The Sleepover Club Bridesmaids (3 page)

After I switched off my lamp that night, Kenny’s words came back to me.
Everything’s going to change. Everything.

“What if it’s a bad change?” I whispered to myself. “What if this whole wedding idea is a
big mistake, and none of us is ever happy again?” And I had a scared little sniffle into my pillow.

Just as I was finally dozing off, the phone rang downstairs. Who on earth could it be? It was practically midnight!

Andy took the call, then yelled for Mum. Then next minute Mum totally screamed her head off. My heart started to race. Something terrible must have happened. I jumped out of bed and ran downstairs.

“Mum! Mum! What’s wrong?”

Mum waved at me to keep quiet. “You’re actually here at Heathrow!” she shrieked into the phone, beaming all over her face. “So how come you kept me in the dark all this time? Oh, it’s a surprise all right! Oh, Jilly, you’ve completely made my day. Wait till I tell Fliss!”

I sat on the stairs with a bump. Jilly lived in the United States. She was Mum’s oldest and most unpredictable friend. Mum had been really disappointed when Jilly wrote to say she couldn’t make it to the wedding. And now she’d turned up in the UK, just like that!

“Wait till you tell Fliss what?” I asked as Mum put down the phone.

Mum grabbed me and twirled me round. “Jilly’s daughter came over with her. Isn’t that great? You two are almost exactly the same age. Oh, Flissy, you two are going to have such fun, just like Jilly and I used to. And you’re going to meet her tomorrow!”

I went back to bed in a happy daze. Jilly doesn’t just live in the USA. She actually lives in
Los Angeles
, where the film stars hang out. That practically made Jilly and her daughter film stars too.

I stretched out under my quilt, and grinned to myself in the dark. I was going to be best friends with a film star! I could hardly believe my luck!

It’s going to be all right, I thought. Everything is going to be ALL RIGHT.

Suddenly I was so happy that even though Andy’s mum was in the next room, rattling the wardrobe with her juicy snores, I didn’t give a hoot!

Next morning, I rushed downstairs, dying to tell the others my news. But the instant I picked up the phone, Mum flew out of the kitchen, hissing like an angry swan. “SSSH! You’ll wake Patsy. She’ll be wanting a nice Sunday lie-in!”

“Fat chance in this house,” grinned Andy.

But as it turned out, all this tiptoeing around was a total waste of time. About half an hour later, Andy took his mum up a cup of tea and found her sitting on the edge of her bed in her Sunday best, waiting for us to tell her it was OK to come down!

Patsy didn’t actually say, but it was obvious this was a major black mark against Mum for not making her feel more welcome.

“I’m sure I don’t want to get in anyone’s way,” she sniffed, as she poured herself a bowl of branflakes.

I sidled up to Andy. “Now can I use the phone?” I whispered.

Patsy overheard. “Use the PHONE!” she said, horrified. “She’s just a child! She might ring Australia by mistake!”

“Oh, Fliss wouldn’t do anything like that,” said Mum quickly. “She’s far too sensible.”

I thought Mum still looked horribly pale. This wedding business is wearing her out, I thought.

“Thanks, Mum, you’re a star,” I whispered in her ear as I went past. And I grabbed the phone and escaped upstairs to my room.

“ANOTHER emergency?” said Rosie disbelievingly. “That’s TWO, in twenty-four hours!”

“Yeah, but this one is a
cool
emergency,” I said.

“OK!” she sighed. “See ya.”

An hour later, we all piled into Frankie’s pad. Frankie’s mum had given everyone home-made slush puppies, plus a stash of kitchen towel to mop up the drips. Everyone made themselves comfy on Frankie’s silver floor cushions. That girl goes for silver in a BIG way!

“Go on, Fliss, give!” beamed Rosie.

“Yeah, we want all the goss about Jilly’s daughter,” said Lyndz.

I felt myself go bright red. I don’t know why I blush so easily, but I really wish I didn’t! “What do you want to know?” I said.

“Everything,” said Frankie at once.

“Well, she’s about our age and her name is Amber Glass,” I began.

“That’s such a cool name!” cried Lyndz.

“And apparently, she’s amazingly pretty.”

“Like that actually matters,” growled Kenny.

“Did I say it mattered?” I snapped. “I’m just describing Amber, OK!”

“Ignore her, Fliss,” said Frankie. “So what’s she like?”

“She’s meant to be incredibly talented,” I
said. “She’s on TV, like all the time. She’s got an agent and everything.”

