What followed were a selection of hits from the five decades that spanned the early eighties to the present day, including some far more recent ones which gave the youngsters a chance to teach the dance to the adults. As Agadoo came to a close, about forty minutes through the hour-long playlist, Laura slipped away into the kitchen. She had been planning on asking Gram to come with her but, seeing how much fun her mum seemed to be having on the dance floor, she decided not to bother her. Fortunately, both Josh and Miranda spotted her slipping away and followed her to the kitchen to ask how they could help. Josh was assigned the task of setting the table while Miranda remained in the kitchen to help with the fairly minimal food prep required which mostly consisted of getting things out of packets and arranging them artistically on plates and cutting boards.

The only thing which required and real effort was the Samantha-liver pate Laura planned to make. The roasted organ had cooled now and, following the recipe on her phone, she cut it into eight pieces and dropped these into the blender. She gave the blades a five second whizz, reducing the chunks to something that resembled mince, then added the garlic flakes, black pepper and other seasoning along with a small amount of cream for texture then held the button on the blender down until the contents was reduced to a fine paste.

Carefully, not wanting to waste any, she scraped this grey-pink paste into a ceramic dish and smoothed over the top with the back of a spoon which she then licked as a taste-test, declaring it just as good as she had hoped. The rest of Samantha’s organs and viscera were still in the fridge. Laura planned on offering her parents the kidneys to use in a fry-up but otherwise the rest was likely to join her bones in the recycling.

“Can we take some?” Miranda asked when Laura explained the situation. “We get foxes in the back garden and the girls love watching them! Might make a nice treat!”

“Oh yes, good idea!” Laura grinned. “We should do the same!” Acting before she forgot, she put the kidneys on a small plate and covered them with foil then divided the rest into two bags which went back into the fridge so that they would not start to smell over night. The collection of dirty dishes and cooking equipment was really starting to stack up, especially with the addition of the soup mugs, and in a couple of hours there would be yet more plates and glasses but, however strong her instincts may be, she knew that they were under strict orders to leave all such things to be dealt with by the hall’s own team!

In the main hall, Josh had decided to go in a slightly different direction with the table for the evening. Since there were now significantly fewer people and no particular centre-piece to the meal, he made the choice just to use two tables, arranging them in a T-shape, with chairs arranged all around the outside. The food could be placed in the middle of the tables, within easy reach, and passed around as needed, plus it would make it easier for everyone to chat to each other without having to get up and walk around during the meal, which had been the one downside of the earlier arrangement.

Once the cloths and table runners had been adjusted, he went to fetch the plates, glasses and cutlery then took the trolley back before setting the table so that Laura and Miranda could load it up with food. What was left of the desserts from earlier, they decided, could be brought out at the same time and put on the table by the stage where Samantha had displayed herself at the start of the party. Laura’s timing had been impeccable and the table was ready just as the final song on Samantha’s playlist, a Jive-Bunny style megamix that she had made herself of several of the action songs, came to an end. Not realising that the playlist had come to an end, the dancers waited for the next one to come on and, upon realising that it had looped back to the start, decided to dance the Hokey Cokey once more before supper, a dance which Josh, Laura and Miranda enthusiastically joined in.


To be continued…