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Rafe, Genny, Eloise and the few parents who’d stayed pitched in to keep the excited guests corralled. With twenty-three of them running about, you never knew who might fall in the lake or run off into the parkland, never to be seen again.
The water sports went well enough. The twins dominated, as always. They shouted the loudest and pushed the other children aside so they could go down the waterslide first.
Fiona kept telling them to behave themselves and they kept pretending not to hear her. She finally gave them a five-minute time-out. They lasted about ninety seconds. When they got up and ran away from her, Fiona just let them go.
Geoffrey seemed to be holding up pretty well. He avoided Dennis and Dexter. And he got along well with the children from the village. Genny saw him laughing, his head tipped back, the space where his baby teeth were missing showing, as he went down the slide.
They played Marco Polo in the pool and batted various water toys around. Frances and a couple of the women who came in twice a week to clean served cold drinks to anyone who wanted them. That meant there were several trips to the toilets and back. It was hectic, but it seemed to be going nicely, all things considered.
At a little past four, they moved on to paintball on the archery field. It started out well enough, with the children hiding behind boulders and hay bales and jumping out to splatter each other with paint from child-size plastic guns. They were all laughing at first. But the twins quickly became overly aggressive, leaping out and shooting the village girls in the face mask—and some of the boys, as well.
Geoffrey started looking grim during the paintball. There was screaming and some crying. Genny and Eloise took charge of comforting the crying girls, leading them away, getting them out of their vests and headgear, hosing off the paint and then herding them to the girls’ tent to put their on their dry clothes.
As the paintballing progressed, Brooke’s temper started to fray. Apparently, she hadn’t figured out that inviting the Terrible Twins and then handing them guns filled with balls of bright paint probably wasn’t the best brainstorm she’d ever had. She started shouting, “No, now!” and “Careful, now!” and “Dennis, you stop that this instant!”
She and Fiona traded angry words when Brooke demanded that Fiona control the twins and Fiona insisted it wasn’t their fault. “They’ve had nothing but sugared drinks since noon. What do you expect? They need nourishing food.”
Finally, Eloise whipped out her Acme Thunderer Titanic Commemorative Whistle and blew a halt to paintball. They hosed off the children who remained on the field, got them all dry and dressed and moved on to the east side of the terrace, where there were banners and streamers strung about and the sandstone walls of the house had been decorated up to look like an old-time carnival caravan. Frances and her helpers handed out SpongeBob lunch boxes to everyone, adults included.
The food was surprisingly healthy, Genny thought, and gratefully dug in. They had sandwiches and fruit, each with a bag of crisps and a bottle of water. Of course, there were also the candy floss and popcorn machines. Frosted treats and other goodies sat in bowls and on platters, available for the taking.
While they ate, the magician appeared. He pulled things out of a top hat and made animals with balloons. Genny found him a bit lackluster and the children, simultaneously overstimulated and worn-out, quickly lost interest. The twins started throwing things.
By then it was half past five. They’d yet to do the cake and presents. The magician took his final bow. Brooke had blue paint on her white skinny jeans and her Jimmy Choo ballerina flats were splattered with yellow. And she was shouting a lot.
“Frances, the cake!” she called, grabbing a very somber-looking Geoffrey by the arm and pushing him down into the chair of honor, which had been done up to look like some kind of circus clown’s throne. “Settle down now, everyone. It’s time to sing Happy Birthday to Geoffrey!”
The children quieted. But only for about a half a minute. They were laughing and whispering together again when Frances finally emerged with a tower of a cake consisting of three figures from the Skylanders: Giants video game, each figure with three flaming birthday candles sprouting from the top of its head.
Dexter shouted something and one of the girls let out a yelp. Eloise hustled over to settle them down. Fiona, Brooke and the other adults started singing Happy Birthday, a few of the children catching on and joining in.
Frances set the cake in front of Geoffrey. Genny didn’t think he’d ever looked so miserable in his life.
“Make a wish, darling!” Brooke shouted. “Make a wish and blow out your candles!”