Lyndz’s eyes almost popped out of her head. “She’s ten years old and she’s a film star already!”

“Well,
practically
,” I said. “She’s done loads of commercials anyway.”

“Wow,” said Rosie. “A wedding and a Hollywood celebrity in the same week!”

“I want Amber to have a really good time while she’s here,” I said. “It’d be great if you guys could help out.”

“Count me in,” said Rosie at once.

Lyndz hugged herself. “Can’t wait!” she said gleefully.

“I wish it was the holidays already,” sighed Frankie. “We could take her to Alton Towers.”

“Get real,” objected Kenny. “You’re talking about a girl who can pop into Disney World any time she likes.”

Even Frankie agreed there wasn’t much point trying to impress a girl who had her own mobile phone.

“Let’s face it, Cuddington’s not exactly
LA,” I sighed.

Frankie did a cheesey double take. “Yikes! So
that’s
why there’s never any high-speed car chases round here!”

Kenny threw a pillow at her. “We’re trying to think, Frankie!”

“We could go to Bradgate Park after school,” suggested Lyndz. “We could have a picnic and check out the cute little baby deer.”

“Excellent! We can show her Lady Jane Grey’s house,” gushed Frankie. “My dad says Americans
lurve
history!”

Bradgate Park is meant to be this major local beauty spot. I probably liked it when I was little, but now I think it’s got WAY too much fresh air. I always come back with earache.

“Why would Amber want to see a load of old ruins?” I said. “I mean, it’s not like Lady Jane’s going to invite us in for strawberries and cream.”

“But it’s so romantic,” Frankie gushed. “I mean Lady Jane was like a child
queen
. And all those—”

“Romantic! You’re joking. The poor kid got her head chopped off!” Kenny’s eyes gleamed. “And did you know, they hardly
ever
did it with one swing! Sometimes they had to hack away at their—”

“
Kenny
,” pleaded Lyndz. “I’m eating a raspberry slush puppy here.”

“Yeah, Kenny,” glared Frankie. “Plus I hadn’t actually finished what I was saying, which was, erm – that all those deer in Bradgate Park today are descended from the deer which Lady Jane Grey herself may actually have—”

“—eaten,” Kenny grinned.

Frankie scowled. “You have to make fun of everything.”

“Why don’t we just do exactly what we always do?” said Rosie. “That way it will be a change for Amber. Plus we’ll have a good time.”

Everyone thought this was excellent advice. There was a short pause. Then Lyndz coughed. “Let me just get this straight. We’re talking typical fun-type activities to share with Amber, is that right?”

“Right,” said everyone.

“The usual wacky stuff we do?”

“Totally,” we agreed,

There was another, longer pause.

“Any ideas?” I asked finally.

Kenny tapped the side of her head. “Nope. Total blank.”

“Blankety blank,” Lyndz agreed.

“Ditto,” said Rosie.

Frankie tugged her hair. “This is so
stoo
-pid,” she complained. “I mean, the five of us have SO much fun, like
constantly
.”

“Constantly,” Rosie echoed.

“Oh, absolutely,” agreed Kenny, totally straight-faced. “In fact, I’m not sure I can take any more excitement.”

Frankie’s lips twitched. “You are such a pig, Kenny,” she giggled. And suddenly we all cracked up laughing.

“Let’s wait till Amber gets here,” said Lyndz sensibly. “She’s the guest. We’ll ask her what she wants to do.”

So after that, we just hung around at Frankie’s house, enjoyably messing about, till it was time for everybody’s dinner.

But as I turned into our street, I remembered something. I’d promised myself to come up with my Something Blue today. Also, I still hadn’t a CLUE what to get Mum and Andy for a wedding present. Then my tummy gave a big rumble. Oh, well, I’ll think about it after dinner, I thought greedily.

Sunday dinner is like, this major production in our house. Six days a week, Mum is incredibly diet-conscious. But on Sundays she totally goes to town. Just thinking about Mum’s roast chicken, with all the yummy trimmings, made my mouth water. Mmmn, I couldn’t wait!

I let myself in through our front door, getting ready to breathe in that special Sunday dinner aroma. Then…

What in the WORLD is that gruesome pong? I thought.

It smelled
exactly
like bad drains!! I flew into the kitchen, to warn my parents they had a major plumbing problem on their hands. But for some reason, our kitchen was completely deserted. Normally at this stage
on a Sunday, Mum is whizzing about like a celebrity chef on
Ready Steady Cook
, draining veggies and crisping up the roast spuds.

