Puppy Party

by Anna Wilson

  Now we are not sisters who Do Hugs most of the time. In fact if someone had come into the house there and then and asked me, ‘Summer Holly Love, when is the last time you gave your Big Sis an actual hug?’ I would first of all have asked them what they thought they were doing barging in on us when we were having such an Emotional Scene, and then I would have said, ‘Er, I don’t rightly remember.’ Or words to that effect, as I don’t really ever say ‘rightly’ like that, now I come to think of it.

  But, as Molly says: Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measures, in other words, sometimes it is only a hug that will do in certain situations.

  April gripped me tightly and wailed even harder than ever.

  I counted to ten, which allowed what I thought was an acceptable amount of time to let my sis DRENCH my clothing with her tears of a salty and extremely moist nature, and then I PRISED myself away. In other words, I gently pushed her away from me. And then I said, ‘I’ll get that cup of tea, then.’

  I almost tiptoed to the kettle and held my breath as I waited for April to wail again. But she didn’t. She picked up the phone again and waved it at me and said, ‘Just listen to this, OK?’ and then she looked at the phone and read out loud:

  ‘And they all have kisses after them! And they are all from WITHHELD NUMBERS!!’ April was positively screechifying now, and was waving the phone so violently I pressed myself as far back as I could against the work surface without actually jumping on top of it.

  ‘I – I don’t think you’ve got anything to worry about,’ I said, ever so slightly lamely, ‘I expect Nick is just planning something he doesn’t want you to know – oh!’ I gasped and my hands flew to my face as all of a sudden everything came into focus in my brain. It was like I was doing a very complicated jigsaw puzzle and all at once I had found the pieces that had been missing and I knew where to put them.

  THE PARTY!! How in all the earth could I have forgotten? I was a totally bonkers doolally fruit-loop of a certifiably insane nature!

  Nick had been sending secret texts to invite people, and he had been very clever and had removed their names from his address book so that April would not be able to find out what he was doing, as April was NOTORIOUSLY nosy (in other words, everyone knew how good she was at finding things out).

  Except, poor Nick, his plan had not worked.

  ‘Hold on a minute,’ I said, feeling puzzled. ‘How did you get hold of Nick’s phone? Surely he needs it for work and stuff?’

  ‘No, YOU hold on a minute,’ said April, talking over me. ‘Why did you just gasp like that? You know what he’s up to, don’t you?’

  April was snarling again and I had started to shake. ‘N-n-no,’ I stammered. ‘I mean y-y-yes. I mean n-n-no.’ That wasn’t going to get me anywhere at all. I decided to try and sound AUTHORITATIVE, in other words in control (which by the way was not how I was feeling even one tiny fragment of a bit), and I repeated my question, ‘How did you get hold of Nick’s phone?’

  April actually growled. I let out a small scream.

  ‘Firstly,’ she said menacingly, and held up one chewed finger, ‘I got hold of Nick’s phone because I am his WIFE and I am ALLOWED to. Secondly,’ she held up another finger, ‘I was going to drop it into the surgery because I thought he might need it, and thirdly,’ another finger went up in the air, ‘the phone beeped while I was on the way there and that’s how I know about the texts. It wasn’t like I was snooping or anything. They just appeared on the screen.’

  ‘Whatever you say!’ I said nervously. I concentrated on pouring the boiling water from the kettle and rummaging for a nice biscuit to help calm April down.

  She continued to rant and rave. ‘He tells me that I’m jealous and that it’s silly because there is nothing to be jealous about, and he tells me that it’s all in my mind when I see him with that nurse, what was her name? Felicity Big Bum, or something equally stupid, and then he gets me under false pretences to marry him and then we’ve only been married a few months and it’s nearly my BIRTHDAY for goodness sake and already he’s planning secret trysts with half the women in the neighbourhood by the looks of it. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d got back together with Miss Huge Backside and that she was trying to keep me guessing by using more than one mobile to contact him. That is the kind of undercover subterfuge horrible old bats like that use to try and steal other people’s husbands . . .’

