EPISODE 18: The Party
August 20th 2009, ‘You’re invited to my party’
Middle School is some sort of competition. You get the sport junkies who compete in sports, then you get the geeks who compete in whatever they compete in and you get the computer junkies like me who compete in how fast we can successfully hack computers. But my Middle School had something different. Ahmar and Jennifer competed on who could host the greatest parties. Ahmar’s parties seemed to be about the experience and having fun whilst Jennifer’s parties seemed to be about getting wasted. The good thing about their parties is that they never clashed and were always on separate dates. Well they were up to August 22nd.
It started with a normal school day. I was sitting at the back with Angelina reminiscing. Mustafa, Muksin and Corey were making fun out of Tamim and Ahmar was gossiping.
‘Remember when you were pissed at me cos of what I said to you in Arusha?’ she said before breaking into a giggle. My insides started getting hot. I still hated that day. I faked a laugh before saying ‘Yeah I do.’ She observed the expression on my face and knew straight away that I was uncomfortable.
‘Sorry Lee,’ she said. ‘I never knew it still pisses you off.’ I wanted to reassure her that it was okay but when my mouth opened, Jennifer had ran into the room with pink slips in her left hand. Jennifer was slightly taller than me and had a mirrored face. Her teeth were perfect unlike mine, which needed braces. She had slightly dark skin as well.
‘Angie! Angie!’ she shouted. I frowned as she came towards us and she noticed and pulled off a frown of her own. Angie giggled slightly and sat up straight.
‘Yes Jen,’ She said, a smile spread across her face as she noticed what the pink slips were.
‘Guess what?’ Jennifer asked. Angie’s eyes went from Jennifer’s face to the pink slips twice before saying.
‘I’m invited to your…’ but she was interrupted.
‘Party yes!’ Jennifer shouted.
‘Can she shout any louder?’ I mumbled, unaware that she could hear me.
She pulled off a disapproving face before saying:
‘Whatever Lee… Anyways, are you coming?’ she asked Angie. Angie looked at me before looking back at Jennifer.
‘I guess I’m coming,’ she replied, her smile was still on her face and showed no sign of being worn out.
‘Err… Will bring him along?’ she asked while nudging her head towards my direction.
‘I guess so…’ Angelina said and Jennifer’s smile faded away but Angelina’s smile was still there and I wondered how long she was going to suppress her laugh for. Jennifer said ‘ok,’ before leaving and the reason for Angelina’s smile became clear to everyone. I had taped a paper on Jennifer’s back that read: ‘Hi I’m Jennifer and I’m a loser!’ Everyone started chuckling as Jennifer skipped away. Angelina picked up the pink slip Jennifer had left on her table and tucked it away in her bag.
‘That’s sort of mean Lee,’ Angelina said. I looked at Angelina with a smile on my face and her smile escaped her face.
‘It’s okay. Jennifer won’t mind.’ I said. Angelina opened her mouth and closed it again when she saw Ahmar running our way. A wide smile was ever spreading across Ahmar’s mouth and in her right hand were blue slips made of Manila paper.
‘Angie! Lee! Guess what?’ Ahmar shouted when she reached our table. Angie and I both looked at each other before sighing and saying: ‘What?’ Ahmar was happy to hear the question and she stood still and said: ‘I’m having a party at my house, you going to come?’ Ahmar had always surprised me with her English accent yet she lived in Africa for the majority of her life. Ahmar had lived in Birmingham in England for a short while before returning to Africa before we started class seven, last year.
‘Yeah, I guess we will,’ said Angie and Ahmar skipped off happily, sort of the same way Jennifer did.
‘Is it me, or does everyone who seems to come visit this table get a paper stuck on their back?’ Angie said when she realized Ahmar was skipping away with a similar piece of paper stuck on her back.
‘I wonder why?’ I said sarcastically. ‘Is it me or is Jennifer and Ahmar a bit to hyped up for their parties?’ I said before chuckling. I looked at Angie and she was biting her bottom lip and her cheeks turned a shade of pink.
‘Err… Lee. The parties are scheduled at the same time on the same day!’ She said as she lifted her left hand to her forehead.
‘Wait let me see!’ I snatched the paper off Angie and she scrambled in her bag for the other invite. She was right. The dates and the time were completely similar.
‘So which one do we got to?’ I asked Angie, hoping that she had the right answer.
‘I don’t know!’
‘Err… How about we go to both?’
‘How do we do that?’
‘Well… We could just keep switching from party to party,’
‘And who’s gonna be driving us from place to place?’ she asked and when I didn’t reply she added a ‘Exactly.’
‘My cousin could,’ I said.
‘How do you know?’ she asked.
‘Cos he always wanted to tag along with me on a party. He’s got a car as well,’
‘How old is he again?’
‘Sixteen,’ I replied and Angelina’s face contorted but she had to agree, she didn’t want to let her friends down.
August 22nd 2009, ‘The Parties’
I stood in front of my mirror at 6:30 getting dressed for the parties. I decided to wear a white t-shirt with long sleeves and blue denim jeans. I rolled up the sleeves up to my elbows just before I left my house to pick up Angelina. I arrived at her house and she seemed to have spent at least four hours picking what to wear. It paid off though. She was dressed in a red shirt and tight black jeans. This time she untied her hair from her common ponytail.
Ahmar’s party was the first on the list and my cousin never fussed about the fuel consumption. Her party was as usual. It was all about mingling. Instead of alcohol, there was soft-drinks and instead of crisps and other snacks, there was actually proper food. On the dining table, there was chicken, meat loaf and pizza and else where in her house there was desserts such as cream puffs, ice cream and hot chocolate. It was a good party and the music was all right but then we had to leave un-noticed. We escaped through the back door that led out of the kitchen and got out without anyone noticing. My cousin was able to sneak a few cream puffs and brownies and we had some on the way to Jennifer’s house. One corner away from Jennifer’s house and we could here the thumping of the music and the laughter of pubescent teens. We parked outside of her house and made our way inside. As the gate opened, the first image we saw was of a drunken girl with brown hair fall on the floor laughing. She tried to stand up but she was barely stable and fell back down. I looked at Angelina and she looked back at me in a sort of unnerving way.
‘We won’t drink much,’ I said, reassuring her. Jennifer’s house was as big as her ego and if you didn’t know how big her ego was let me just say that it was pretty big. It was painted white with hints of beige and black. There was a huge staircase leading to the roof on the side of the house and Jennifer emerged from the roof holding a bottle the size of rifle. She ran down the staircase when she saw Angie and accidentally smashed the bottle on the staircase leaving pieces of the bottle flying everywhere.
‘Angie!’ shouted Jennifer.
‘Jenny!’ shouted Angie and honestly, I was tired of all the shouting, the music was loud enough.
‘Have you had a drink?’ she asked Angelina and Angelina shook her head.
‘Then what are you waiting for?’ she shouted before tugging Angelina and shooting off inside her house and in typical nature, I followed. A few drinks and shots later, we walked out of Jennifer’s house, slightly tipsy.
All I can remember after that is waking up in the morning with a large headache and a burning stomach. The weirder thing is, Angelina was awake on the floor of my room, staring at my bed.
‘Lee, what happened yesterday?’ she asked me.
‘We got drunk and you came over my house and err… you didn’t want to sleep on my bed so you slept on the floor,’ I replied.
‘Are you sure?’ she quizzed. I took a swig of the milk next to my bed, on the floor before saying: ‘Yeah, I’m sure.’
The parties got us tired and we carried bags around our eyes on Sunday. Two good parties weren’t worth the way we felt in the morning and after that I quit drinking. Well at least until I go to university.