As the box lowered to around my height, I raced over to find out what it contained. My heart was racing from the fear of the unknown. As me and Mona got to the box, we paused for a moment and looked at each other. I think we both had the same sort of idea on where his was going, but didn't want to say it. I peeled the sellotape that was keeping the box closed and lifted the cardboard folds.
Inside the box were party decorations. There was a huge banner that said 'welcome' in colourful bubble writing. The background was silver, and it reminded me of a kids birthday party banner. There were 4 packets of balloons that looked like they were all different shapes. The number of balloons in each pack varied. Underneath the items was a note:
'I hope you're ready for the family reunion. I'm sure they'll turn up. Kisses -A'
I was sure Aria would be taken here. As much as I wanted to finally meet her, I would do anything to stop her from being treated the way I am being. I was angry, but if I rebelled Aria would probably be punished for my actions.
"Aren't you going to help me, Nancy?" Said Mona from the middle of the room. She had the shiny banner in her hands, but clearly her arms weren't wide enough to put it up alone.
"Should I get this side Mon- Alison?" I asked while I grabbed the end of the banner anyway. Mona gave me a thankful look when I corrected her name. Once we had straitened the banner, we pinned it up on an empty wall. It looked tacky in the pretty room we were in, but did it even matter?
Next, we took two packets of balloons each. Mona's packets were coloured blue and yellow, and mine were pink and purple. I began to blow up the first of four balloons in the pink packet. Once it was full of air, the balloon was in the shape of an 'A'. The next letter was 'R', then 'I', then another 'A'. I glanced over to Mona, and her yellow balloons had spelt 'EMIL-' so far. My second set of balloons spelt SPENCER, and Mona's second set spelt HANNA. We took sellotape and stuck them to another section of empty wall. I was sure the sellotape would pull off the paint from the blue wall, but it wasn't even a real home anyway.
After decorating, we slouched in a comfy armchair. It wasn't a lot of movement, but I wasn't used to it so was tired. After a minute or so, the annoying woman's voice sounded from the speakers after saying hello in half a dozen different languages.
"You're guests will be arriving soon." Was what repeated a few times. Was repeating it four times really necessary? I didn't think so.
Both me and Mona stood up to the sound of the big heavy doors opening and the sound of many footsteps slowly walking through the doorway.