  I let her shout and tear at her hair while I tried desperately to make my brain go into some kind of useful gear to help me find a way out of this. Poor Nick. He was soooo not the kind of guy to get involved in those ‘tryst’ things April was going on about.

  Eventually April ran out of steam and breath and everything else, and flopped her head on to her hands on the tabletop and cried quietly to herself.

  I gently put the cup of tea down in front of her and said, ‘Would you like me to talk to him?’

  I thought, ‘At least that way I can prevent her from rushing to the surgery with her make-up round her ankles and her hair sticking up like a , and she won’t go and say anything she will regret.’

  April raised her head slowly and looked at me in a bemused sort of fashion. ‘You?’ she said, as if I was a magical fantastical creature who did not in real life actually exist.

  ‘Mmm,’ I said, nodding. My heart was sort of banging against my ribs as I waited for her to start ranting again.

  But instead of ranting, April suddenly looked severely exhaustified. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘But I’m staying right here with this phone in case the Big Bottomed One phones.’

  ‘Er, I think I should take the phone as evidence,’ I said, thinking On My Feet, which does not mean that my brain had relocated itself to my general sock area, but that I had a quick and sudden clever thought. I paused, thinking, I will never get away with this, but April just silently handed me the phone, and before she could change her mind or try to follow me, I whizzed to the door, grabbed my jacket and was gone.

  didn’t bother trying to be polite to Nasal Penelope at the surgery.

  ‘I need to see Nick,’ I said, standing as tall as I could, which was only to the edge of the counter, but it would have to do. ‘It’s an emergency. It’s about his wife – who also happens to be my sister,’ I added, for Good Measure.

  ‘I – well,’ said Nasal Woman. I was pleased to see that she looked suitably alarmed. She also couldn’t think of anything much to say to my announcement (especially since I had Honey with me this time, so I could be an actual Bona Fide patient, in other words I might really need to see a vet). So she backed uneasily away from the reception desk and tapped on the door behind her, while keeping one eye very firmly fixed on me.

  She called to Nick, who came rushing out, looking very flustered indeed. He had a syringe in one hand, I noticed. It made me gulp looking at it. I do not have a very Good History with syringes . . .

  Nick saw me looking at the syringe and hastily put it down on the desk in front of him. ‘What is it, Summer?’ he asked. ‘Oh, you’ve got Honey. What’s up, girl?’ he asked my pooch.

  ‘Can I talk to you in private?’ I asked, flicking my eyes sideways at Nasal Penelope.

  ‘Sure,’ Nick said, also flicking his eyes in her direction. Phew, thank the high heavens that April had at least married a sensible man who could read coded messages and was not like other grown-ups who needed things spelled out for them in .

  Nick beckoned me and Honey to follow him, saying over his shoulder to Nasal Penelope: ‘Give me a few minutes before sending in the next patient, won’t you please? I’ll give you a shout when I’m ready.’

  ‘Give me a shout?’ I heard her mutter as I followed Nick into his Consulting Room. ‘Yes sir, no sir, three bags full, sir.’

  I did wonder why she had chosen that moment in time to start whispering childish nursery rhymes under her breath, but then I thought, well she is a weirdo, so anything is possible. And anyway, I had more important things to be thinking about at that exact moment.

&
nbsp; I waited until Nick had closed the Consulting Room door and then I realized I had forgotten to plan a conversation in my head. So I just panicked and blurted out: ‘April thinks that you don’t love her any more and that you are in true life seeing someone else.’

  Nick’s face went from puzzled through to completely drained of its normal healthy pinkish colour to a rather worrying greenish shade, and he gripped the side of his vet’s table hard as though he might fall over if it wasn’t there to steady him.

  ‘How? What? Where?’ He babbled INCOHERENTLY, which is a posh word I learned from Molly to describe when someone is talking non-stop rubbish.

