Revenge of the Flower Girls

by Jennifer Ziegler

  “But what about you?” Delaney asked.

  “I’ll make myself a sandwich later.”

  The appetizers were all right, but I felt bad eating them. Also, the meatballs were gross. They were slimy and dog-food-ish. I wouldn’t even give them to Quincy.

  Meanwhile, Lily sat down at the table and flipped through catering booklets while we stood eating and looking over her shoulder.

  Some of the options, like the fruit and vegetable trays, were pretty typical and boring, but others were kind of creative. Like the place that would carve the names of the bride and groom into a watermelon. Or the cake balls on sticks that were decorated and tied with ribbons to resemble bouquets of flowers.

  One restaurant even had photos of mashed potato sculptures they could make for a wedding. These included hearts, doves, swans, and wedding rings — the nice kind that didn’t look like toilet seats.

  “They forgot the arms on this lady,” I said, looking at an image of a woman’s head and torso shaped from mashed potatoes and sitting on a bed of parsley.

  Lily glanced at the photo. “That’s a replica of the Venus de Milo, a famous statue by a brilliant artist. She doesn’t have arms.”

  “I don’t get it,” Delaney whispered to me. “If the artist is so great, why would he forget the arms?”

  I shrugged.

  “Oh, these are amazing,” Mrs. Caldwell said as she munched on some cheesy thing with bacon. “Burton will love these.”

  Lily’s forehead went squiggly. “Excuse me. I’m going to go make a peanut butter sandwich,” she said. Then she stood and headed into the kitchen.

  Darby, Delaney, and I exchanged guilty looks. No way could we eat another meaty bite after that. Instead, we sat at the table and started flipping through the catering books.

  “This place says you can choose four kinds of … horse doves,” Darby said excitedly. “What are those? Do they fly?”

  “What?” Mrs. Caldwell sounded startled. She peered over Darby’s shoulder. “Those are hors d’oeuvres. They’re appetizers — like canapés.”

  “Why do they give wedding food such strange names?” Delaney asked.

  “Yeah, like these teeny-tiny burgers,” I said. “Why are they called sliders?”

  “My, my,” Mrs. Caldwell said. “You girls certainly ask a lot of questions.”

  I waited to see if she would give me a real answer, but she didn’t.

  “Well, then,” said Mrs. Caldwell, dabbing at the corners of her mouth with a napkin. “I think it’s obvious that these meatballs would be best, along with some salmon-topped canapés and bacon sliders.”

  “But … Lily doesn’t eat meat. She’s vegetarian,” Darby said, louder and more slowly than when she said it before.

  “Yes, but Lily isn’t going to be the only person eating at the wedding,” Mrs. Caldwell said.

  “Yes, but Lily is the bride,” Delaney said.

  “Yes, but this wedding also includes a big strong boy who needs nourishment,” Mrs. Caldwell said.

  Darby, Delaney, and I exchanged puzzled looks. “What big strong boy?” I asked.

  “Why, Burton, of course.”

  “Yes, but this is Lily’s house, and she needs nourishment, too,” I pointed out, my voice rising a little. “Burton can eat vegetables, but she can’t eat meat.”

  “Yes, but the meat eaters who will be attending the wedding will far outnumber the vegetarians.”

  “Yes, but since Lily’s parents are actually paying for the food, it seems only fair that they have the final decision about what is served. Don’t you agree, Edith?” Mom was standing in the doorway to the dining room, still holding her car keys. She must have just returned from her appointment and we hadn’t heard her because we’d been busy bickering.

  At this point, Mrs. Caldwell seemed to run out of yes buts. “Well, I … I …” She twitched and sputtered like a dying campfire. “Of course, Anne. If you want to disappoint the multitude of guests, there is nothing I can do about it. However, you should be aware that I plan to serve meat as the main course at the rehearsal dinner. And that will be paid for by me.”

  “That sounds fair,” Lily said, entering the dining room from the kitchen.

  “No, it’s not,” I said. “You won’t be able to eat hardly anything and you’re the bride!”

  “I’m sure I will find things I can eat, Dawn. It’s okay. And, as I said, it’s fair.”

