger is building. Small white balls dribble from the gash in the side of the beanbag, which is now twice the size it was a minute ago.
My phone rings. I don’t want to answer it because I feel that these little minxes will take any opportunity if I’m distracted to continue their chaos. There are moans of disappointment as I turn and stride from the living room, through the hallway and up the stairs. The only place I can think to secure the beanbag is in the old-fashioned wardrobe in the spare room. I throw it inside, lock the door, then slip the key into the back pocket of my jeans and pull out my phone.
I’m hoping it’s Lola telling me she’s on her way back from the supermarket. One of the girls is allergic to nuts, but it seems that message got lost somewhere along the way and Lola had to shove the gorgeous custom-made cake she’d ordered back intoits box and go in search of a contaminant-free alternative so the girls can have cake before their karaoke session.
The good news? Itismy stepmother. The bad news? The first supermarket she went to didn’t have any nut-free cakes left. They do them, but those slots on the shelf are empty, and she’s going to have to try Waitrose, which is another ten minutes away.
My heart sinks. That means at least another half an hour on my own with these children and I’m not sure the house will be standing if Lola gets stuck in traffic and doesn’t come back within that time. However, I pick myself up and race back downstairs, the girls have just finished setting up the remaining beanbag as their alternative trampoline and Charity is priming herself to leap from the sofa. I snatch it up as my sister becomes airborne and she lands on the rug instead, executing a perfect roll to bring herself back up to standing. She plants her hands on her hips and narrows her eyes. ‘Hey!’
I don’t get a chance to reply, because there’s a knock at the door. I point a finger at the twins, each in turn, letting them know I am not finished with them, and dart into the hallway. Thank God. Maybe Lola found an allergy-free cake at Tesco after all!
But when I yank the door open, I am not prepared for who I see standing there. ‘L-Luke!’
He grins at me.
‘What are you doing here?’
He frowns but doesn’t answer my question. ‘Why are you holding a beanbag?’
I glance down at my hand and realize that, in my desperation, I must have dragged it up the hallway with me. I hope I didn’t take out any of Lola’s treasured ornaments along the way. ‘Long story,’ I mutter.
‘I thought maybe if you couldn’t come out to celebrate, we could at least spend the evening together. Maybe we can go out once it’s finished.’
‘I really—’ A crash from the back of the house stops me from telling him I don’t have the time for this. I drop the beanbag and sprint back down the hall into the dining room, hoping I’m not going to be met by the sight of blood when I get there.
Eight pairs of wide childish eyes greet me. All of them are standing as far away from an upturned plant pot as possible.
‘Don’t any of you move!’ I warn them, but it falls on deaf ears. The girls start nudging each other and bouncing. They all start whispering and pointing fingers at each other. ‘It was you!’
‘No, it was you!’
They begin jumping around the room, giggling and pulling faces at each other. I’m just about to lose my rag completely when an unearthly hush falls upon the room. I turn to see what they’re staring at and find Luke towering in the doorway and taking in the aftermath of the polystyrene blizzard.
‘Luke!’ the twins yell in unison.
They’re about to race towards him, but he holds up his hand and says, very calmly, ‘Stop.’ To my surprise, every small body in the room freezes. He looks at them seriously.
‘I’ll deal with the casualty,’ I say, nodding at the plant on the floor, ‘if you can deal with the entertainment.’
He instantly spots the karaoke machine Lola hired. ‘Let’s move this into the dining room so you can clean up in peace.’ Then he picks up the machine and heads into the other room. ‘Who knows how to get this thing going?’ he asks the girls as they trail after him.
I vacuum the living room floor three times over to make sureI get every last possible bit of beanbag and return the peace lily to its pot. By the time I’ve put the vacuum cleaner away in the understairs cupboard, the strains of ‘Shake It Off’ by Taylor Swift are blaring from the dining room. When I go to check on my charges, Charity and Constance are fighting over who’s going to hold the microphone, and the other six girls are bouncing up and down trying to out-sing them.
