Party prep

"What we were thinking, Mr. Lords, is a surprise party for Claire might cheer her up," David was saying. "She's been changing her life up a bit, and some of the kids at school haven't been super supportive. I was thinking, if we could show her how her real friends feel about her, it might help out."

"You really think a party would help?" Mr. Lords rubbed his beard thoughtfully. He was a large, muscular man whose only concession to his 51 years were twin bars of gray at the sides of his head.

"Of course it would, honey." Mrs. Lords said briskly. She snapped her cellphone closed. "Sheila", as everyone called her, looked ten years younger than her actual 32. "Claire hasn't thrown a party in months. I wouldn't be surprised if she wasn't itching for a little social interaction outside of school meetings." She winked at David, "Not that we blame you for that, dearest."

Mr. Lords still seamed uncertain. "It might be she's going through some tough times right now. I don't know if a house full of people would be welcome."

Sheila patted his cheek fondly. "Of course, not for you, darling, but your daughter is a different kind of person altogether. In any event, I just finished making the arrangements for the party for this Saturday night. Your staff is warned, the decorations and catering services have been notified, and the pool is scheduled to be cleaned Friday. Nothing for you to worry about."

David nodded appreciatively, noticing as he did so that Hod seemed preoccupied. His head was cocked towards the door, like he heard something. "Thank you, Mr. Lords, Sheila. This is going to be awesome! I bet we could even use some of your surveillance stuff to make sure that it's a total surprise."

Mr. Lords grimaced. "Hold on a second, I'm not going to spy on my daughter just so you can have a surprise party."

"But aren't you already tracking where she goes?" David asked. "I think she told me once that you monitored the gps in her cellphone, or something like that." He held up his hands. "Leaving the surveillance to you, Mr. Lords, but maybe if we could track where she's going lately... her schedules all messed up recently, see? So it'd be a good idea to make sure we know she's far away from the house when we're trying to set things up."

"You just want a chance to play with my toys," Mr. Lords grumbled.

"What, sir, me? Just because you have the absolute-coolest, most amazing security system in Canada, and being able to use a little tiny bit of it just so we know where you're daughter is, as a favor to her, which we hope will help cheer her up..."

"Alright, alright." Mr. Lords conceded, "But only the day of the party- actually, I'll be out of town. I'll right, you can swing by the house on Friday and I'll give you the code for the phones."

"Yes! Thank you so much, Mr. Lords. You won't regret it."

"I better not."