by Angie Bates
“Wow,” breathed Amber. “I don’t know what your dad just said, Fliss, but everyone really, REALLY loved him.”
And all at once Mum was beside me, hugging all the breath out of me.
“Sorry you had to hear it like that, sweetheart,” she babbled. “We’d planned to tell you before we went away on our honeymoon. I don’t know what got into Andy, blurting it out in front of everyone like that!”
I struggled up for air. Mum was glowing with excitement.
“So what do you think?” she demanded. “I can’t believe I’ve been worrying myself to death all week, thinking something was wrong. And all the time everything was perfectly normal.”
I stared at her. “Mum, I haven’t a clue what you’re on about. What do you mean, normal?”
“Normal for twins, of course,” she cried. “Isn’t it amazing! I had the scan yesterday.”
I bet you’ve never seen six bridesmaids in flowery crowns with their mouths hanging open, have you!
“You’re having a BABY!” I breathed.
“Two,” Kenny corrected me quickly. “She said twins, dummy!”
Mum’s eyes were bright with tears. “I wanted to tell you, Flissy,” she said. “But the doctor was worried something was wrong. And you had so much on your plate with the wedding and everything, I couldn’t bear you to have any extra worries.”
Andy appeared beside her. “So what’s the verdict?” he said shyly. “I know we must have acted really weird sometimes this week. Are we forgiven, princess?”
But I just jumped into Andy’s arms and buried my head in his shoulder.
“Yes,” I said in a muffled voice. “You are both totally totally forgiven, but don’t you DARE keep me in the dark like that again, OK.”
After that, as you can imagine, all of us partied away like mad. And then it was time for Mum and Andy to go off on their honeymoon.
Sometimes I feel deeply depressed at the end of a party, don’t you? But by this time, Mum and Andy’s news was sinking in just enough for me to realise this party wasn’t like an ENDING. It was the beginning of an amazing new life. And that made me feel incredibly safe and happy somehow. You know what I mean?
All the guests turned out to wave and throw confetti as Andy and Mum made a mad dash for their car. At last they got away and everyone started gradually drifting back to the marquee.
Everyone except me. I stood there by myself, with my long dress fluttering in the breeze, and watched the car disappear down the drive. And I stayed there, watching and watching, until it was a teeny weeny dot in the distance.
And then I went back to the marquee, to do some SERIOUS bopping with the others!
Phew! That’s the big water splash out of the way. Now you can really relax and enjoy the rest of the ride. We’re almost home and dry!
There’s just a few (very tiny) surprises to go…
Hope you’ve forgiven me for having that tiny freak-out back there? I mean, how many girls have to cope with getting an official new dad AND find out they’re getting two new babies in the family, all on the same day? Not many, is my guess!
It’s funny – my mates and I generally think of sleepovers as like, the MAJOR exciting event of our school week or whatever. But after all the excitement of the wedding (AND some!) our actual wedding sleepover felt almost, well – RESTFUL.
Like Lyndz said, you’d think that after stuffing ourselves with all that gorgeous wedding food, we’d be totally full to bursting, wouldn’t you? But luckily, by the time everyone had stopped watching videos, we were all feeling nicely peckish again! Which was just as well, because when we finally went up to bed, it turned out everyone had brought LOADS of goodies.
In honour of our special guest, we’d decided to give the sleepover feast an American theme! After Jilly and Patsy had been in to say goodnight, we waited till they’d gone back downstairs, then we turned on our torches and shared out our American loot.
Want to know what we had?
We had real American jelly beans – both kinds. The sweet kind and the really sour ones which make your eyes water. They actually make Lyndz shudder all over, but she says they’re so delicious that it’s worth it!
We also had some real melt-in-your-mouth chocolate brownies. Good old Frankie brought them. She said she just had to make it up to me for my horrendous cabbage soup experience! Plus, we had a HUGE family pack of marshmallows. I truly don’t understand how something that is basically just a mouthful of fluff can have so many wicked calories, do you? Oh, yes, and we had Oreo cookies. Everyone else raved about them. Personally I didn’t think they were that special.
But the Sleepover Club’s unanimous favourite were these totally HEAVENLY sweets that Amber provided. They’re called Hershey’s Chocolate Kisses, would you believe? Kenny joked that it was the first time in her whole life that she’d seen the point of anyone giving you kisses!
Then it was time for everyone to write in their sleepover diaries. Amber didn’t own one, obviously, so I said she could write a few lines in mine. This is what she wrote.
When I get back home, I’m going to invite all my friends to a sleepover at my house, first chance I get! I have had the most fabulous time here. Plus I haven’t laughed so much since Lauren McGravy slid down our stairs on a tea tray, sneezing nonstop!!
“Tell us what you put!” everyone pleaded.
