“Volunteer Hours?..” Dianne read off of the corkboard.

Emelia groaned. “Of course we have to do this. Why did you even make me sign up for Honors Society?”

Diann huffed angrily, looking back from the corkboard. “They get a free trip to Cedar Point at the end of the year..”

Emelia leaned over Diann’s shoulder intriguingly. “Oh. Yeah..” She sighed. Emelias blonde hair intertwined with Diann’s brunette hair.

“Oh! Theres a birthday party at this place. Um, its a girl, 6 years old, turning 7. Her names Charlotte Ponce. Its a Disney Princess themed birthday parties. Its two hours of volunteer work.” Diann reads, using her index finger to point on the words.

“How hard can it be? A little girls birthday party.. they can’t be that crazy.” Emelia leaned off of Diann, stretching her back.

Diann looks away from the corkboard. “Lets run this through Ms. Susan.” Diann begins walking, and Emelia follows after.

“Hi!” An older woman appears at the door. “You two must be um..” She looks at a tiny paper, pulling off her dark red glasses. “Emelia Love and Diann Jimenez?” The woman reads slowly. They nod in sync. “Of course- come right in!”

The old woman leads them inside, the enterance surrounded by pink, blue, and gold balloons that hit the ceiling. She takes them outside, into a huge backyard.

Emelia lets out an audible gasp.

Theres at least 7 tables set up outside, all having elegant white table cloths that drape over the sides. Theres princess balloons and flowers at each table. Not to mention, the birthday girls table has an enormous chair thats pink at the front.

Suddenly, a rush of screams and squeals come from behind them, and a bunch of young children in dresses come running out. Some are pushing and shoving Emelia and Diann, others are pushing each other.

“Oh my gods!” Diann gasps. They quickly both move out of the way, making room for the abundance of children running.

The kids all immediately sit at tables, as if they’re trained to know what to do. The old woman sighs heavily. “Can you go to the birthday table?” She asks.

“Okay..” Emelia grabs Diann’s hand, leading her toward the table. “Where do we sit..” She scrunches ber face. The elegant, huge birthday chair is decorated with pink plastic, white tissue paper, and a princess cap on top.

A young little girl, whom they assume was Charlotte, bounced over to the chair excitedly. She had brown, curly hair to her collarbone. Her short was a warm yellow, nearly matching the beating sun.

The old woman stands by the birthday table, clapping her hands together. “Settle down! Settle down!” She yells. Diann flinches at her yell, hitting her hip on the table.

“Ow!!” Diann clenches her hip, but nobody beside Emelia notices. “You good??” Emelia looks Diann up and down, and she nods sporadically.

A significantly less old woman comes outside. She has on a blue plaid apron with painters jeans and a white shirt. Horrible choice, because her entire shirt is covered with different colors.

The young woman is carrying a cake, which has pink and white frosting on it. Theres writing on the top, reading “HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHAR-CHAR!” in bright and bold letters. Next to that is a picture of the Disney Princess Aurora, staring at nothing.

Another younger woman follows behind, carrying what looks like colorful candles in a box. The other woman places down the cake, and the girl starts frantically pulling out candles. She places down two red, one purple, three blue, and one green.

“Okay everyone!” The woman wearing the apron shouts, cupping her hands around the rims of her mouth. “We’re going to sing happy birthday to my little Char!” Her lips coil into a grin, the smile lines faded, yet visible.

The other young woman pulls out a red lighter pulls out a lighter from her pocket. She clicks it a few times, finally getting it to light.

“Okay! On the count of three. One, two, three!”

“Happy birthday to you!.. Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday dear Charlotte! Happy birthday to you!” The kids squealed. Charlotte sat with her arms crossed, an evil smile plastered onto her face.

Emelia looked over to Diann. “Make a wish, Char!!” The mom grabbed Charlottes shoulders, forcing her in front of the cake. Charlotte closed her eyes, mumbling something under her breath.

She blows out the candles, causing the crowd of children to erupt with yells, screams, and squeaks. Emelia covered her ears, her face contorted. Diann physically retracted, clearly bothered by the screaming of these children.

The next hour was pure torture, and all they could do was stand in the corner, occasionally telling the unobedient children to stop yelling so loud.

Finally, all the kids had been settled down, as the parents brought out pink paper plates with sparkles and balloons on them.

“I hate to ask, but can you pass out the cake?” The aproned mom asked the duo, cutting pieces and putting them on plates.

Diann and Emelia looked at each other. “Sure..” Diann fake smiled, grabbing two played with her hands. Emelia does the same hesitantly.

They both walk to a table, the kids little hands grabbing and grasping the edge of the plates, trying to get their cake. “Oh my gosh!” Diann yelped as a kid yanked the plate from her, immediately devouring their cake with a plastic fork.

After painfully passing out the cake, they came back to the birthday table after being assaulted by children. Emelia put up her blonde hair with a purple scrunchie, groaning in pain as she pulled her hair.

Diann pulled the back of her shirt, the sweat sticking strong. “I want to go home..” Emelia sighs. “Me too.”

Sooner or later, it was the end of the birthday party. The young children were getting picked up by their parents, many of them having remnants of frosting around their mouths.

Diann and Emelia were still standing in the backyard, helping the parents clean up the horrific mess the kids had left behind. Plates left on the tables, silly string everywhere, not to mention the amount of confetti.

“Thank you girls so much for helping out!” The older woman warmly smiled, her wrinkles deepening.

Emelia, standing with her ponytail almost half out, chuckled. “It was no problem. Really.” Diann nodded in agreement, but they both knew that wasn’t true.

“You girls can go home now, we have the rest of the cleaning good to go.” The young woman with no apron gestured to the open wooden fence. “Okay, thank you. Goodbye!..” Diann waved, grabbing Emelias wrist.

Once they made it out of the area of the house, Emelia covered her face with her hands, sinking then down her face, exposing the red part of her eyelid. “That was torture. I hate little children.”

Diann slightly smiled, giggling. “Never again. Never again..”