Angie Bates - The Sleepover Club Bridesmaids - Wedding Special

In just a few hours, it’ll be my mum’s wedding day. Forget butterflies – I think I’ve got giant rhinos rampaging in my tummy. I’m really tired but there’s no way I’m going to get a WINK of sleep! Until recently I thought weddings were like, mega-happy family events. But if you ask me, they just bring out the worst in everyone. Practically everything that could go wrong with this one has. And the worst thing was – it was ALL my fault! I should never have—

Oh-oh, Amber’s whingeing at me to turn out the light, so she can get her beauty sleep. ’Bye for now!

Heh heh heh! I bet that got you going. Now you’re going crazy, wondering who on earth the mysterious Amber is, aren’t you? Which is excellent news, because I’m DYING to tell you. In fact, if I don’t tell someone the whole amazing story pretty soon, I’ll probably EXPLODE!

I wasn’t exaggerating in my Wedding Diary, by the way. A few days back, my whole life went totally haywire. And I don’t want to worry you or anything, but at one point, things got so bad that the fate of the entire Sleepover Club trembled in the balance…

Are you shocked? Then just imagine how we felt!

So hang on for your life, lovely reader, because we’re going on a bumpy rollercoaster ride back in time, to the day when my mum’s wonderful wedding began to go HORRIBLY pear-shaped…

Wouldn’t it be great if life was like films? Just imagine if you woke up each morning to your very own movie soundtrack! Then, the minute you heard those creepy durn durn DURN chords, you’d instantly know to avoid the very bad thing which was lying in wait for you around the corner.

As it was, one of the worst days of my life came without warning.

Actually, it started out great. The sun shone. Mum and Andy giggled over breakfast like two love-birds. I didn’t think it was possible for my wildly happy mum and soon-to-be-official step-dad to get any happier, but they were practically GLOWING! And my little brother was in such a sweet mood that he presented me with a truly bizarre drawing.

“Ooh, that’s erm, lovely , Callum,” I said cautiously. I had no idea why Callum had given me a drawing of five orange space aliens, but like Mum says, it’s the thought that counts.

“That’s you and that’s Kenny,” he said proudly. “There’s Frankie and that’s Rosie and Lyndz. You’re all wearing your bridesmaids’ frocks, look!”

“And what’s that?” I asked, pointing at a green figure lurking in the corner of the page.

“Oh, that’s a dinosaur out to kill you all,” Callum said airily.

Well, he IS seven! But when I bluetacked his drawing to our fridge alongside his other masterpieces, Callum looked really hurt.

“Don’t you want to show my brilliant drawing to your friends, Fliss?”

“Oh, silly ole me, what was I thinking of,” I said, and I stuffed it into my school bag instead.

I showed it to the others before we went into school, and not surprisingly they fell about.

“Which one’s me again?” asked Kenny.

“Isn’t it obvious? The one with three eyes,” giggled Lyndz.

“Duh,” said Rosie. “Anyone can see that’s not an eye, it’s a nose.”

Kenny looked uneasy. “We’re not really going to wear dayglo orange dresses, Fliss, are we?”

Honestly, that girl is so impossible! She can describe just about every goal scored by Leicester City football team ever since there’s BEEN a Leicester City football team, but when it comes to style, she hasn’t got a clue !

“No, we are NOT wearing dayglo orange,” I said patiently. “I’ve told you about a billion times. We’re wearing this really pretty shade of peach , OK? Orange was just the closest colour Callum could find in his crayon box.”

Kenny pulled a face. “I can’t believe you’re putting us through this, Fliss,” she moaned. “We’re going to look totally stoo-pid. Like a bunch of icky meringues, or something.”

But Kenny didn’t fool anybody. She’d never admit it, but Miss Cool ’n’ Sporty was every bit as keyed-up about Mum’s wedding as the rest of us.

Frankie had gone misty-eyed. “Just think,” she breathed. “One day Izzy will be doing cute little drawings for me !”

Frankie’s baby sister must be about six months old now, but Frankie’s still totally mushy about her.

Rosie gave me a nudge. “Fliss, quick! Check out the M&Ms!”

Now there’s two girls who should definitely come with a warning soundtrack. In case you’ve forgotten, Emma Hughes and Emily Berryman are the Sleepover Club’s deadliest enemies. They’re also completely two-faced, which is why grown-ups never believe us when we tell them how mean the M&Ms are. In fact, like Kenny says, most grown-ups think the sun shines out of the M&Ms’ you-know-whats!!

I sneaked a look over my shoulder, in time to catch Emma and Emily madly pretending they weren’t eavesdropping on our conversation. You should have seen their faces. They looked exactly like they’d been sucking lemons! The M&Ms can’t stand anyone else being the centre of attention.

“Heh heh heh,” chortled Lyndz. “They must have heard about your mum’s wedding. One-nil to you, Flissy.”

I’ve got to admit, it gave me a definite boost, seeing my ten minutes of bridesmaid fame get under our enemies’ skins like that. You know, sometimes I think us Sleepover Club girls must be telepathic, because we didn’t have to say a single word! We just stalked past the M&Ms, as if we were wearing our long floaty dresses and flowery crowns already!

For the rest of that day, whenever the M&Ms were in earshot, we kept up a nonstop gush of bridesmaid talk. And that’s where everything started to go wrong. I’m so sure of this, that if I was making a film of my life, that is definitely the part where I’d put in some doomy durn durn DURN chords.

You see, the M&Ms are our sworn enemies for one very good reason.

They are NOT nice people, OK?

By the end of the day, we’d managed to get so far up their noses that those girls were practically spitting with envy. If we’d had any sense, we’d have let it go at that. Instead, we decided to carry on flaunting our bridesmaid superstar status to the max.

For obvious reasons, we usually avoid walking home the same way as the M&Ms. But today we trailed them so closely, we were practically walking in their shoes!! We all knew we were playing with fire really, but we were having such a great laugh, we didn’t care.

We skipped along arm in arm, swanking loudly about how we were going back to my house for a dress fitting, and how our dresses were totally lush and how Mum and Andy’s wedding was going to be at this mega-posh country house.

Then all of a sudden, the M&Ms darted across to the other side of the street, giggling like idiots. And at the same moment Frankie flashed me a worried look. The kind that says “uh-oh.”

And there it was, blocking our path. An absolutely MASSIVE ladder.

I don’t think the bloke was much of a decorator, because there were paint drips everywhere. I could hear the ladder creaking and swaying like a ship in a storm, as the painter sloshed white gloss on the gutterings and anything else within splattering distance.

The others have probably told you that I’m really superstitious. Everyone knows this. So you won’t be surprised to hear that walking under ladders is not normally my idea of a fun time. And so this was definitely a durn durn DURN moment.