Celebration time c'mon – Sandra 47

 

[For back story go here: Story so far at 30 Nov 2020 and more recent Sandra episodes especially this one.]

[Other back story through in-links.]

Sandra was nothing if not diligent when it came to birthdays. Or at least this had been the case before the pandemic had disrupted her routines and calendars. This time round, as Sukie’s birthday drew nearer, the only thing that had provided her with an indication of what to do was a rapidly texted note from Frankie which simply read: 

– Anything but Mr Sparklehat perleeeeease.

Even so, Sandra’s mouse hovered over the special edition water bottle and lunch box, as she mused on how difficult it would be for Frankie to have to clean and re-pack these items every single day in order for her daughter to take them to school every single day as she no doubt would want to. Ultimately she relented however and got her a book token. They could browse online and get a kick out of that too.

On the day itself a zoom was arranged between grandparents, Sandra and ground zero. Frankie sent out the invitations but for some reason or other the link didn’t work first time. After much to-ing and fro-ing, texting and emailing and re-emailing all the parties joined the party.

By this time Sukie’s patience had run out and Rob, who’s patience was also pretty thin, had decided to cut their losses and cut the cake. The kids were therefore in one place but only because that was where their slices of cake had been put. Despite its dismembered state, Sandra was fairly certain the cake was something like a unicorn.

“It has sparkly icing,” confirmed Sukie.

“We’re going to try and play some games,” said Frankie. “The first game is…”

“I-Spy!” chimed Sukie. “It’s something beginning with ‘C’.”

“Cake!” said Yolanda from their front room, equipped with party hats and a half drunk bottle of red.

“Yes!” said Sukie. “Now let’s play something else.”

“You could have stretched that out a bit,” said Frankie across to Yolanda.

“Sorry!” said Yolanda, “I didn’t honestly think it was that, but there you go.”

“I thought it was ‘car’,” said Eric.

“Car!” shouted Freddie. “Car! Car! Car! Car! I want a car!”

“It’s perfectly alright, everyone, don’t worry,” said Rob, trying to sound calm and reconciliatory and almost managing it.

“Let’s all find something yellow!” shouted Sukie and disappeared.

“No!” said Frankie, “We’re not playing that - we need to say thank you for the presents…”

But Sukie was definitely off. 

“Did you get the email from the shop?” asked Yolanda. “They said it would go straight to you. And we sent a special message too.”

“No…” said Frankie, “Not received anything yet. I got your book token though, Sandra. So thanks for that.”

“Ours was a book token too,” said Yolanda. “Sorry, thought it would be good.”

“You might need to chase it from your end,” said Frankie.

“Have you used the token?” asked Sandra.

“Yes,” said Frankie, curtly.

“She got a Mr Sparklehat annual,” said Rob, dropping in again. Frankie’s face contorted slightly. “It has a magic button which plays a tune when you press it. Sukie’s very excited. Frankie isn’t.”

Sukie returned. “I’ve got a banana!” she announced. “What has anyone else got?”

The adults, in the respective windows smiled fixedly. 

“I’ve got a pencil!” said Sandra, hastily whipping a yellow one off her desk and waving it.

“Now we do the hokey cokey!” said Susie. “I’m really good at this, but mum says we can’t just do it with our backsides in and out. We have to do arms first,” she added as if it were the biggest drag ever.

Naturally everyone in their windows did the hokey cokey as much together as the time lapse would allow. The arms verse was duly noted before everyone became considerably more animated with waving their backsides. Apart from Frankie who just watched.

Eric was particularly enthusiastic and it was difficult to tell whether it was the knees bend or the arms stretch which connected with the device they were using and knocked it off the surface they had it stood on. While the others chorused Rah Rah Rah, the grandparent’s living room ceiling was very much in evidence while Yolanda swore at Eric and finally their connection failed.

In the remaining windows there was much joy and laughter.

“So, shall I sing you Happy Birthday to you?” asked Sandra.

“Nope,” said Sukie. “We did that before you got here.”

“Sorry…” began Frankie. “It’s been a bit…”

“And that’s my birthday and now it’s Unicorn time!” screamed Sukie and Sandra saw her hand shoot forward before either of her parents could stop her and the zoom meeting was over for everyone.