“Lily?” I said.
She started to turn around, but then a shiver went through her and she leaned over the toilet and …
“Gluuuuaaaaaaaugh!”
The scary noise was Lily throwing up.
There are lots of reasons why we think the bathroom is haunted. For one, it’s always chilly — even in the middle of summer. Then there’s that strange knocking sound and the way the lights sometimes flicker. But also, sometimes, your voice will hit a certain note or pitch, and the whole room will buzz in this really loud, really creepy way.
Lily was hitting a lot of those notes right then.
“What’s wrong?” I asked when she’d stopped and sat back. “Did Mom make creamed beef again?”
She made a little choking noise and shook her head. “No,” she said kind of breathlessly. “Mom and Aunt Jane went to get tacos.”
“But you love those. You always say you could eat potato-egg-cheese tacos every day for the rest of your life. You used to say you would marry them if you could.”
She smiled weakly. “I still love them.”
“Oh no — was it the fake duck? Did that make you sick?” I asked, worried that we might have unintentionally poisoned our sister.
“No no. This is just a bad case of nerves,” she said. “Sorry if I woke you.”
“It’s okay.” I sat with her until she seemed to be done and then gave her a wet cloth so she could clean her face.
“Oh, Darby. I’d hug you, but I’m gross.”
“It’s all right,” I said, patting her on the shoulder. “Are you going to be okay?”
Lily pulled herself up to the sink. “Of course I am. This is going to be a great day — a wonderful, happy, special day,” she said. Only she seemed to be talking to her reflection instead of me.
I went back upstairs and told Dawn and Delaney about it.
“Holy moly!” Delaney exclaimed. “That was Lily? I thought it was a riled-up zombie.”
“It’s time to put our plan into action,” Dawn said.
For almost five years, we’d had Alex’s phone number on a list of important contacts that Mom had stuck to the refrigerator. We sure hoped he hadn’t changed it in the last few months.
I’m always too shy to call people on the phone, but Dawn and Delaney aren’t. In fact, they bickered over who got to call Alex, so I intervened and said that Dawn should, since it had been her plan.
Delaney and I stood on either side of her — so close our three noses were almost touching.
“Alex? This is Dawn.”
“Dawn?” we heard him say. “What’s going on?”
“We just wanted to make sure you were coming to the wedding.”
Alex heaved a long, staticky sigh. “I don’t think so, Dawn. Last night was tough.”
Delaney grabbed the phone from Dawn. “We’re sorry!” she said. “We didn’t mean to upset you. We were just … trying to show Lily’s past.”
“That’s not what I mean,” Alex said. “I mean … I just don’t think I can watch her marry someone else.”
Dawn, Delaney, and I made sad eyes at each other.
“But … but …” Delaney sputtered.
The next thing I knew, I was grabbing the phone from her. “Alex? You have to come. You just have to,” I said.
“Why is that?” Alex asked.
“Because Lily is important to you. And even if you don’t like it, you should support her in her decision — right? Isn’t that what you told us?”
There was a long pause. For a moment, I thought we’d lost the connection. Then he said, “You girls are too smart for me. Do you know that?”
Delaney bounced on her toes, and Dawn gave me the thumbs-up. I felt pretty dang proud of myself, too.
“Okay, I’ll come,” Alex said. “But I’ll probably be late. I didn’t think I was going, so I promised a buddy I’d help him move.”
Dawn grabbed the phone from me. “How late will you be?” she asked.
“I don’t know. About a half hour,” we heard Alex say. “I might miss the ceremony, but I’ll be there for the reception.”
“Fine. We’ll see you then,” Dawn said and hung up the phone.
“Fine?” Delaney asked. “But what about seeing if Lily could marry Burton while Alex is watching? We can’t put that to the test if he’s not there.”
“Girls,” Dawn said, putting an arm around each of us, “it’s time for Operation Postpone, version 2.0.”
Our house was looking less and less like our home. Furniture in the living room had been moved to make room for two sections of chairs with a long white carpet runner in between. Fake white flowers were everywhere, including three white wicker baskets tied up with blue ribbons. They were on the mantel waiting for us to use them during the ceremony.
