Smiling at her new daughter, feeling incredibly bonded to her already, Laura rang the doorbell and there was a sound of scurrying and giggles from inside before Lydia opened to door to greet them with Ella stood beside her, both wearing nothing but ear-to-ear grins.

“Sorry about them!” Miranda chuckled, appearing behind her daughters. “Now that it’s all official, I rather doubt I’ll every be able to get them to wear anything but their birthday suits ever again!” Laura chuckled, remembering only too well how reluctant Samantha had been in her last few days to put clothes on, only conceding when the situation absolutely demanded it. Of course she had been going to school up until a few days before her harvest, something this tasty pair of sisters would not be doing, but as soon as she got home most days the uniform had come off along with everything underneath it. “Come on, you two!” Miranda jokily scolded her daughters, “Let these folk in so we can get the door closed. You’re costing me enough in heating as it is!” Giggling, the girls stepped aside and welcomed Erin and Laura into the house.

“Thank you so much for the party!” Miranda gushed as she showed them into the living room and had them sit down as they had when they had gone over to deliver Samantha’s invitations. “I was so full,” she chuckled, “I barely needed to eat anything at all the rest of yesterday! Can’t say the same for these two,” she ruffled her giggling younger daughter’s hair affectionately, “but as they keep reminded me, they are fattening piggies!”

“We had cold Samantha and Emily last night!” Lydia informed them proudly. “With chips and baked beans!”

“Sounds like a combo Sammie would have approved of!” Laura chuckled. “We’re going to use the rest of ours this evening. I’m going to mix it into a salad.” The sisters confirmed that this sounded very tasty, especially when Erin added that there would be garlic bread too, and the three girls chatted happily about the party and how delicious Samantha had looked, not to mention tasted, as well as how much Lydia and Ella were looking forward to being cooked themselves while Miranda went into the kitchen to make tea for herself and Laura and to pour Erin a glass of coke. Once she got back and the drinks were handed out, Laura got down to the real business of their visit.

“So,” she smiled, “as you know, Erin and her brother have just moved in with us and although they have plenty of friends at school, they won’t see them again until after the holiday and they don’t really know anyone else in this neighbourhood at the moment so, first of all, we were wondering if you’d like to come over to pla…” she stopped herself, not wanting to embarrass her new pre-teen daughter by using childish terminology, even if what she was proposing amounted to exactly the same thing. “To hang out one evening soon?” she corrected herself. “Maybe Friday?”

“That sounds great!” Ella turned to her mum. “Can we? Please?”

“Can we sleep over too?” Lydia asked, giving Miranda puppy-dog eyes.

“Well that’s really up to Mrs Marting!” Miranda reminded them with a chuckle.

“Oh, Laura, please!” Laura smiled. “But certainly, if you would like to, I’m sure that can be arranged!” The sisters looked genuinely excited about this and that made Erin happy. It was clear that they were looking forward to spending time with her and her brother and not agreeing out of social nicety or any kind of feeling of obligation. “So that’s settled then!” Laura grinned. “But we also had a second idea that Erin would like to run by you. Go ahead, honey!” she encouraged her daughter.

“If you’d like,” Erin began a little timidly, “we’d like to throw you a Sidney party, on the Saturday before your harvest, probably. It’s Sam’s idea really! See, Amelia and I dressed up as Sidney on Christmas Eve and Sam would have done too but she didn’t have the gear so she dressed as an elf,” she giggled, “but not really dressed for the North Pole, if you catch my drift?” The sisters giggled. “And she said every girl who’s going to cook at a party should get to have a special, smaller party with her girl-friends first where everyone dresses like Sidney, since she’s going to miss most of the main one! So we’d like to do that for you. What do you think?”

“Sounds amazing!” Lydia’s beam grew even wider, something Laura would not have thought possible.

“I’ll handle all the planning.” Laura assured Miranda quickly. “I’ll make invitations and we’ll cover all the food. Organise everything really! I just need a couple of bits from you and the girls?”

“Sure!” Miranda looked a little stunned, overwhelmed by the Martin family’s kindness and generosity. “What do you need?”

“Well, first of all, I was wondering if you have a copy of that picture that was on their Sidney’s profile?” Laura asked. “The one where they’re hugging?”

“Oh yes!” Miranda readily agreed. “A few different versions of it, actually. They sent me a folder of all the pictures they took, the ones that didn’t come out blurry or anything, that is. I’ll forward you the link and the password so you can download them. Did you want that for the invitation?”