Then I noticed a Bad Sign. (
Durn durn durn!!
)

Instead of three or four pans cheerfully steaming away on the hob, there was one MASSIVE pan, glooping and glopping like a witch’s cauldron. I had accidentally located the source of the bad-drain smell.

The saucepan was getting alarmingly hyperactive, as its contents tried to escape from under the lid. Suddenly, green slime began to dribble over the sides.

Andy’s mum bustled in. “So you’re back, finally,” she snapped. “Just as well. Dinner’s practically ready.”

“Erm, so where is it?” I said. I wasn’t trying to be funny. It truly never occurred to me that my Sunday dinner could resemble the experiment of an evil scientist.

“I took over the cooking. Your mother needs a rest. She’s worn out,” Patsy sighed. She made it sound like my fault – as if I was
some selfish vampire child, draining my mother’s blood supply.

“But we
always
have a roast on Sundays,” I wailed.

Patsy snorted. “The traditional Sunday roast is a waste of time and energy. Takes all morning, wrecks the entire kitchen, and in five minutes it’s forgotten. My soup takes twenty minutes and requires one pan. Far more sensible, don’t you think?” She gave a grim smile.

I stared queasily at the overflowing pan. “That’s
soup
?”

“I knew your mother was diet-conscious, what with the wedding coming up. Cabbage soup is
perfect
for slimmers. Maybe you’ve heard of the Cabbage Soup diet?”

“Er no,” I said, truthfully.

Patsy lifted the saucepan lid and sniffed rapturously. “I’ll just add the finishing touches,” she said.

Yeah, like stir in some scrummy cat-sick, I thought. And I rushed off to plead with my parents.

Andy seemed more interested in the
motor-racing than listening to me. He didn’t even take his eyes off the screen. “Patsy’s just being helpful,” he mumbled.

“It won’t hurt just this once, Fliss,” said Mum. She dropped her voice. “Just have a couple of spoonfuls to be polite. There’s chocolate fudge brownies for dessert. I thought we’d all have a little pre-wedding treat!”

A high-pitched whine came from the kitchen as Andy’s mum operated our liquidiser at high speed.

I swallowed bravely. “I suppose,” I said.

In a few minutes we were all sitting round the table. Patsy brought the pan to the table, still sputtering furiously. (The pan, not Patsy, you nutcase!)

Unfortunately, its trip through the liquidiser hadn’t exactly improved Patsy’s soup. Now it looked like those bubbling mud springs you see on documentaries.

My brother looked panic-stricken. “I can’t eat that,” he whispered. “It’s still alive.”

I wanted to giggle, but the soup smelled so terrible I was scared to breathe.

“Try some, Callum. It’ll put hairs on your chest,” said Andy in a jokey voice I’d never heard him use before today.

Callum blew on a spoonful of sludge, shut his eyes and downed it in one. “Ouf!” he shuddered.

“Well?” said Patsy stiffly. “What do you think?”

“Ooh, that’s really yummy, isn’t it, Callum?” Mum hinted.

My little brother stared wildly around the table. I could practically see his thought bubbles. Help! What do I do? Fibbing is bad. Being rude is also very bad.

Then his face suddenly cleared, as he came up with the perfect reply. “I’ll tell you one thing,” he said cheerfully. “It’s not
nearly
as bad as it looks!”

“
Callum!
” said Mum.

“Well, REALLY!” huffed Patsy.

But I thought my little brother was a total star. I was pretty heroic myself. I actually forced down one whole spoonful. But once my throat knew what was coming, it went on strike, refusing to let any more khaki gloop
near my stomach. So I just kept my spoon busy, to give the impression I was slurping away like Oliver Twist.

Even nightmares have to end, I told myself. Soon I’d be tucking into one of Mum’s highly calorific chocolate brownies. I’d never been too crazy about brownies in the past, but now that Amber was coming, all things American seemed incredibly groovy! Not to mention the fact that I was STARVING!!

All through dinner, Patsy was getting more and more tight-lipped. Suddenly she started collecting up the soup bowls, rattling the crockery like you would not
believe
.

“Well!” she sniffed. “We all know what happens to boys and girls who don’t eat their dinner, don’t we?”

Everyone stared at her. Even Mum and Andy looked startled.

Patsy drew herself up to her full height. “NO PUDDING!” she thundered. And she flounced out to the kitchen.

Callum’s face fell a million miles.