At a Sleepover

Dressed in her pajamas, Marinette awkwardly sat there on the couch, watching her best friend try to round up her twin little sisters, Ella and Etta. The two were a mischievous and energetic pair, who loved to have fun. And, without a doubt, the twins had more energy to spare than either of the older girls did. And tonight, Alya was responsible for babysitting them, because her parents and older sister would be gone until tomorrow. Personally, Alya would’ve preferred watching her big sister’s boxing tournament over babysitting duty, but someone had to do it. So, if it had to be her, why couldn’t she have a little fun with it? It was that line of thought that led Alya inviting Marinette over for a sleepover.

The whole “sleepover” thus far, though, had been spent with the two of them occupying the younger girls and keeping them out of trouble, not that Marinette minded, she enjoyed Alya’s family. But now it was time for the young girls to go to bed so the older girls could have their fun. Once Alya finally got her hands on her sisters, she lifted them up, dropped them in bed and shut the door to their room with a satisfied smile.

“Sorry about all that,” Alya said, joining her friend on the couch. “I appreciate you coming over tonight to help out.”

“Oh, I don’t mind,” Marinette said, waving it off. “I like your sisters.”

“You only say that because they’re not yours,” Alya said, jokingly, a smile on her face.

“Maybe,” Marinette said, a smirk on her lips. “So, what was that movie you said you wanted to show me tonight?”

“Oh!” Alya said, scrambling over to a pile of DVDs she had arranged for the night. The DVDs ranged from superhero flicks to comedy to horror. Alya had brought them all out just in case Marinette didn’t like her first choice. Swiftly, Alya grabbed up the newest addition to her collection. “It’s called ‘The Mishappening.’” Alya said. “It’s supposed to be a horror-comedy. It’s got the usual setup, you know, a family moves into a haunted house, yadda, yadda. It plays out differently, though. At the start the ghosts aren’t particularly malicious or anything. They move stuff around, but at first they’re more about setting members of the family up for embarrassment, particularly their daughter, who’s supposed to be a little older than us. They do stuff like remove laces from the girl’s clothes or even hide or sabotage the clothes in her dresser while she’s out of the room, stuff like that. Of course, things get worse later on, but the first half of the movie is pretty light-hearted.”

Marinette furrowed her brow, thinking about it. Alya had seemed pretty excited on the phone when she talked about it earlier, but Marinette didn’t know if she could watch the movie without feeling embarrassed for the girl inside it. “Uh, what’s the rating on it?”

“Rated R,” Alya said proudly. “That’s why I didn’t want to watch it until the girls were in bed,” Alya gestured over to the door to their room, which was still closed. “Well… that, and because I don’t want to put any ideas in those imps’ heads. They like to reenact stuff from movies they watch, and that wouldn’t be okay.”

“Yeah,” Marinette nodded. It was probably a good idea not to let those mischievous bundles of energy watch a movie like that.

“So, you want to watch it?”

“Sure,” Marinette nodded, hesitating slightly.

“That didn’t sound so ‘sure,’” Alya said. “We don’t have to watch it if you don’t want to. I have a ton of other movies here that we could watch.”