Mega Sleepover 7

by Narinder Dhami

  But the joke was on us, as it turned out.

  Andy’s mum called out to us as we were coming in through the front door. “We’re in the living room, dears,” she said. And if it had been anyone else but Andy’s mum, I’d have sworn she sounded excited.

  Frankie followed me in. “Hi, everyone,” she beamed. Then her face kind of crumpled. “Oh, hi Amber,” she said bravely. “Wow, that dress really suits you.”

  No WONDER poor old Frankie didn’t know where to look.

  Amber was striking this really haughty pose beside the window. But that’s not all. She was only wearing her bridesmaid’s dress, would you believe! Talk about rubbing Frankie’s nose in it. Amber couldn’t have been more tactless if she’d tried. Though in passing, I DID notice that the dress looked heaps better on her than it had last night. I hated to admit it, but she looked completely amazing.

  OK, now I’m going to let you in on the big secret, right?

  In case you hadn’t guessed, Mum, Patsy, Jilly and Amber had cooked up a wicked little plot between them. Unknown to Frankie and me, Amber was totally acting her socks off. To be honest, she was the only plotter who managed to keep a straight face (I put it down to all those acting lessons!).

  Mum, Jilly and Patsy did TRY to look innocent, bless them. But their twinkly eyes just wouldn’t co-operate. So it soon became obvious, even to us, that something very fishy was going on.

  Suddenly Frankie couldn’t stand the suspense another second. “So is anyone going to tell me about this surprise or what?” she blurted.

  “Da-DA,” sang Mum, and she whipped a second bridesmaid’s dress from behind her back.

  Frankie and I stared at it, hopelessly confused.

  “Patsy and Amber have been working so hard while you were at school. They really ought to get medals,” said Mum.

  “It was Patsy’s idea,” Amber chipped in.

  “I still don’t get it,” I said. “What idea?”

  “To make a new dress for Amber, of course,” beamed Mum. “Patsy and Amber just didn’t think it was right for Frankie to miss out.”

  And my mum presented the dress to a totally stunned Frankie.

  “You mean I can still be your bridesmaid after all?” she gasped.

  Mum nodded, beaming.

  “Wow!” Frankie breathed. Then she rushed at my mum and hugged her madly around the middle. “Thank you SO much,” she said in a muffled voice. “This is a very very happy moment and I think I’m going to cry.”

  That’s one way in which Frankie hasn’t changed at all. She’s still a TOTAL drama queen!

  Amber stepped forward. For the first time since I’d met her she looked really unsure of herself. “Can I hug Frankie too?” she said. “I mean, since we’re both going to be bridesmaids now.”

  All this time, Patsy had been busily inspecting her nails, but suddenly she went zooming towards the door. “I think I’ll just go and make everyone a nice pot of tea,” she called over her shoulder.

  But I got the definite feeling she just wanted to get WAY out of hugging range! And for the first time, it occurred to me that Patsy’s prickly hedgehog routine was actually terminal shyness.

  “But how did they manage to do it so fast?” I said. “No offence, Mum, but it’s taken you AGES to make those other dresses.”

  “Aha,” grinned Jilly. “You obviously haven’t heard about Patsy’s secret past!”

  “Apparently Patsy used to be some kind of dressmaker in London,” Amber explained.

  Mum acted shocked. “Dressmaker! Patsy used to work for a major French fashion house, darling!”

  “So making one itty bitty bridesmaid’s dress was not exactly a major problem for her,” Jilly explained.

  “I don’t know what we’d have done without her,” sighed Mum. “Patsy’s worked absolute miracles today.”

  I started to giggle. I couldn’t help it.

  “What?” said everyone.

  But it wasn’t a thought I could exactly share with them, seeing as Patsy herself had just sailed back in with the tea-things. I DID tell it to my Wedding Diary though, before I went to sleep. Want to see what I wrote?

  I kept saying I needed a miracle. It just NEVER occurred to me that a miracle could ever come through someone as scary as Patsy! Maybe that’s what our vicar means when he says, “God works in mysterious ways”!!

