Amy was just putting her dinner plate in the dishwasher when her cell phone went off. She pressed the green call button and knowing from the small screen that it was Helen, answered with a cheery

"Hey hun!"

"Hey, s'me." Helen told her, as usual, "just about to leave."

"Okay, see you in ten then?"

"Yep!"

And they said their goodbyes. Amy hastily grabbed her coat and bag, shoved on a pair of sneakers and went to the door. She slammed the door behind her and pulled her hood over her head. December meant snow, rain or both. The uneven ground of the road they called 'Kelvinway' was icy, and in the pitch-blackness of the winter evening, difficult to see - resulting in Amy slipping on a tree root once or twice. Thankfully, she managed to keep her balance and not land on her arse, though.

Five minutes along, Amy lit a cigarette and kept one hand firmly in her pocket. Partly to keep it warm, but also so that she could pull her keys out, just in case. Kelvinway wasn't exactly the safest part of Glasgow's West End, after all. And it got worse when the streetlights disappeared. Not a good thing when you believe in half of the conspiracy theories thanks to the X-Files. Yes, the show that the whole little group loved definitely heightened paranoia.

At the other end of the walkway Helen had done pretty much the same thing, lighting a cigarette and tightly gripping the keys in her own pocket. If Amy was paranoid, Helen was ten times worse. She'd whip round at the sound of a footfall that was not her own. And often, she'd jump when she saw a shadow in front of her. Some of the time, she'd even jump at the sight of her own.

Both lost in their thoughts - Helen's of how stupid her brother could be, and Amy's of the dance with David Thomas - they almost screamed when they, literally, walked into each other.

"Jesus Christ!"

"Holy fuck!"

Both were heard to exclaim simultaneously in fright before they erupted into giggles. At their own stupidity and of relief. Then, linking arms, they proceeded to walk back in the direction Amy had come from to catch a bus to Sue's. It wasn't really that far, but the cold made people like Amy and Helen lazy so instead of walking for ten minutes along to the other end of Argyle Street, they got off the bus after two stops.

The two met Tara crossing over to the other side of the road just as they got off the bus,

"Hey Tara!"

"Hiya guys!" Tara breathed out as Amy and Helen both hugged her.

"Weren't you supposed to meet Nikki?" Amy questioned.

"Yeah, I was ... But she got caught smoking again." Tara said with a worried look.

"Shit. How long's she grounded for this time?" Helen asked.

"Well since it was her gran that caught her and not her mum, it's only a week."

"Lucky." Amy replied

"Yeah, if Bridget had caught her, she'd be grounded for at least a month!" Helen added.

They walked to the end of the street in silence; stopping at the entrance to Sue's building to press the buzzer. Instead of speaking on the intercom, Sue just pressed the brown 'lock release' button to let them in. Amy pushed on the door and went into the communal entry hall, followed by Helen and Tara.

"Hey Sue!" Amy said as soon as they got to the door, "is Erin here yet?"

"Even I know by now, Erin will be late!" Sue replied, giggling.

"True." Amy and Helen nodded in agreement together, like they often did.

Opening the door to Sue's room, they noticed that piled up by the bed were rolled up sleeping bags. And on the floor in front of the portable television was a mountain of bags of popcorn and various other snack foods beside a small heap of plastic bowls to empty the bags in to. And next to that was a stack of DVDs and videos.

"Wow!" Helen's eyes swept over the different snack foods.

"Welcome to my first ever slumber party." Sue said with a shy smile.

Helen, along with Tara and Amy, settled on the floor beside Lucy, using a sleeping bag as a cushion. Helen and Tara set out the bowls, filling them with the assorted bags of sweets and popcorn while Amy shuffled through a DVD collection almost as big as her own. True to form, Erin arrived late, but made up for it by announcing,

"I've got the alcohol if you've got the shot glasses."

"Yep, I've got the shot glasses. Amy did you bring the make-up?" Helen replied

"Make-up?" Sue asked, visibly confused.

"You can't have a slumber party without makeovers!" Amy exclaimed.

"Don't forget pizza!" Tara piped in.

"Already ordered, courtesy of David." Sue told them.

Amy blushed at the sound of his name, which earned her sly smiles from everyone. That definitely called for a change of subject.

"Hey, Helen did you talk to Jack earlier?"

"Uh huh." Helen replied with a grin, making Sue go red in the face, "Sue, I think he's gonna ask you to the dance soon. And you'll never guess what I caught him doing!"

"What?!" Amy and Lucy yelled first.

"What's he done now?" Was Erin's reply.

"Guess!" She told them again.

"Oh come on!" Tara cried.

"I give, tell us!" Sue, who'd been looking back and forth between the five, said.

"Okay, get this - Sue I think you're gonna like this ...." Helen paused for effect.

"What?!" all of them yelled impatiently

"Right, well ... earlier when I was looking for him to ask him about the dance, he was watching TV with the sound off, and the subtitles on... With earplugs in his ears, to see what it'd be like to be deaf."

"Aw that is so sweet!" Amy gushed.

"Isn't it just?" Lucy said.

Helen and Erin both rolled their eyes. This was Helen's brother they were cooing about. And Erin had no time for romance and fairy tales. None whatsoever. Neither did Amy until she saw how Sue was when Jack was around, and vice versa. And of course, until she met David. Tall, sandy hair, blue eyes. If you asked Amy, he was just dreamy. Well... she pretended she didn't believe in romance but she was always there to help Lucy in her matchmaking quests.

After an hour or so, they sat cross-legged in the middle of Sue's bedroom floor, surrounded by pizza boxes. Of course, the pizza hadn't stayed in the boxes for long, and pretty quickly Erin was declaring,

"I'd kill for a fag right now."

"Join the club!" Amy said.

Sue gave them apologetic glances. Her mother would have a hissy fit if she found out. But Amy wasn't phased.

"Just tell your mum we're taking Pepper for a walk, I'll take my perfume with me."

Sue nodded, and went to tell her mum while the rest of them put coats over their pajamas. When Sue came back to the sight of them all in pajamas and Parka jackets, she looked somewhere between amused and appalled.

"You're not getting changed first? You're not really going out like that are you? "

"Why not?" Helen asked.

"What if someone sees you?"

"Oh who gives a shit if someone sees us?" Amy replied in bored tones.

"Err ... okay then. Guess I don't have to bother hunting for my jeans!" Sue said with an uncertain smile.

"That's the spirit - come on!"

So the six friends quickly clipped Pepper's leash on and almost ran out of the building to the small park across the road. Amy and Helen took seats on the only two swings while the rest of them sat on the back of a bench across from them. All of them, took cigarette packets from their pockets, except Sue, having had to give hers to Amy at the end of every day for fear of being caught with them. Amy chucked Sue's pack across to her before lighting her own cigarette and blowing out a string of smoke-rings. Sue watched Erin follow suit, in awe.

"How d'you do that?" She asked, amazed.

"I learned from the best." Erin replied, with a nod in Amy's direction.

"Can you teach me?" Sue queried, looking at Amy.

"Sure, you just shape your mouth in an 'o'," she started, demonstrating, "like this... and instead of blowing all the smoke out at once, you let it out in little bursts ... like this." Amy finished, showing Sue another perfect smoky circle.