  ‘I don’t know how or what or where,’ I said. ‘But I came in today and I found her in a rage and crying and looking as frankly terrifyingly as the day she had that row with you outside our house with the Bottom Shuffler—’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Nick cut in, waving a hand to stop me in mid-flow. ‘Who exactly is the Bottom Shuffler?’

  I rolled my eyes in an over-the-top dramatical fashion and said, ‘Yoooouu knooow.’

  Nick shook his head.

  ‘The Bottom Shuffler! Your nurse. Who thankfully does not appear to be working here any more.’

  ‘Ah, you mean Felicity!’ he said, blushing slightly. ‘Yes, that was all a bit unfortunate. But she’s long gone. In fact, she left of her own accord when April and I got engaged. So I’m sorry, you’re going to have to start all over again. I don’t understand why April should think I’m seeing Felicity.’

  So I took a deep breath and told him about the text messages, handing back his phone.

  ‘Oh no!’ he said, slapping his forehead.

  I jumped up and put a RESTRAINING, in other words calming, hand on his arm. ‘Nick! There is no need to punish yourself by getting violent!’ I cried.

  ‘Listen!’ Nick said, looking a bit wild and fierce. ‘I am an idiot! I thought that if I deleted the names of people from my phone, then it would prevent April from getting suspicious about the party if she checked my texts by accident –’ as if it would be by accident! I thought. April is far too cunning for that! But I did not say that out loud – ‘but of course what has happened is that April thinks I’m sending loads of secret texts to another woman. Or worse – lots of other women!’

  I nodded, feeling quite a lot of bafflement, but thinking that at least Nick was thinking things through in some way or another.

  ‘We’re going to have to tell her,’ said Nick. ‘It’s a shame, and I know you wanted it to be a surprise, but I can’t have her going around believing that I’m cheating on her! She’s my wife for heaven’s sake.’

  ‘But you can’t tell her!’ I protested. ‘Molly and I have done so much work to keep it all a secret and we’ve planned so much and we’ve even had to ask Frank to get involved, and you know how much Molly hates to involve Frank.’ I stopped. Nick was glaring at me like I have never seen him glare before.

  ‘I’m sorry, Summer,’ he said, taking off his vet’s coat and grabbing his jacket and his car keys.

  Nick turned and fixed me with a dramatical look. ‘My marriage is more important than a birthday surprise,’ he declared.

  I supposed he was right about that.

  I told Nick that I thought April would still be at ours, as she would want to talk to Mum when she got in from work, so he told me to come with him. Nasal Penelope was not best pleased at having to deal with a load of patients who had to be told to go home and come back another day, but I don’t think she had ever seen Nick glare before either, so she actually quite MEEKLY, in other words calmly, did as she was told.

  ‘I only hope your mum sees that this is all in April’s head,’ Nick said grimly, as he drove rather wildly in and out of the traffic, taking short cuts and speeding along frankly faster than was usually a good idea to do.

  It was a bit like being in a cops and robbers show, except that no one was following us.

  We arrived just in time. April was leaving the house, looking Grim and Determined. Her hair was a bit smoother and she had wiped the black streaky tracks of mascara off her cheeks. Mum was standing on the doorstep, her arms crossed, shaking her head in bewilderment.

  Nick screeched to a halt in the driveway, yanked on the handbrake and jumped out of the car before he had even turned the engine off. It would have been cool if it had not also been teeth-grindingly panic-making.

  Mum frowned at me and mouthed, ‘What are you doing?’

  April screamed. ‘Get away from me!’

  Nick put out his hands to calm her as though she was a about to pounce and rip his guts out. ‘Listen, April. You’ve got it all wrong.’

  I quickly ran to Mum who, even if she had believed April’s utter lunacy and was cross with Nick too, would be infinitely more likely to listen to me than April would.

  ‘She has got it all wrong, Mum,’ I told her breathlessly. ‘The texts – she’s told you about the texts, hasn’t she? – they were to people asking them to come to the You Know What! The P-A-R-T-Y,’ I mouthed.

