Hey Blog! Last week I turned thirteen, and on Saturday I had a party to celebrate. So that’s what this blog post is about!
Last year, I also had a small party, but we booked the woodland hut in Shining cliff woods and had a play around there. This year, we decided to have a party at home, and had been planning it since early February. Mum had found a murder mystery party game – pizza themed – and had ordered it. On Saturday, the day of the party, I was kept out of the playroom till Mum and Dad had set the room up. This involved all the junk being shoved upstairs and left in the bedrooms, where no one would see it; the tables being moved, and covered with tablecloths; and the pinboard having crazy pictures of the friends who were coming with their faces superimposed onto clipart pictures. The hallway had a supposedly dead body stick man drawn in masking tape, who was covered with the carpet until it was time for the game.
All my friends who came were in costume, and looked very good, considering that one had bought theirs that morning and most, including mine, were constructed in a hurry. I, for instance, was Michael Angelo, an artist, wearing black trousers, white vest and open pale shirt. Mayor Fiasco, the mayor, had his dad’s suit, and a (watch) chain of office. Mario Carta, the Swede-talion plumber, was in his sister’s dungarees and a red shirt turned inside out. Don Cannelloni, a lawyer-turned-crime-boss, was in a black suit and dark sunglasses, and Lolita Cannelloni his ‘daughter’ was in a white floral dress, with hair ribbons, high boots and stripy tights!
After all the guests had arrived, the ‘body’ was found under the carpet, and the suspects were questioned. With only five guests, picking any one of them meant you had a 20% chance of being right, so higher than a full game of Cluedo, which has six suspects. Next, we all went into the kitchen and received one piece of paper. If it had a cross in the corner, you were the murderer, and the number at the bottom told us the order of confessions. The detective then told us what was going on, and told us to look for the murderer. This was done by asking and answering questions, which were set, but we could choose who we asked. The answer was sometimes different depending on whether or not you were guilty, and you answered according to the truth.
Most of the guests couldn’t pronounce cannelloni, including one of the Cannellonis themselves, instead saying “insert surname here”! Two or three tried an accent at the beginning and gave up, while Mario Carta kept coming in and out of the accent. I however kept going all the way through, though it did descend into a bad Scottish accent in the middle – Lolita was threatening to hit me (I’m not sure if this was real or not – it’s hard to tell with her) if I kept on with the Italian one as no one could understand it! We had a great time, going through everything except the confessions while eating the starters, before the pizzas arrived (thank you very much Dominoes!). After dinner, in which between five people, three large pizzas were reduced to one half and a bit, the confessions were read out. I was number five and the murderer! I kept that secret well, didn’t I? (snigger). Most people thought I had been using the accent to hide the guilt but no – that is actually how bad my Italian accent is. It doesn’t help that all the guests have lived in deepest darkest Derbyshire for their whole life, whereas I am a bit of a globetrotter; you don’t get many Italians round here!
I absolutely loved the evening, and would certainly recommend it to any and all party-planners. It helps if you have two amazing parents to do furniture logistics and provide tablecloths, crazy party outfits, and a noticeboard with funny pictures, so a massive thanks to Mum and Dad – you are amazing! xx. Also, you must have really good friends to invite. And who knows what I might do next year?!