  After Frankie went home, Amber and I figured that the grown-ups in the house were all far too busy with wedding preparations to do anything about food. So we sneaked a tub of Ben and Jerry’s Rainforest Crunch out of the freezer, grabbed a spoon each, and went up to my room.

  But there wasn’t really much on TV and gradually we got talking. Actually it turned into a real heart-to-heart.

  “You must have thought I was a real pill,” Amber said suddenly.

  “Oh, er, not really,” I said politely.

  She laughed. “Sure you did. The fact is, I was incredibly jealous.”

  “Yeah, right,” I said. “You live in LA, next door to Mickey Mouse and – and lots of other famous people whose names I can’t remember just now, and you’re jealous of me. That makes sense. NOT!”

  “Sorry to disappoint you, Fliss, but me and Mickey don’t actually hang out on a regular basis,” Amber teased. Then she sighed. “I do have a great life though, and I wouldn’t change it. Except for one thing.”

  I stared at her.

  “I wish I had great friends, like you guys,” she said. “The first time I heard you going on about them, it made me feel kind of lonely.” I could tell Amber meant it too. Her voice had this husky little catch in it.

  “Don’t you have loads of friends in LA?” I said.

  Amber grinned. “Don’t look so worried. I’m not like, a total hermit or anything. But none of my friends really know me. Not the way you guys know each other.”

  “We have these huge fights sometimes,” I said.

  “Yeah, but you make up, right?” Amber helped herself to a mega spoonful of Rainforest Crunch. “I did have this really cool friend, once,” she said. “Her name was Lauren McGravy.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “No, I swear. That’s her real name.” Amber went into a fit of giggles. “Poor Lauren,” she said. “She’s allergic to everything, so she’s like, sneezing constantly. But this is totally not a human sneeze, right? It sounds like it’s made by some cute little Disney cartoon.” And she did a wicked imitation of a Lauren McGravy-type sneeze.

  “What happened to her?”

  She sighed. “The usual thing. Lauren’s parents split and her mother took her off to New York.”

  “You can still phone,” I suggested.

  “Yeah, yeah,” said Amber. “I call her up sometimes. I just hate how after you put down the receiver, you feel like twenty times more lonely than you did before.”

  There was quite a long silence after she said this. It wasn’t a seriously squirm-making silence, but I got the feeling that Amber felt a bit down in the dumps. So it was probably best not to ask her any more about Lauren McGravy just yet.

  “Hey,” I said suddenly. “There’s a really mushy film on later. Want to watch it with me?”

  Amber’s eyes lit up. “How mushy?” she demanded. “You know, on a scale of one to ten?”

  “Twelve at least,” I giggled.

  She wriggled her toes. “I can’t WAIT,” she said gleefully.

  Just then Andy yelled upstairs. Luckily for all our rumbly tummies, my thoughtful step-dad had brought back a carload of pizza for everyone.

  “I know it’s not very healthy,” Mum kept saying merrily, as she handed round massive slices dripping with melted mozzarella cheese. “I’m so disorganised today. But it can’t be helped.”

  She caught me staring at her.

  “What?” she said. “I’ve got tomato sauce on my nose again, haven’t I?”

  “No,” I said. “It’s nothing, honestly.”

  But a wave of wonderful relief washed over me.

  Mu
m was totally her old self again. The scared little wobble in her voice had disappeared. All those stress crinkles in her forehead had been smoothed out. And though she was only wearing the teeniest touch of make-up, my mother looked exactly like brides are supposed to look.

  For the first time in over a week, she was really and truly radiant.

  And with one of my psychic flashes, I knew I totally didn’t need to worry about her scary secret any more. I could tell that it was now well and truly over, and that’s all that mattered.

  By the way, Amber and I never did get to watch that mushy film.

  You see, while we were stuffing ourselves with pizza, I had a private word with Patsy, who immediately set us to work on a secret late-night project. And you’re just going to have to wait till the end of the story before I tell you what the project was!

  “Mind if I keep the light on?” I asked Amber, when we finally got to bed some time after midnight. “I want to write in my diary for a while.”

  “I don’t know how you can keep your eyes open,” she yawned. “I’m exhausted. That Patsy is such a slave-driver.”