The wedding was scheduled for six o’clock and the guests were going to start arriving at five thirty. By five o’clock, people in the wedding were running around like long-tailed cats in a room full of rocking chairs. Everyone was busy dressing, arranging, and, in our case, plotting.
“Remember — divide and conquer,” Dawn said as we stood in a corner of the living room.
“I always thought it was ‘united we stand,’ ” I said.
Dawn rolled her eyes. “It is, but we’d agreed we could do more damage if we split up.”
“Shhhh!” Darby held up her hands in a warning signal. Someone was coming through the front door beside us. To our surprise, the fired ring bearer walked in, wearing a tie and everything.
“What are you doing here?” Dawn asked.
“I changed my mind. Weddings are pretty exciting,” he said. “Also, Mrs. Caldwell said it’s bad luck to not have a ring bearer and that she’d give me thirty dollars if I do it right. I’m saving up for a new game, so …” He shrugged to show us how helpless a situation he was in.
“Well, good luck,” I said, and we all shook his hand.
“Thanks.” The rehired ring bearer hitched up his trousers, which were a little big on him, and headed for the sofa.
Dawn waited until he sat down and started playing his handheld game. Then she put one arm around me and her other arm around Darby and pulled us into a huddle.
“Okay. Everybody remember your stations?” she whispered. “I’m going to stall the preacher. Delaney, you stall the bridesmaids. Darby, you stay out here and monitor the guests as they arrive. See if you can make some mischief.”
“What about Ms. Woolcott?” I asked. “Mom asked her to keep an eye on us while she and Aunt Jane help Lily get dressed.”
We peered into the dining room, where Ms. Woolcott was sneaking refreshments off the buffet when she thought no one was looking.
“Greedy old bag,” Dawn grumbled. “What kind of person shows up an hour early to a wedding? Especially when they live right next door.”
“Give me your bow ties,” Darby said. “I’ll switch them out after a while so she thinks she’s seeing all three of us.”
I was more than happy to unclip my tie and hand it to Darby. I’d been wanting to yank that thing off since the minute Aunt Jane put it on me. The tie plus buttoning the shirt all the way to the top made it feel like a boa constrictor was hugging me around the neck.
“And take these.” Dawn reached into the pockets of her trousers and pulled out our walkie-talkies. “That way we can keep in touch and send each other updates.”
We waited until Ms. Woolcott was busy pilfering a stuffed mushroom and scattered. I went straight down the hall to Mom’s bedroom, where the bridesmaids were primping.
“What are you doing in here?” Felicia was sitting at Mom’s vanity, frowning at my reflection in the mirror in front of her. Mavis was also reflected. She glared at me from the end of the bed, where she was painting her nails the color of a tangerine.
Bree sat in the striped armchair by the window, flipping through a copy of Southern Living. She was already in her red dress and boots, but Mavis and Felicia had on full slips made out of shiny white mat
erial and trimmed with lace.
“I came to see if you needed anything,” I said.
Mavis made a scoffing noise. “Aunt Edith told us not to speak with you — not after what y’all did last night.”
“Aren’t you speaking to me right now?” I said.
Mavis shrugged. “I don’t always do what Aunt Edith says.”
“Are you the one I talked to last night outside the restaurant? Or the one I talked to at the dress shop?” Bree asked, looking me up and down.
“I’m Delaney,” I said. “The one from last night.”
“How do you guys tell yourselves apart?” Mavis asked.
“Um …” I tugged on my collar, where the bow tie had been. “I always know who I am. And they always remember who they are.”
“That was a stupid question,” Felicia said to Mavis.
“Be quiet,” Mavis said back to her. “You asked Aunt Edith the same question last week.”
“I did not.”
“Yes, you did!”
As they continued bickering, Bree leaned forward and lowered her voice. “So what happened with that cute guy from last night? After the way he and your sister were looking at each other, I thought the wedding would get called off. But here we are.”