  “Since my input isn’t appreciated here, I believe I’ll go finalize the menu for the rehearsal dinner,” Mrs. Caldwell said. She stuck her nose in the air and trotted toward the front door.

  “Thank you for bringing over the booklets and samples,” Lily said, going after her.

  Mom sat down and sighed. She had a headachy look on her face.

  “Mom, why do wedding plans make people crazy?” Darby asked.

  “It’s not the plans that do it,” she said. “It’s the emotions. This is a big thing happening to people we love. Mrs. Caldwell wants what she thinks is best for Burton, because she loves him — just like we love Lily and want what’s best for her. Mrs. Caldwell is just a little more … forceful about saying what she wants.”

  “Well, we outnumber her. So there,” I said.

  Mom laughed. “Yes, I suppose we do.”

  When Lily got back to the dining room, the five Brewster women sat around with the catering books and discussed the menu for the wedding reception. After some civilized debate, we finally decided on the following: Spinach and goat cheese mini quiches, stuffed mushrooms, watercress canapés topped with assorted vegetables, and the vegetarian sliders. I thought the menu was quite representative of us Brewsters — it was good and real, without any fancy, showy stuff.

  But the absolute best part of the day was when Lily let me, Darby, and Delaney flip through the books and pick out the wedding cake. We easily agreed on it. We chose a three-tiered one that had vanilla on the bottom, chocolate in the middle, and strawberry on top. There were multicolored frosting flowers all along the bottom, and candy rainbows around the middle — and piles and piles of whipped white frosting that made it look like a big cloud was sitting on top. We figured if Lily couldn’t be outdoors for her wedding, even though she’d always wanted to be, we could bring the outdoors to her in this small way.

  It felt good to truly help and not just pretend. The only thing that would have made it even better was if Lily had let us help choose her groom.

  Wedding RSVP cards arrived in the mail nearly every day, but there was never one from Alex. Dawn, Darby, and I despaired over this every evening. We began to wonder if we had sent it to the wrong place or if he wasn’t going to come — or hadn’t decided yet. Of course, we also knew that if Lily saw it, there would be lots of questions, but we preferred having to endure that to Alex being left out entirely.

  Truth was, we were beginning to give up hope. Time was running out and there was nothing we could do to prevent the wedding day from arriving. Dawn kept calling meetings where we would sit around and complain and not come up with any good ideas. Darby kept getting the hiccups. And I got so jittery and fidgety that I would knock stuff over without meaning to. Our extra-clean living and dining rooms were in danger of getting messy again, so Mom actually stopped making me clear the table. I had to fold towels instead.

  It was shaping up to be the most worrisome summer vacation ever. Romping in the Neighbors’ sprinklers didn’t even feel fun anymore. Outings with Daddy for pizza or ice cream didn’t cheer us up. Even trips to Forever’s for pie didn’t help.

  One morning, Mom came upstairs and told us to clean our room. “And I mean really clean it,” she said. “Do not just toss things under the beds or into the closet. I will be checking those places, too, to make sure they are clean and tidy.”

  “But that will take forever!” Dawn whined.

  “Then you better start now,” Mom said. “Lily is out with your father, and I need to go pick up Aunt Jane at the airport. I expect this place to be spick-and-span or
on its way to a high state of cleanliness by the time we get back. If you need anything, ask Ms. Woolcott.”

  We grumbled for about an hour after she left and then spent close to another hour coming up with a plan. We decided that I should tidy the closet since I’m one-eighth of an inch taller than the others and can reach the shelves better. Meanwhile, Darby would clean under my bed and hers, and Dawn would clean under her bed, sweep the floor, and take out the trash.

  The closet door never can stay open for some reason. Sure enough, it swung shut as soon as I stepped in there.

  I was feeling around in the air for the pull string to turn on the light, when I heard a noise. It was low and whirring — like a growly animal or a buzzing insect. Whuzzz whuzzz whuzzz.

  “Quincy?” I said. Only, I knew he wasn’t up there.

  And that’s when I saw them. Three sets of evil, glowing, yellow eyes staring right at me in the dark.

