Saturday 12 November
1:00p.m.
Just got back from the dancing competition. What can I say? Well, here are a few words to describe it: waiting, boring, dancing, shouting, disappointment, waiting, watching, other people getting prizes, driving home. The truth is, Mrs Kennedy is right. I suck! No time to dwell. Lunch – hope Rory keeps his mouth shut and doesn’t keep going on about how much I sucked.
3:01 p.m.
Parties-to-Go start their business today. Just about to leave to go and meet Ali. I’ve just had a very worrying thought. What do I know about kids? What does any of Group C know about kids’ parties? Arghhh. Perhaps if I hide in my bedroom I won’t have to go and entertain 30 four-year-olds. Oh no, there’s the doorbell, it’s Siobhan. Gulp. I’ve got to go.
3:45p.m.
Siobhan and I have just finished decorating the house. She wanted to do the house and for me to do the garden, but that seemed crazy because it would be much quicker doing both together. She really didn’t want to do it together, but in a while we really got a rhythm goin’ on. It looks great.
We had these helium balloons – if you breathe in a little bit of the air from one of the balloons it makes your voice go all funny – I kept saying ‘Siobhan, would you mind telling me about the main themes in James Joyce’ like Mrs C the English teacher and she was really laughing. We had to stop when Mrs Griffin came in because we are, of course, professionals but I could see Siobhan was laughing so much she couldn’t even look me in the eye and had to concentrate very hard on putting the balloons up.
All we have to do now is wait for the kids to show upso they can tear down all our decorations and we can tryto stop them breathing in the helium balloons. Fun!
3:50p.m.
The first kid has arrived. He’s dressed as Spiderman – I think his costume is better than Tobey Maguire’s himself– it’s a perfect replica! How much must have that cost?
3:56p.m.
Time, I think, to break out the old face paints.Unfortunately, I’m not as good as I thought at the Butterfly Face – mentioning no names, Ali, but I’m not one to hold a grudge, let’s get this party started.
4:35p.m.
Mixed success with the face paints. I’ve got to be honest.I hadn’t exactly got round to doing the 20 practise Tigers the book told you to do. And it wasn’t quite as easy on the kid as when I was practicing on Siobhan, as she actually sat still and wasn’t trying to eat a big bowl of ice cream at the same time.
Even when I’d done my best job it was clear to everyonewho’s ever seen the Discovery Channel that he didn’t look like a Tiger at all. He looked like an orange and black stripy-faced kid. Mrs Griffin was not happy. She said, ‘And what type of Tiger is that, Aisling Fitzsimons?’ in this really funny voice. The kid looked like he was going to cry and I thought it was curtains for Parties-to-Go. But then Siobhan said ‘He’s a Celtic Tiger, Mrs Griffin?’ Then I started doing this funky dance. Singing ‘Ooh ooh I’m a dancing tiger’ with a couple of break moves and a big roar at the end. Then the stripy kid started shouting ‘Ooh, ooh, I’m a dancing tiger’, then suddenly a couple of kids near us started shouting ‘Us too’ and then they all made me do the same thing to them. Gotta go – there is a line of FIVE kids awaiting my face-painting skills. FIVE. Count ’em.
4:56p.m.
If I ever see any type of wild cat again in my life it will be way too soon. I didn’t even think Ireland had any Tigers. Maybe it was in olden times.
4:58p.m.
Mrs Griffin has thankfully put a pair of furry cat ears on Chelsea’s head – which gives a kind of clue as to what she’s supposed to be. Great. This might also help with the parents working out why their perfectly fresh-faced youngsters that they dropped off a couple of hours ago are now stripy (and not in a good way).
5:07p.m.
Oh nooooooooo. Just found one huge orange, black and brown stain on Mrs Griffin’s white velvet curtains. Also saw one kid leaving the scene of the crime with a fairly clean mouth. Wonder if these two events could be related?
5:15p.m.
Gotta run–Ali is cutting me in half. I crunch up in the top half of the box with my head sticking out and Siobhan crunches down in the bottom half with her legs sticking out. I could probably get thrown out of the Magic Circle for revealing so much. Wow. I see Ali has decided to use a real saw. And breathe. Everything. Will. Be. All right.
5:20p.m.
Have survived being sawn in half. Ali threw strawberry laces out into the crowd as he was sawing like it was our guts. How gross is that? The kids were going wild.
6:52p.m.