“It’s still on, but we’re hoping that —” I stopped, wondering if I should reveal anything. After all, she was Burton’s cousin.
“Don’t worry. I’m on your side. I don’t hate my cousin or anything, but let’s face it. He’s already married to his studies.”
My mouth fell open in surprise. “Wow,” I said. “You read my mind, just like we triplets sometimes do with each other.”
Bree looked proud.
“Okay,” I said, making my voice real quiet. “Here’s the thing: We need to stall the wedding for at least half an hour so Alex can get here in time. He’s the only one who can maybe stop it.”
“Cool!” she said. “What are you guys going to do?”
I glanced over at Mavis and Felicia to make sure they weren’t watching us, but they were too busy arguing over whose hair was frizzier. Then I sat on the arm of the chair and whispered my plan to Bree. I told her about “divide and conquer” and getting assigned the bridesmaids — and the secret weapon I’d already set up that morning to stall them.
“Awesome,” she said once I’d finished. “That’s so crazy …”
“… it just might work?”
“Exactly. So what now?” Bree asked. Her eyes were all twinkly like lights on a Christmas tree.
“I’m just waiting for a noise.”
“What noise?”
“You’ll know it when you hear it,” I explained.
Sure enough, after a minute or two, Mom’s bathroom started making those strange knocks.
Felicia gasped and Mavis jumped slightly.
Bree leaped to her feet. “Is that them?” she asked. She looked so upset, I was confused for a minute. Then she nudged me with the toe of her boot, and I realized she was just playing along.
“Is that who?” Mavis asked.
I tried to look like a nervous person who wants to appear innocent. “It’s nothing to worry about. But we might want to keep it down.”
Again we could hear bumps and rattles coming from the bathroom.
“What is that?” Felicia said, standing up from the vanity and turning toward the noises. “Is someone in there?”
“Not really,” I said. “I mean … it isn’t a human being.”
“It’s ghosts,” Bree said.
“No way,” Felicia said, even as she took a small step in the opposite direction of the bathroom.
“Everyone in the family knows this place is haunted,” Bree said. She turned and scowled at me. “Why don’t you just admit it?”
I made my face go saggy and guilty-looking. “They’re not that bad. They don’t hurt you or anything. They just … grab your ankles, and sometimes they mess up your hair.”
“You’re lying,” Felicia said, but her hands reached up and smoothed her hair down.
The knocking sounds came again. I’ve got to say, they seemed even louder and scarier than usual. It was like our ghost was in on the scheme.
“Stop it!” Mavis said. “I don’t believe you, but stop it!”
“Shhhh,” I said. “You don’t want to make them mad.”
“Those are just … the pipes,” Felicia said, but she didn’t sound totally sure. “I don’t see anything wrong with this room.”
“You can see them if you want — sort of,” I said. “But I wouldn’t advise it.”
“See them? How?” Bree asked. Mavis nodded behind her.
“She’s bluffing,” Felicia said to Mavis. “Don’t listen to any of her nonsense.”
“Fine,” I said. “If you don’t want to see, don’t go into the bathroom, close the door, turn out the light, and wave your arms around, saying, ‘Come out, come out.’ ”
Felicia made a fffffft! sound and rolled her eyes. “That’s the dumbest-sounding thing ever.”
“Oh yeah? Then go do it,” Bree said. “Or are you too scared?”
Felicia had the same look on her face that Dawn gets when she’s on the diving board — sheer terror hiding behind a ho-hum expression. “Come on, Mavis,” she said. “We’ll show them they can’t fool us.”
Mavis didn’t seem happy about being included. But between Felicia’s urgings and Bree’s challenging, pirate eyes, there was no way she could back out without being called a chicken.
“Just wave your arms and ask them to come out,” I said as she set down her nail polish and joined up with her sister. “And be careful of your hair.”
Felicia made another huffy noise and they headed into the bathroom.
“Think it’ll work?” Bree asked as soon as the door clicked shut.
“I guess we’ll see,” I said.
