𝒫𝒾𝓃𝓀 𝒮𝒶𝓉𝒾𝓃 𝒮𝒽𝑜𝑒𝓈

𝟤𝟣𝟤. 𝓌𝒶𝒾𝓉𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝒻𝑜𝓇 𝒿𝑜𝒻𝒻𝓇𝑒𝓎

"Movie night!" Kamila cheers as we roll out our sleeping bags on the floor right in front of the TV. "What did you bring? Birthday girl first."  

As a part of our birthday traditions, Kamila, Mackenzie, and I always have a movie night on our birthdays. The problem is that Kamila's going to Israel on my birthday, so we had to push our movie night to this week. With a cheese pizza, popcorn, and enough ice cream to make our stomachs hurt for days, it's the perfect early birthday celebration.

"I brought Rango and Enchanted," I reveal, pulling out the two movies and I can tell my friends are relieved that I didn't bring out Tangled or Grease. "Kenzie?"

"High School Musical 2 and Barbie In A Mermaid Tale," Mackenzie states and I gawk at the Barbie movie.

"I love Barbie! I brought Alice in Wonderland and Matilda. Which one should we pick first?" Kamila asks, holding out her DVDs.

"You know Alice in Wonderland scares me," Mackenzie pouts.

"This is the live-action one from last year. It's even scarier," Kamila teases and Mackenzie hides her face in her stuffed animal while I laugh. I love my friends so much.

"Which one should we put in first?" I ask, trying to keep Mackenzie calm and prevent a crying fit this early into the sleepover.

"I want to watch the Barbie movie. It's not scary like the wicked Alice in Wonderland movie," Mackenzie immediately shouts, and without any protest I grab her DVD, the plastic cover opening with a satisfying crack.

"But I wanna watch the Alice in Wonderland movie!" Kamila sighs, tossing the DVD to the side of her pink sleeping bag, looking very upset.

"I don't wanna scare Kenzie. Why don't you go get another movie? You literally live across the street," I suggest, and Kamila huffs.

She snatches the Alice in Wonderland DVD and with an annoyed walk, walks out the door, running back to her house. Mackenzie lays back in relief as I push the disc into the DVD player. The sound of the ads plays through the living room, a bunch of doors shutting upstairs so they don't have to hear the movies playing downstairs. I sit back down with the remote and steal a piece of popcorn from the bowl. A minute later, Kamila runs back to the living room.

"I got The Little Mermaid. Happy, Kenz?" Kamila asks and Mackenzie nods vigorously, thankful that we don't have to put her through the horror of watching the television.

"Now that we have that sorted out," I declare, pressing play on the opening scene of the movie. "let's watch a Barbie movie."

🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡

"Paige, can you stand on me?" I ask, stretching out my center split.

"Your feet are almost to your head, Rue. I'm an acrobat and I'm not even this flexible," Brooke scoffs as Paige steps on the back of my hips, making me cringe.

"I can never seem to put this flexibility to use in my leaps. I put too much power in my lead-up," I comment, remembering the hour of work I just did on redistribution before competition rehearsal.

"I wonder what we're gonna do this week," Nia queries and everybody shrugs.

"Maybe she'll do another fan dance," Chloé jests.

"No! No, not again!" Maddie cries, gagging in disgust. "That was way too inappropriate for us. Never again."

"Didn't you throw up from the dance?" Mackenzie teases and I blush in embarrassment.