Piper Morgan Plans a Party CHAPTER 1
We were in the middle of nowhere. In the middle of the middle of nowhere. We were so far away from “anywhere” that my mom’s cell phone didn’t even work.

“Are we lost?” I asked Mom as she slowed the car and looked down a street we were about to pass.

“What do the directions say?” Mom asked.

Oh yeah. Directions. There was this sheet that had a list of weird things like “1.5 miles turn right on Montvale Lane.” I didn’t understand what that meant, but I just read them to Mom when she asked.

We were on our way to a ranch. A middle-of-nowhere ranch. There would be real horses, and Mom said I could maybe ride them later if I was really good. It was up to my mom’s new client, who had asked us to this ranch. We hadn’t met her yet. Just talked to her on the phone.

The ranch is my mom’s new job. Well, sort of. My mom’s a temp worker, which means she does temporary jobs in lots of different places. This time her job is as an event planner. The event is a birthday party for a girl who lived on a ranch at this place in the mountains. Mom says the people having the party are what you call “loaded.” I think that means “really rich.”

The hard black road turned into a dirt road when we got closer. Then there was a super-long fence, and that’s when I saw them.

“Horses!” I shrieked.

“Piper,” Mom said, making a funny face. “Pipe down.”

I don’t know what that saying means, except “be quiet” for people named Piper. Because it’s similar to my name, you see.

I tried to turn all the way around in my seat to see the horses, but it was hard in the booster seat I had to sit on. That was okay, though, because there were more horses there. And there. And there.

Horses everywhere!

I was so busy looking at the horses, I almost missed the big, ginormous house up ahead. It was the biggest house I’d ever seen. It was probably even bigger than the school I used to go to before we started moving around. I wondered what it would be like to live in a house that huge.

“The little girl’s name is Emmy,” Mom said. “She’s just a little older than you.”

“She’s going to be nine!” I guessed. Because I’m seven years old. I kind of wished she was younger than me, because sometimes that meant I got to be boss, which was really awesome. It hadn’t happened for a long, long time, though.

I got to carry Mom’s folder on the way to the door. I had to hold it carefully so that it wouldn’t bend. There were important papers in there that she had gotten from her new boss. Her new client was named Amie with an “ie.” I saw her name on Mom’s folder full of party-planning ideas.

Mom rang a doorbell, but I didn’t hear anything through that huge wooden door. There were windows on either side, but you couldn’t see through the glass because it was so pretty and colorful, like glass in a church.

After the longest wait ever, the door opened. The fanciest woman I’d seen in my entire life was standing there, holding a small puppy. It looked almost as cute as my nanna’s dog, Oreo.

“Yes?” the woman asked, looking over the top of my mom’s head.

“Julie Morgan,” my mom said. “My boss sent me over to get information about your event.”

“Of course,” she said. “Come in.”