  One of my talents is that I can scream intolerably loud, and I think I screamed the loudest ever at that moment. I didn’t know if the ghost had moved upstairs and invited over some friends, or rabid raccoons had set up house in our closet, or a bunch of vampire bats had mistaken it for their cave. All I knew was that I was about to get eaten.

  I tried to get out of there, but because it was messy, I kept tripping over stuff. Eventually, I found the knob and burst through the door to find Darby and Dawn looking panicked. Dawn was already standing on her bed.

  “Eyes!” I shouted and then tore out of the room and down the stairs. They followed close behind. Quincy, who must have heard the scream, joined up with us and went straight for his kennel.

  I didn’t stop until I made it to the middle of the front yard. I leaned against the flagpole to catch my breath.

  “What in tarnation, Delaney?” Dawn asked. “What do you mean ‘eyes’?”

  I described to them what I’d seen and heard.

  “Locusts?” Dawn asked.

  “Nope. No way. Those eyes weren’t buglike. They were more like an ogre’s or a troll’s. Or a … a … chupacabra’s!”

  “So the eyes were really big?” Darby asked.

  I thought for a second. “No, kind of small. But not as small as bug eyes.”

  “I wonder …” Darby said, tapping her chin. Then she turned and headed for the house, saying, “I’m going to check something. Dawn, you can come, too.”

  I stayed put as the two of them went back inside. Even though I was standing still, my heart was galloping as if it wanted to bust out of me and keep racing down the street. I was worried about my sisters. And I was worried about the future. Now that our house was infested with hobgoblins, where would I sleep?

  A couple of minutes later, Darby and Dawn came back out. They were smiling and chuckling.

  “What’s so funny?” I asked

  “This is what you were afraid of,” Darby said. From behind her back, she produced a long box with three plastic kittens inside — the Sparkle Cats that Burton had given us. Dawn pointed to the sticker that mentioned they were glow-in-the-dark and had motion-sensor purring sounds. I’d forgotten all about that stupid present.

  “Well, gee,” I said, feeling foolish. “They look a lot less cute in the dark. Trust me.”

  “Yoo-hoo!”

  We glanced up and saw Ms. Woolcott waving frantically from her side of the fence. The three of us walked over to see what was up.

  “Is everything okay?” she asked. “I heard a bloodcurdling scream. Should I call for help?”

  “No, ma’am,” I said. “We’re fine. The scream came from me. I was just … I saw … I mean, I thought I saw …” It was one of those rare times when I was at a loss for words.

  “We were just playing,” Dawn said.

  “I’m glad everyone is all right, but you girls gave me such a fright! I do believe my hair is sticking straight up.”

  Actually, Ms. Woolcott’s hair always sticks up a couple of inches from her scalp, but we didn’t want to argue with her.

  “By the way, I’ve been meaning to stop by,” Ms. Woolcott went on. “A piece of your mail was accidentally delivered to my house.” She reached into the pocket of her skirt and pulled out a small envelope. “It looks like one of those RSVP cards from your sister’s wedding invitation.”

  She held it up to show us, and I plucked it from her hands. The return label read A. HAWTHORNE and I recognized Alex’s address. Immediately, I started bouncing on my toes. Dawn and Darby noticed and let out little whoops.

  “Oh? Is it a good one?” asked Ms. Woolcott in her singsongy voice.

  “Not really,” I said, trying to throw off her nosy nose. “We’re just excited whenever we get one. It’s like a game.”

  “You girls sure do play a lot of games,” Ms. Woolcott said. “Stick with the quiet ones today, all right? The ones with no screaming?” She patted her hairdo, but each time she pressed down, it boinged back up again.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said. “Thank you, Ms. Woolcott.”

  We ran inside the house. As soon as I was through the front door, I opened the envelope and pulled out the card. Again my heart was scampering around inside me, and my fingers shook a little.

  The little square next to ACCEPTS WITH PLEASURE had been checked.

  “He’s coming!” I shouted, bouncing around in a circle. It was the most beautiful card I’d ever seen — even if it was the color of a rain cloud and the writing was too curly. “He’s really coming!” I was so happy I wanted to scream, but I didn’t want Ms. Woolcott to call the sheriff’s department again.

