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Katie and Annabel turned on each other again. “Now look what you’ve done!” Katie started. “Great! Now we can’t have a party at all, just because you had to be so stupid and selfish!”
    â€œ I’m selfish? I like that! That party would have been brilliant, and you had to go ruin it because you wanted to go swimming.” Annabel said “swimming” with absolute venom.
    â€œOh, shut up!” sighed Becky.
    â€œOh, I’m sorry, Little Miss Perfect!” said Annabel nastily. “Darling Becky never argues, does she?”
    â€œDon’t be a cow, Bel. There’s no point taking it out on me. Just stop it, both of you. It’s pointless, you’ve done it, so stop bickering. OK, so Annabel shouldn’t have planned everything with Saima, but we were planning a swimming party, weren’t we, Katie, without Bel being there. And actually, I thought bits of Bel’s idea sounded cool.”
    â€œI suppose so,” growled Katie, still grumpy, but not furious any more.
    â€œAnd I don’t know what your problem with swimming is suddenly,” Becky said, rounding on Annabel. “You like swimming!”
    â€œI know, but swimming or a disco! No contest! Do you think Mum really meant it?”
    â€œSounded like it,” said Becky sadly. “I s’pose she might change her mind if we’re little angels for a few days – maybe.”
    Annabel stretched out on her bed, and propped her chin on her hands. Mum was really busy with work and she’d been tired and distracted for the last few days. Maybe she’d come round when things calmed down?
    Katie and Becky joined Annabel on her bed, to feel depressed in unison, and Annabel rolled more on to her side and took the band off the end of Katie’s tight plait. She unravelled it and started to redo it in lots of tiny ones. Becky joined in, grabbing a box of stretchy bands from Annabel’s bedside table.
    Katie gave an irritable twitch, and said she wished they’d mess around with their own hair, but it was more for show than anything else, and when Becky poked her in a “lie down” kind of way, and Annabel told her to shut up and keep still, she subsided, grumbling, but enjoying the attention, liking all being friends again.
    â€œYou should wear your hair like this, you know,” Annabel told her about ten minutes later. “It suits you. You shouldn’t always just scrape it straight back.”
    â€œI suppose it’s OK,” admitted Katie, staring into the mirror. “So much fuss, though. And it flicks about everywhere.” She shook her head to demonstrate and the plaits whisked round her face. “See?”
    â€œYeah, well, the simple answer is not to do that , dimwit. Anyway, I’ve just thought” – Annabel was standing by the door – “Dad might have replied to our email. Let’s go and see.”
    Mum hadn’t said they had to stay in their room, but the triplets had a feeling that was what she’d meant, so they sneaked up the staircase to the study on fairy-feet. Then Annabel and Katie perched on half the chair each, and Becky knelt beside them, all peering impatiently at the screen as the computer chugged maddeningly slowly through its warm-up routine. Dad had answered and Mum was right, he sounded really excited, positively gleeful. He assured them he wouldn’t have even the slightest hint of jet lag – in fact he said he’d dance the night away, which made Annabel glance triumphantly at the other two. He promised he hadn’t forgotten their present, either. All in all, it should have been a really brilliant email for the triplets to read – instead it was absolutely infuriating. All this excitement about a party that wasn’t going to happen!
    â€œOh well,” said Katie gloomily. “Do you think we’d better tell him it’s all off?”
    â€œNo, leave it for a bit –