“Exactly!” Laura grinned. “I’m going to try editing Sidney hat and boots onto them but no promises, okay?” The sisters looked very happy at this suggestion and, as she talked, Laura was thinking the easiest thing to do would be to get Erin to wear hers and imitate the poses for her so she could crop them from one picture and superimpose them on the other, but that was something to discuss once they got home. “The other thing might seem a bit more obvious,” she smiled, “but this party is for the girls after all! We were going to invite all the girls who were at the party, but they’re mostly our family and friends, so,” she turned to Ella and Lydia, “if you can think of two friends each you’d like to invite?” She smiled. “Girls only, of course!” she winked and the sisters giggled in response. “Just let me know, okay? I’ll bring the invitations over when they’re printed and you can address like like Sammie did. Sound good?” The naked girls readily agreed.

“You’d better explain what a Sidney party is on the invitations.” Lydia suggested sensibly.

“And specify the dress code!” Ella giggled.

“Well yes,” Laura chuckled, “we should probably have a little flexibility around that. Let people come in bikinis or leotards if they’d be more comfortable. Especially your friends.”

“You know Willow won’t!” Erin observed with a quiet chuckle, remembering how her new young cousin had moaned about having to wear clothes to the Christmas party at all and had stripped off as soon as she and Amelia had shown that it was acceptable to do so!

“I suspect most of the guests will strive for authenticity!” Laura agreed. “But we don’t want anyone to feel pressured. Plus, since I don’t know the parents of your friends,” she looked at the sisters as she spoke, “it’s probably not a great look to demand that they show up to my house starkers!” This inevitably provoked more giggling. Laura promised to look up a nice-looking but inexpensive hat and boot set to recommend to those who didn’t already have their own and to include a link to where it could be ordered on the invitations.

“Wait! We don’t have those!” Ella exclaimed, turning to her mum in alarm. “Not proper ones, anyway!”

“Don’t worry!” Miranda assured her, and her sister also, “I’m sure I can sort something out! If Mrs… Laura is happy to sort everything else out then you can leave that part with me. Would you like help on the night?” she asked Laura. “I don’t want to intrude?”

“Oh that would be great!” Laura smiled. “I’m going to ask my mum but having an extra pair of hands would definitely be helpful! Don’t worry,” she chuckled, “I’m not going to be going full Sidney, but it would be fun to do a cowgirl outfit with the hat and boots!”

There was a lot more chat and giggling as the details were worked out and the visitors finished their drinks then Laura and Erin both hugged the two naked sisters, assuring them how delicious they looked, then headed back across the road to their own house. Although only late afternoon, it was already starting to get dark and Laura was sure that Josh and Amelia would be on their way back soon. With still no word from Amelia’s parents, Laura decided that she should assume that they would have one more for dinner and plan accordingly.

When they got in, they found Ryan sat on the sofa, playing a game on the console attached to the TV which doubled as the family’s blu-ray player. He briefly looked up and smiled as they came in and Erin asked if it was okay to go up to her room to read for a little while. After assuring her that it was and giving her a light kiss on the top of her head, Laura sat down at her computer and started to play around with a basic layout for the invitations while she waited for the promised photographs to arrive. Since the Sidney’s private menu pictures seemed to have been taken in front of a black background, she decided to make the base colour of the invitations black with white text, echoing the style of Sidney’s own billboards.

Leaving room for the photo on the right, she added a gold border then played around with how to lay out the relevant information on the left, settling in the end for the words “Sidney Party” at the top in gold in the Sidney’s font which she was able to download. Under this, in bold white type, she wrote “Come celebrate with” beneath which she switched back to the gold, ornate lettering to type “Lydia & Ella” then back to the white for the important information such as the date, time and address. At the bottom she added the email address she had created for the RSVPs to Samantha’s Christmas party, thinking she might as well get some more use out of it. For a moment she wondered if she should add an instruction telling people to read the back of the card but, since that was where they were going to be addressed and signed by the sisters, this seemed a little pointless.

Opening a fresh template, knowing the back of the card would be monochrome and matt so easy to write on, she copied the gold border but changed it to light grey then down the left hand side wrote a short explanation of what a Sidney party was and outlined the dress-code as discussed.

Remembering her promise, she opened up a few popular online shopping sites and searched for a hat and boots combo she felt comfortable recommending and which, most importantly, had fast shipping available. After rejecting a few she found an option that looked good, had positive reviews, was available in a variety of colours and shoe-sizes and, most importantly, was likely to be within most family’s budgets, even so soon after Christmas. While not up to the quality of the ones Erin, Willow and Amelia had, and certainly not of the set that she had borrowed from her friend for Samantha’s photo shoot, they were plenty good enough to make any girl look the part! Of course parents were welcome to buy fancier, more expensive sets if they wanted but she felt confident that the set she’d found would mean that none of the invitees had to miss out due to cost.