The Sleepover Club Bridesmaids Read online

  “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.

  Mum 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 smile 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.

  I’d have liked to give my step-dad a hug actually, but my official train-management duties made this impossible. So Andy made do with giving me a huge wink, and I gave him a very dignified bridesmaid’s smile!

  The ceremony passed in a flash. I know you’ll be relieved to hear that absolutely no-one tripped over, and Lyndz didn’t have an attack of her famous hiccups, thank goodness!

  But the star of the show was definitely my little brother. I don’t think I mentioned what a terrible time we’d had getting Callum into his page-boy clothes earlier? I was probably trying to forget it!

  Mum’s idea was for Callum to walk along with the wedding rings carefully balanced on a small velvet cushion. I had serious doubts about this. He’s not the most co-ordinated boy in the world, and his shoes had seriously slippy soles. He wasn’t walking really, so much as skating over the carpet.

  But somehow, even with total strangers watching him, Callum managed to walk down that long strip of red carpet in his strange new page-boy outfit, plus he hung on to those rings like grim death!

  I don’t think anyone minded that the tip of his tongue was sticking out the whole time. It was only because he was concentrating so hard. And even our vicar laughed when Callum puffed out his cheeks with relief and said, “So now can we have that cake, Mum?”

  And suddenly it was over. Mum and Andy were married. For real!

  The wedding lunch was held in this big marquee. The fo
od was just amazing. We’d all been loads too nervous to eat a bite of breakfast, so everyone was starving.

  Mum and Andy had arranged for us bridesmaids to have a special table of our own. But for the first few minutes we all just stuffed our faces, and now and then one of us would go, “Wow, we actually did it.”

  But eventually, we were all chatting away at once, like we always do.

  “It’s so great of you guys to invite me to your big wedding sleepover tonight,” Amber said suddenly.

  “Well, as we’re all going to be staying in Fliss’s house,” grinned Kenny, “it would be pretty rude to have it without you!”

  Rosie looked shocked. “You didn’t have to say it like that,” she said. “Amber might think you mean it.”

  But Amber just burst out laughing. In a funny way, I think Kenny teasing her made her feel like she was really one of us.

  By this time, all the speeches had started. I don’t know why grown-ups insist on having them, do you? Next to school assembly, speeches have to be the most boring invention on this planet.

  While they were all going on (and on), everyone at our table carried on talking in whispers. Which is when Kenny shared her secret survival strategy to being a bridesmaid.

  “I pretended I was invisible,” she said calmly. “You guys didn’t realise, but the sixth bridesmaid was totally invisible the whole time.”

  Well, honestly – we all fell about. Can you seriously imagine an INVISIBLE bridesmaid helping to hold up a train? Spooky or what!

  But by this time, all those angels who’d been busily protecting Lyndz all morning must have gone off duty. And you know what happens when Lyndz gets the giggles? That’s right. That girl just EXPLODED into big-time hiccups.

  She’d only just gone back to her normal colour (i.e. not purple) when everyone in the marquee suddenly went completely wild, all clapping and cheering and laughing.

  I looked up in amazement, just in time to see Andy return to his seat beside Mum. For some reason they were both grinning like idiots.