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people at the same time, we could both enjoy it together. Even though now our parents and our friends have worked out that yes, we are actually pretty different, and it’s probably a good idea to buy us different things, we still have a habit of opening up together.
    “It’s the skinny jeans I wanted,” I yelled in delight. And then Charlie screamed, “A riding helmet!” She looked to Mum and Dad for an explanation.
    “We’ve been looking at those horse pictures you’ve been pasting up on your walls all year,” said Mum. (It was true. Charlie had liked horses since she was 10 but it had upped a notch this year when she started collecting horse books and pictures and putting them everywhere.)
    “We thought if you really want to ride that much, we would arrange some lessons this year,” said Mum, looking around at Dad, who nodded and picked at his tie. He still looked like he was trying to hold back some kind of enormous joke. While Charlie squealed for joy and tried on her helmet, Mum looked at me. “We know you’re not into horses, sweetheart, so I thought you would probably appreciate something to wear.”
    “Well, that’s a no-brainer,” said Josh. “All she ever goes on about is what she wears.”
    “Leave me alone for one night, can’t you?” I said to him. “It’s my birthday. Stop picking on me.”
    “It’s not your birthday, really,” he said. “And isn’t the whole reason we’re having this dinner tonight instead of yesterday on your  actual  birthday because you had to go on some stupid ‘spa’ trip with your barbie doll girlfriends all day?”
    “Well, you can hardly talk,” I spat back. “Look what you’re wearing. Honestly—a flannel shirt? You can get those from the supermarket for nine bucks. You’re embarrassing.”
    “Coco! Josh!” said Mum. “Stop it please.” She looked angry. “I am really sick of you picking on her, Josh.”
    Josh looked like a turtle pulling his head into his shell, so I gave him a smirk from across the table which was supposed to say  ha ha, I won , but I didn’t hide it well enough.
    “Don’t, Coco.” Mum turned around to me. “He might be being mean to you, but sometimes you deserve it. A little bit less obsession with clothes and your looks might be a good thing, young lady.”
    She stood up and started gathering plates, still looking at me. “You probably do need to learn that what you look like on the outside is not nearly as important as who you are on the inside.”
    I pursed my lips, but made a tiny  sorry  face at her and rolled my eyes when she turned away.
    “Now, I’m going to get the cake. And when I come back I want you two to have apologised to each other.” She walked out to the kitchen.
    “Sorry,” Josh muttered at me with a grimace on his face.
    “Sorry,” I squeaked, sticking my tongue out at him. He stuck his back out at me and then Charlie made a face at us as well and we all started to giggle uncontrollably. “You look like a chicken when you do that,” I said to her, gasping for air.
    “Buck buck buck,” she said, making the face and setting me off again.
    Mum came back to the table with an enormous tiramisu on a cake plate. “Alright, if you’ve stopped being chickens, let’s have some cake,” she said. She was just about to put it down in front of Charlie and me when my dad spoke.
    “Hold on, Deborah,” he said.
    We all turned and looked at him.
    “I think before we have the cake, I need to tell you all something. We can eat the tiramisu afterwards to help celebrate it.” Now he was grinning from ear to ear.
    I raised an eyebrow at Charlie as if to say  did you know about this? What’s going on?  She shrugged back at me.  No idea.
    Mum put the tiramisu down and went back to her seat. “What are you going to tell us?” she said. “You look like it’s very important.”
    “Oh, it is,” he said, still grinning. “You’ll guess in a second. You know how the other night you and I were