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M'gann can't come. That's when Zatanna knows that her birthday sleepover is going to implode. She's turning eleven years old, and the core member of her friend group can't come to her party.
Her father tells her not to worry about it. She invited five other girls. One of them not being able to come isn't the end of the world. Except that Raquel gets grounded, and then Babs has a family emergency, and then Karen bails to hang out with her boyfriend (because fifth grade relationships are the real deal, apparently), and then Cassie gets into some elite softball program for that weekend, so then it's just Artemis.
Zatanna expects her to bail, in all honesty. A sleepover with only two people isn’t fun. A sleepover with only two people as a birthday party? That’s just pathetic. Zatanna tells her dad that her party is canceled, and after some back and forth he agrees. He doesn’t agree happily, but he can tell that trying to keep it afloat would bug her more. Zatanna goes to school the morning before the party, and expects that to be the end of it. It isn’t.
“I’m still coming over tomorrow, right?” Artemis asks her.
“You want to?”
“Yeah, of course,” Artemis says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, “it’s your birthday.”
“No one else can come,” Zatanna says. She thinks that this will convince her that she doesn’t want to. Zatanna on her own isn’t that big of a draw.
“But I still can,” Artemis says, “I’m not gonna bail on your birthday, Zee.” Zatanna feels a warmth in her chest, and then complete panic. How is she going to explain this to her dad?
Her dad takes it surprisingly well. He’s honestly just excited that she still has a friend coming over, even though it’s one instead of six. Her dad offers to make food, and while her dad’s food is the best in the world, Zatanna knows that’s not "cool". What is "cool" is when you come over to someone’s house and they have all you can eat pizza and enough pop and sweets to gorge yourself on. Her dad isn’t thrilled, but he agrees.
When Artemis comes at 7 o’clock, they have two different pizzas set up, one with pepperoni (which she knows is Artemis’s favorite) and another that’s half cheese only for Zatanna and half the insane combination that her father likes. Zatanna can only identify two of those toppings and she knows that there are at least five of them. Then, Zatanna hears the door bell ring and runs to answer it.
Artemis stands on the front porch, her duffle bag slung over her side and a cute little gift bag in her other hand. Zatanna gestures for her to come in.
“Where should I put my stuff?” Artemis asks. Zatanna looks around, and thinks about the least awkward solution to the problem. She’s planning on having them sleep on in the living room, Artemis on the couch and her on the loveseat, so there’s really no reason to bring the stuff to her room.
“How about the couch,” Zatanna suggests, and Artemis drops her stuff on the couch beside her. Artemis’s eyes light up.
“Do I smell pizza?” Zatanna smiles.
“Yeah, we got a ton of it.” They eat way more pizza than they should, and drink so much Coke that Zatanna feels a little sick to her stomach.
“What do you wanna do next?” Zatanna asks. She hasn’t had many friends over before (because she hasn’t had many friends) but she doesn’t know that you’re supposed to ask what the guest wants to do. That’s proper etiquette, right?
“Do you have brownie mix?” Artemis asks. Thirty minutes later, they put the brownies in the oven. Then they make a blanket fort that they decide to huddle inside while they eat brownies and watch Mulan. The timer on the brownies dings just about a minute after they finish their fort, and they wait for them to cool before taking the pan over with them to their blanket fort. Zatanna starts the movie, and then they settle down for the long
Mulan’s journey begins, and they munch on brownies for most of it. Artemis grabs her hand, and pulls her out of the fort. She strikes a ninja pose.
"Let's get down to business, to defeat the Huns!" she sings, completely off key. Zatanna chimes in for the next line.
“Did they send me daughters when I asked for sons!” Zatanna does awful looking but fun dance moves as they nearly shout the lyrics to the song along with the movie. Zatanna has belted the lyrics to that song out before, but she’d always looked stupid alone. She finds that she really likes looking stupid with someone else.
The song ends and the spell breaks, and they both settle back down in the blanket fort, munching on brownies for the rest of the movie. The movie ends a little before one in the morning. Zatanna’s never stayed up this late, and she’s ready to settle in for the night. She closes her eyes and pulls a blanket up, but then she feels something drop on her lap.
She opens her eyes, and she sees the present on her lap and Artemis smiling at her.
“Time to open presents!” Zatanna’s really tired, but she refuses to seem ungrateful, especially because she wasn’t expecting a present at all and was really pleasantly surprised that she got one. Zatanna pulls the bright green tissue paper out of the bright green bag, and sees the presents at the bottom of the bag.
Inside is a black and white magic wand (the kind that comes apart for magic tricks), a copy of her favorite album by her favorite artist, and a bar of her favorite chocolate. None of these are things that she didn’t already have, but she feels so warm and flattered. Artemis really does know her.
“I got you a wand for your magic tricks,” Artemis says proudly. Zatanna’s sort of known for that around school. Her father is a stage magician, and she loves picking up tricks from him and then showing them off. She smiles, and doesn’t let Artemis know that she already has all of this stuff.
“Thank you so much,” she says, and she really means it.
“Do you want to do something else?” Artemis asks hopefully. Zatanna wants to sleep. She’s tired, and she’s not used to staying up this late. However, she is having the best sleepover she could have hoped for, so instead she says, “Yeah, of course. Whatever you want.” Artemis smiles, and Zatanna knows that she made the right call.