So Amber read it out to us in her laid-back Hollywood voice (which sounded even better by torchlight, for some reason). And this time I don’t think the others even noticed her using the word ‘fabulous’!
Of course, then Amber had to explain to the others all about her ex-best buddy Lauren, with the famous Disney sneeze. But she didn’t seem quite so sad when she told it this time. Then Amber gave my diary back to me, and I wrote this:
This has definitely been the most amazing twenty-four hours of my life.
Not only have I been a bridesmaid, got a new dad, AND found out I’m getting two new baby sisters or brothers (or maybe one of each!), but I also finally found out what I want to do when I grow up. I have decided to be a fashion designer. Andy’s mum promised that when I’m older, she’ll teach me how to make really stylish clothes, just like she used to do at that posh French fashion house in London.
I read this out to everyone. Then the others read out all these sweet things they’d written, about what a great time they’d had, being bridesmaids. Then we all totally ran out of steam. The wedding sleepover was over!
You’d think I’d have gone to sleep really quickly, wouldn’t you, after the day I’d had? But it’s like Mum says. Sometimes it’s possible to get TOO tired.
I did almost drift off, but then suddenly I spun off into a serious doom spiral.
For the first time, it really hit me that in a few months my lovely quiet life was going to be disrupted by – shock, horror (durn durn DURN!) –
TWIN BABIES!!!
Aaaargh!! What if Mum and Andy’s twins turn out to be rude little boys, I panicked – the kind who go on about bottoms all the time and mess up their big sister’s things, and track mud across her nice pink carpet?
Honestly, I lay there worrying for HOURS. Until finally I fell asleep, completely worn out.
And guess what? The sleepover angels must have come back on duty or something, because I had the sweetest, funniest dream. (Don’t tell the others though, because it’s private.)
In my dream, I walked out into our garden. Suddenly I heard all these soft little cooing sounds drifting over our neighbours the Watson-Wades’s hedge, so I peered over to see what was going on.
And there, where grumpy old Mr Watson-Wade always plants his garden peas, were two gorgeous newborn babies, nestling inside a giant pea pod. (For some reason this didn’t seem at all weird at the time!)
“You can SO totally tell they’re twins,” I said to myself in the dream. “They’re as alike as two peas in a pod.”
Then I realised what I’d said, and woke myself up laughing!
And I felt so
ridiculously happy that I tried to stay awake a few minutes longer, to enjoy the joke…
Have you noticed how everything’s slowing down now? That’s because we’ve almost reached the end of the sleepover wedding rollercoaster trip. But there’s one last thing I’ve got to tell you.
I expect you noticed that those lucky somethings kind of dropped out of the story? Also that wedding present?
You thought I’d forgotten about them! Well, thanks a BUNCH!!
You didn’t seriously imagine that a superstitious girl like me could let her parents drive off into the sunset with all those clouds of bad luck hanging over them? No WAY!
So don’t go just yet, OK, because it’s time to unveil Patsy’s mysterious late-night project at last.
Can you believe that Andy’s mum actually came up with a way to combine my four lucky somethings in a totally unique wedding present?
Here’s how we did it. With help from Patsy and Amber, I stitched Mum a beautiful little evening bag. And by the time it was finished, my mind was totally at rest. This bag didn’t just LOOK good, I knew it had good luck built into every stitch.
We made it from a piece of gorgeous blue satin (something blue and something new). Then Patsy kindly donated one of her lovely lace handkerchiefs, so we could edge it in antique lace (something old).
OK, OK, so you can’t imagine Andy getting too excited about an evening bag. Plus I’ve got to admit the “something borrowed” gave me a real headache. But then Amber said she’d lend me her smart new pen so I could write a special message for both my parents, to put inside the bag.
But I had a better idea.
I did borrow the pen, but I didn’t use it to write a message, so much as a rather unusual gift voucher.
This is what it said:
This entitles Nikky and Andy Proudlove to one whole year of good behaviour from their children.
With love from
Fliss and Callum
xxx
Copyright
The Sleepover Club ® is a registered trademark of Harper CollinsPublishers Ltd
First published in Great Britain by Collins in 2000
Collins is an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
77–85 Fulham Palace Road, Hammersmith,
London, W6 8JB
The HarperCollins website address is
www.harpercollins.co.uk
3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Text copyright © Angie Bates 2000
Original series characters, plotlines and settings © Rose Impey 1997
The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of the work.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © MAY 2012 ISBN 9780007390434
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street
Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Canada
2 Bloor Street East – 20th Floor
Toronto, ON, M4W 1A8, Canada
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.ca
New Zealand
HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
P.O. Box 1
Auckland, New Zealand
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
77–85 Fulham Palace Road
London, W6 8JB, UK
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
10 East 53rd Street
New York, NY 10022
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com