  Dawn grabbed the card from me and did her own dance before passing it to Darby.

  “So now what?” Darby asked, staring down at it.

  “What do you mean ‘now what’?” I said. “Now Lily and Alex will see each other and fall back in love.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked. “I mean, what if they don’t? Is there anything else we can do?”

  “Just wait and see, I guess,” I said. Everyone had stopped celebrating and that annoyed me. I didn’t want to stop bouncing and being happy.

  “I don’t want to wait,” Dawn said. “I want to make sure they get back together. Or at least make sure she doesn’t marry Burton.”

  “But this is the only one of our plans that actually worked,” I said. “Face it — we’re kind of lousy at stopping weddings.”

  Dawn tapped her chin the way she always does when she’s pondering hard. “There’s got to be something we can do.”

  She didn’t get to think about it for long, though. Because just then the door opened and Aunt Jane walked in.

  Triplets! Come huddle up!” Aunt Jane shouted.

  Aunt Jane is one of our favorite people in the whole history of people. She’s tall and strong. She played professional basketball for a while and then taught PE classes here in Blanco County. Now she lives in Boston, where she runs a bar.

  That’s another thing we like about Aunt Jane — she’s tough. Mom says she’s seen her step in between men fighting each other and toss them out of her establishment. We hope to go visit her, and she always says she can’t wait to take us to see the famous sites in her adopted city. Mom is still wondering if that’s a good idea, though. She says that, on one hand, Aunt Jane is probably the only person who can truly handle us, but on the other hand, we probably inherited our penchant for foolishness from her, and the four of us set loose might cause a national crisis.

  So as soon as we saw Aunt Jane’s short, curly hair and big smile, we shouted hoorays and ran over to hug her. Quincy, too. He finally came out of his kennel and kept rising up on his hind legs and doing a little happy dance. Aunt Jane gave us Quincy when he was a puppy, right before she moved to Boston, and I don’t think he ever forgot that. Mom never has, either. She mentions Aunt Jane whenever Quincy does something bad.

  Aunt Jane suggested we all go run and play, but then Mom asked if we’d finished cleaning our room.

  “Almost,” I said, but she just ignored me.


  “Darby?” Mom tends to focus on Darby whenever she wants the truth. That’s because she’s the lousiest liar. “How much is left to do?”

  “Oh … maybe just … most of it,” she said, hanging her head a little. I couldn’t tell if she was ashamed that our chore wasn’t finished or that she was no good at lying.

  But just as we were about to go upstairs and clean, Aunt Jane convinced Mom to reconsider. She said that it was already hot and would only get hotter. She said she hadn’t seen us in way too long. And she said, besides, she was older and tougher and should get her way. (She said that last part with a grin.) Mom gave in (also with a grin) but made us promise to finish cleaning the minute we came back inside.

  Like I said, Aunt Jane is just about the best there is.

  We headed outside to our hill. For a while, we played Frisbee and tossed a stick for Quincy until he decided he’d rather gnaw on it than bring it back to us. Then we all sat cross-legged under the red oak.

  “You girls are growing up so fast,” Aunt Jane said, shaking her head. “I can’t believe our Lily is getting married.”

  “Yeah,” Delaney said, her face all weighed down. “Neither can we.”

  “Ah.” Aunt Jane raised her left eyebrow. “I take it you aren’t too happy about it?”

  For a few seconds, we just sat there, exchanging glances. And then suddenly, Darby said, “Burton’s a nincompoop!”

  After that, we all started grumbling at once. We told Aunt Jane about Mrs. Caldwell’s takeover of the wedding plans and Burton spending more time holding his book bag than Lily’s hand and the squiggly lines on Lily’s forehead and how everyone’s stress level had reached the rings of Saturn at this point.

  When we finished, Aunt Jane looked all glowery.

  “We know, we know,” I said. “We need to respect Lily’s decision and give Burton a chance.”

  “A chance? Ha! I’ve known Burton Caldwell since he was a sniveling first grader, and I agree that he is not a man who can make Lily happy.”

  I was so surprised to hear this, I almost toppled over onto the grass. Darby and Delaney also seemed light-headed with surprise.