  She settled down to sleep, and I started scribbling in my Wedding Diary. I showed you some of this stuff earlier. Plus I also wrote this:

  This has been the most amazing week of my life. And now it’s almost over, I feel much older and a (tiny) bit wiser. It’s like I had this fairy tale going on in my head, where Amber was the beautiful princess who totally didn’t have a heart. And I definitely had Patsy pegged as the mean old witch with her evil potions and scary ways!

  Well, it turns out I was wrong. (Though Andy’s mum does have very useful magic powers. Heh heh heh!)

  And here’s the icing on the cake. I successfully completed my mission, yippee! Thanks to Patsy’s powers, those four somethings are totally sorted. Not only has the wicked ladder spell finally been broken, but I’ve also got a completely fab and groovy wedding present for Andy and Mum – it’s

  Oops, I only just shut my diary in time or I’d have ruined the big surprise! I’m not being funny, but I truly can’t let you read any more, just yet. These are like, official wedding secrets, OK? Which means they can only be unveiled at the actual wedding!

  Are you KIDDING? Of course you’re invited. I’m just working up to the most exciting bit of the whole story, you nutcase!

  So jump back on the wedding rollercoaster, and get ready to go “ooh!” and “aah!” and “wow!” because that great big water splash is coming up, any minute NOW!

  This is SO embarrassing.

  I’ve been building up to this like, HUGE moment in my story, and now I’ve come over all wobbly.

  It’s not just stage fright. You see, in the middle of the celebrations, I got some news which completely blew me away. I took it really calmly at the time. But now I’m in this total DAZE.

  I mean, I’ve been talking all along like this was just about Mum’s wedding. But it turns out that the whole time, there was this other mega dramatic stuff going on behind the scenes. So now I’m feeling like, “Fliss, how could you be so DIM!”

  OK, OK, I’m probably being about as clear as mud! But my head is just spinning. If you could see my thought bubbles, like in those cartoon strips, I just know they’d be totally haywire.

  Bubble 1 is panicking: “Eek, NOW where do I start?”

  Bubble 2 is signalling frantically: “Major headache, major headache! A fluff-brain like you shouldn’t be attempting to describe the sheer wonderfulness of Mum’s Big Day, let alone explaining this like, WILD new strand of the plot!”

  But inside Bubble 3 is just a humungous exclamation mark!

  In case you were wondering, that’s the part of my brain which is still trying to digest my stunning news. You see, it seemed to come out of the blue. But, now I look back, I realise there were all these clues staring me in the face, which I totally failed to pick up on.

  Phew! Thanks for letting me get that off my chest. Actually, I think I’ve calmed down very slightly. So I’ll tell you what we’re going to do. We’ll put my big news on the back burner for now, and just carry on like I originally planned.

  So now we’re going to zoom straight to that hopelessly mushy scene we’ve all been waiting for.

  The one where we FINALLY get to see (SIGH!!) Mum’s dress!

  The night before the wedding, Mum had firmly packed Andy off to stay with Dave, Andy’s best man. So apart from Callum (who doesn’t exactly rate as a real bloke), this was like, an exclusively girly moment.

  Patsy had been shut in with Mum practically since DAWN, helping her get ready. So there was just Jilly and all six of us bridesmaids, waiting nervously for Mum to come downstairs.

  But when she eventually appeared at the top of the stairs, I almost cried. I’m not lying. We all just stared and stared at her, until she came over all shy.

  “Do I look all right?” she asked anxiously.

  But I think she knew the answer really.

  “You look like a fairy-tale princess,” sighed Frankie.

  Mum had chosen a dress which was utterly perfect for a summer wedding. It was in shimmery ivory satin, with slightly puffy sleeves which came to just below her elbows. The skirt was completely plain, but the sleeves and bodice had all these tiny embroidered hearts and roses done in silver thread, plus silver beads so tiny, you’d hardly know they were there at all.

  Oh, and you should have seen Mum’s veil! It was the dreamiest thing. It was really long, and edged with more teeny roses and scattered with little seed pearls. To keep it in place, she’d got this gorgeous silver tiara with a cluster of larger pearls in the centre.

  Her flowers were really simple – just this absolute cascade of creamy blossoms. They smelled so lovely, it seemed like the dress itself was giving off some unique wedding-day scent.