I hung out on the front porch, waiting for Reverend Hoffmeyer to show up. Even though we don’t go to church all that often, he knows who we are and he’s always really nice. When Delaney was little and got stuck in a tree outside the public library, Reverend Hoffmeyer helped her down. When Darby was in the hospital after the watermelon-jumping incident, Reverend Hoffmeyer stopped by her room and talked to her. And once, when we had a lemonade stand out on the road, and Darby and Delaney got bored and left, Reverend Hoffmeyer bought five dollars’ worth, and I got to keep all the money for myself.
When I saw his blue station wagon pull up and park, I started to get nervous and bounced in my cowboy boots a little. That was probably why he said, “Hi, Delaney,” as he mounted the porch steps.
“I’m Dawn,” I said.
“Sorry,” he said. “How are you today, Dawn?”
“I’m okay. I’m a little anxious about the wedding, though.”
He smiled and bent down a bit to look me in the eye. He tends to do that whenever he talks to us, and we appreciate it. I always get distracted by the neat rows of his slicked-back gray hair, and the tiny gap between his front teeth.
Reverend Hoffmeyer smiled wide, revealing the space. It was the perfect width for a dime or penny, and I started imagining myself inserting a small coin. “No need to be worried,” he said. “Weddings are supposed to be happy occasions where people can relax and feel good about life.”
I was going to say something back to him, but the second I opened my mouth, we heard bloodcurdling screams come from inside the house. The screams grew gradually louder and then Felicia and Mavis came running outside in their slips.
“Good heavens!” Reverend Hoffmeyer exclaimed.
Looked like Delaney’s plan had worked. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing. Meanwhile, Reverend Hoffmeyer just stood there, clutching his Bible. He seemed at a loss. I guess in all his years as a preacher, he’d never run across someone screeching in their underwear — at least, not at a wedding.
The girls ran all the way to Felicia’s Jeep, hopped inside, and slammed the door.
“I should probably go ta
lk to them,” Reverend Hoffmeyer said — only, it came out sounding more like a question.
I figured that would be as good a way as any to delay the wedding. “I think you probably better,” I said.
I watched him walk over to the car and knock on the passenger window. I then peered into the living room and saw Delaney and Bree talking to Mom, Aunt Jane, and Ms. Woolcott. I made eye contact with Delaney and she snuck me a fleeting grin. I gave her a thumbs-up.
A sputtering sound told me Dad was finally here. I turned back around and sure enough, there he was on his Vespa, wearing his tuxedo. He gave me a little wave as he parked it beside the ruined althea bush.
“Hey there, Dawn,” he said, undoing his chin strap. “Do I have helmet hair?”
It was a joke, of course, since Dad doesn’t have much hair at all anymore.
“Agent Firstborn? This is Agent Second-born. Do you read?” came a crackly voice from my walkie-talkie. It was Darby. It sounded like she was hollering right from my pocket.
“What’s that?” Dad asked, coming up the steps.
I pulled it out and fumbled with it. The doggone volume must have been turned all the way up. But before I could do anything, Darby’s voice came again. “Firstborn? Do you read? Is the preacher situation under control?”
“What preacher situation?” Dad asked.
“Um …” I said, turning off the receiver. “Well, it seems Felicity and Mavis got a little worked up, so Reverend Hoffmeyer is talking to them right now.”
“Uh-huh. And what, exactly, got them all worked up? Did you girls have any part in it?”
“Gee, um …” I never wished I was Delaney so bad in my life. That girl can come up with answers in no time. Long, wandering answers that make you forget what you asked and sorry you even brought it up.
Daddy doesn’t have much hair on the top of his head, but he does have big bushy eyebrows. I watched as they lifted high on his head in a look of utter suspicion. “Dawn? What are you three up to this time?”
“It’s not that bad. Really.”
“That answer does not make me feel better,” he said. “Are you three up to more shenanigans?”
I stood silently for a few seconds longer, rummaging all around my brain for an explanation that would make sense and not add five more months of grounding to my sentence. But I couldn’t. So I told him the truth.
Revenge of the Flower Girls Page 11