  ‘OH!’ Mum gasped, her hands flying to her mouth.

  She ran down the drive just in time to stop April thumping Nick. At least, I think that’s what she had been about to do. She had one hand raised in the air anyway. I don’t think she was putting it up to ask a question.

  ‘STOP!’ cried Mum, stepping swiftly between Nick and my sister. April jumped back in alarm and let her hand fall.

  I breathed out in a big whoosh.

  ‘You are making a mistake, April,’ Mum said. She put her hands on April’s shoulders and looked her firmly in the eye. ‘Nick was texting people because Summer and I have been planning a surprise for you.’

  I make a strangled squealing noise, but Mum threw me a warning glance which was pretty scary actually, so I made a zipping motion with my hand across my mouth and Mum nodded.

  ‘Summer and I thought it would be nice to throw a party for you for your birthday as we have been missing you,’ she said.

  As Mum explained about the secret, April’s face crumpled. Then she started blubbing all over again.

  Honestly, you can’t get anything right with my sister. Either she thinks something is going on behind her back and she is angry about it, or she finds out that you are planning a lovely party for her and she cries about that!

  ‘Oh, oh, I’m sooooo sorreeeeee!’ she wailed, throwing her arms around Mum and then collapsing into Nick’s arms and showering him with yucksome kisses which were just too insanely hideous to be a WITNESS of. ‘I love you ALL and I don’t deserve you. I am sooorreeeee!’

  Well, you are right about not deserving us, I thought crossly. And right now, I’m not even that sure I want to go through with this whole party thing any more at all.

  I left her blubbling into Nick’s arms while I paced up and down worrying about what I was now going to say to Molly. I now had to face telling her that all our hard work had been utterly In Vain. The party was no longer a surprise one, the food was now all planned by Mum, and Frank had all the fun of making the dog treats without me and Molly. We were completely Surplus to Requirements, in other words, not needed at all.

  Mum saw how anxious I was looking and gently put her arm around me. She gave me a squeeze and said, ‘Don’t worry, Summer. We can still make this the best party ever. And there are some things April doesn’t know about, aren’t there?’

  ‘What, like the fact we’ve bought cheesy puffs and that you have cooked loads of homemade snacks and are providing sparkly pink wine for the grown-ups? Wow, big fat hairy deal!’ I said, grumpily.

  That evening April and Nick stayed for tea, and they helped me and Mum put up the balloons and some streamers. Then Nick made April promise that she would make a Grand Entrance at the party the next day so that all the guests would not be disappointed, because of course they still thought it was a surprise party.

  No chance of April NOT making a Grand Entrance, I thought to myself miserably. That is the only thing my sister does know how to do, she
is such a

  But at the last minute, Nick came to the rescue of my deeply dark and depressive mood. When it was time for April and Nick to go home, Nick took advantage of a moment when April was saying goodbye to Mum and whispered to me, ‘I have to make this a party April will remember if it’s the last thing I do. Are you up for it?’

  ‘You betcha!’ I said.

  ‘OK. Call me tomorrow,’ he said with a cryptical look. ‘Between us we will make sure no one will forget this birthday bash.’

  nd in the end, it was a fantastical party, I have to say. And mostly thanks to Nick’s last minute suggestions, which thank the high heavens, Molly thought were And Frank was a super-duper huge help with the food, which left Molly and me loads of time to make all the decorations. We put the paw-print cut-outs in the windows, and we made long strips of bunting from pages cut from magazines, which saved us some money and made a very colourful display for the sitting room and the patio area. And we bought loads more party streamers and party poppers for people to pop and throw at April when she arrived. The Place looked festive and fab.

  The guests all arrived early just as we had asked them to, and they brought mountains of exciting-looking presents wrapped in colourful posh tissue paper and that see-throughy plasticky paper that makes everything look so shiny. Mum started pouring out and lemonade and handed round the delicious nibbles Molly and I had bought with our budget and some yummy snacks she had made herself too.