  And if Frankie and the others think that sounds soppy, well, that’s just too bad. My mum was getting married. I’m supposed to feel like that!

  Oops, I almost forgot to tell you about her amazing train!

  Actually, none of us realised exactly how amazing until Mum reached the bottom of the stairs, and suddenly there was absolutely NO room in our hall!

  In case you didn’t know, most people have at least one rehearsal before their actual wedding day, so everyone knows what they’ve got to do. But for very special reasons I’ll go into later, Mum and Andy’s schedule was so hectic that they totally couldn’t fit one in.

  Anyway, you’ve got to picture like, MILES of satin, all billowing around the hall of our little semi!

  Well, naturally we all went into a major panic! I mean, Mum’s special wedding car was arriving in five minutes. In other words, the Peaches and Cream Squad (Jilly’s nickname for Mum’s bridesmaids!) had precisely five minutes to acquire some serious train-management skills!

  Poor Mum looked like she might pass out cold at this point.

  But Patsy quickly calmed everyone down, explaining that it was really just a question of common sense.

  “But you must stop walking the instant Nikky stands still,” she told us sternly. “And don’t lag too far behind, or else you’ll all get dragged along behind her like a bunch of bad water-skiers.”

  This was such a wild picture that my mother and all six bridesmaids, me included, burst into mad fits of giggles. Jilly immediately whipped out her Polaroid camera and took a snap of us all, falling about hysterically, in our long dresses and flowery crowns.

  There was only just enough time left for Mum to give us all our special bridesmaids’ lockets. They were on these incredibly fine gold chains with the SWEETEST tiny gold hearts on.

  “Aaah,” said Jilly when we’d put them on. “That is the perfect finishing touch, Nikky. Don’t they all look cute!”

  I was so proud of Kenny. I mean, imagine Laura MaKenzie allowing herself to be seen in public looking cute. That is TRUE friendship!!

  But there she was, wearing her peach meringue, a flowery crown and a golden heart locket, with this dreamy little Mona Lisa s
mile on her face. (Later we found out that the smile was because she’d just thought up this wicked bridesmaid-survival strategy, which I’ll tell you later! But who cares – it worked!)

  Suddenly I peeped out of the window and almost screamed my head off.

  There was a real Rolls Royce parked outside our house! A genuine cream-coloured Rolls Royce, decorated with white ribbons. Mum’s wedding was really happening at last!!

  “Remember, girls,” said Patsy fiercely. “Stay calm.”

  “Peaches and Cream Squad – go go go!” commanded Jilly.

  Amber rolled her eyes. “Mum, perleaze!”

  “Please God, don’t let us trip up, and please, please don’t let me get hiccups,” I heard Lyndz pray under her breath.

  “Amen,” said Frankie fervently.

  Then Patsy opened the door and all this lovely summer sunlight flooded in. This is too perfect, I thought tearfully. Even the weather is just TOO perfect.

  We followed my mother down the garden path, solemnly keeping all her precious satin out of the dirt. (Now I understand why they call them trains. Mum’s practically went on for EVER.) But it wasn’t until we got outside that we saw just how special her train actually was.

  A few metres above the hem, there was this big embroidered A.

  Do you get it? Sure you do, you nutcase!

  The A was for Andy!! Is that romantic or WHAT!!!

  Oh, you did remember the ceremony wasn’t going to be in an actual church, didn’t you? We all had to drive out to this fabulous old Tudor house out in the country. Belvoir Manor, it’s called.

  I got this absolute STORM of butterflies in my tummy when we drove up and I saw all the crowds of people waiting for us. I didn’t recognise my step-dad at first in his morning coat. Honestly, it was so sweet! When Andy saw Mum in her wedding dress, he was totally lost for words!

  He’d somehow found time to get a really smart haircut since we’d last seen him, and he really did look incredibly handsome. Plus I just loved his waistcoat. It was embroidered in exactly the same roses and hearts as Mum’s dress. Dave, the best man, was cracking these stupid jokes about how it was so Andy didn’t go home with the wrong bride by mistake. But Amber and I agreed that it made Mum and Andy look like they totally belonged together.