Just seen my Dad in the street, he must have been on the way to a job. He had a big box of tools and he looked like they were really heavy. I was just about to shout after him when I saw Uncle Conor in his massive stupid car on his stupid iPhone which I THINK BY THE WAY he doesn’t even know how to use that much. Anyway Uncle Conor was just sitting there watching my Dad with this stupid look on his face like he’d beaten him at squash or something. Dad then dropped the toolbox and Uncle Conor just carried on with his call – he didn’t go to help or anything. I couldn’t get to help Dad then, Uncle Conor would have seen me and I didn’t want him to. I began to think though that maybe not everything is OK between them, maybe Dad isn’t really happy working for Conor again. I felt really sad to think of my Dad being upset. As soon as he gets in tonight I’m going to go downstairs and make him a cup of tea and tell him everything will be all right.
7:07p.m.
At home. Exhausted. Positive I was never as much hard work at my own birthday parties. I have been using some of Mum’s v expensive cleanser and yet my hands are STILL the colour of Eavanne’s fake tan. I doubt they will ever go back to their natural colour. I am also aching allover because they all also wanted the funky tiger dance and it was worse than being at Killer Kennedy’s class. I am rueing (?) the moment I decided to put Amelia’s snake in the dance–all that throwing myself on the floor – whydidn’t I just put a couple of body pops in it instead? Was funny though seeing all the kids throwing themselves on the ground shouting ‘Look at my tiger dance’ and ‘Do it again, Aisling, do it again’. I tell you I am funky tiger-ed out. But Amelia, my friend – next time I see you, I’m gonna so show you how to snake it down!
Wow. Today Parties-to-Go were amazing.
7:23p.m.
As soon as I heard the door go, I went down to see my Dad. I said, ‘Is everything all right, Dad? With Uncle Conor?’He said straight away ‘Why?’ and I couldn’t say I’d seen him but hadn’t helped him so I just shrugged. I gave him a massive hug and told him I loved him. I started to tell him all about my day and how I’d been nearly killed by his and Ali’s plan to successfully saw people in half. Dad was really laughing and saying how much he would have liked to have seen my face when I saw the real saw. I was really glad that I was able to make him laugh. He laughed really hard when I said, ‘But how am I supposed to be a competition-winning Irish Dancer with no body from the waist down, huh?’
Then I got a text from Siobhan. She said to get online straight away.
7:35p.m.
Wow–Parties-to-Go are practically the stars of YouTube. One of the parents must have taken a video on their phone and put it up on YouTube. It’s a video of Ali sawing me and Siobhan in half. Underneath it says,‘This is what happened when we didn’t pay this company for our children’s party. But don’t worry, Parties-to-Go, we won’t do it again.’ Underneath there’s loads of comments and loads of people talking about how to get in contact with us for their kids’ parties. Whey hey!! We’re in business.
Sunday 13 November
MEL: OMG. So which half am I speaking to now? Top or bottom?
AIS: Ha.
MEL: Sounds like you’re having loads of fun without us now.
AIS: No. I really miss you. This is just a stupid school project.
MEL: So I’m still your BFF.
AIS: BFF. I’m going to find out from mum when I can go/come to Boston this week.
MEL: Yay. How’s the boy next door (BND)?
AIS: Cool. BND loves the way I move.
MEL: Lol. Phil was asking about you?
AIS: Wow. I mean who?
MEL: He didn’t ask Colleen in the end. You funny! :D Gotta run, luv me xx.
7:50p.m.
So Phil didn’task Colleen to the formal? Oh so what?I’m over him. O.V.E.R. I’m not interested in immature crushes any more.
8:00p.m.
So, Murphy’s Bebo profile has twenty-seven luvs. Guess how many of them are from Eavanne? 19. NINETEEN. Guess how many luvs he’s given to her? 1. ONE. She loses nineteen to one. You lose again, Eavanne.
Monday 14 November
We’ve had over 300 hits on YouTube. I put my USA National Irish Dance Final dance on YouTube last year and that’s only ever had 47 hits and I’m pretty sure most of those were from Dad’s computer. We are famous. This is what it must feel like to be a celebrity. Some of the first-formers were screaming at me in the corridor and shouting, ‘That’s the girl who got sawn totally in half’. Ali said people who had never spoken to him before were coming up to him and asking him how do you saw people in half? He was saying that –as a member of the Magic Circle – he can never reveal how his magic is done. Ha. He’s actually quite funny, if that hadn’t been my joke in the first place.
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