Becky's Dress Disaster (2 page)

Chapter Two

Katie and Annabel were still glaring at each other by the time they got in the car, and when they reached home Katie stomped up the garden path looking like a stormcloud. Becky felt decidedly irritated. All her good work listening to football stuff wasted!
And
she had to go and be coached by Katie and Megan tomorrow!

As Mum unlocked the door they heard the phone start to ring. Katie dashed in to answer it, and then walked out into the hall with her hand over it. “It's for you, Mum.” She sounded puzzled. “It's a man – someone I don't know.”

“Oh!” Mrs Ryan went pink, and gestured urgently for Katie to give her the phone. Then she shooed the girls out of her way and went into the living room, shutting the door behind her.

Annabel and Katie's spat was immediately forgotten – something important was clearly going on here, much more important than disagreements over shoes. The three of them exchanged a look, and crept over to listen at the door. OK, so it wasn't any of their business who Mum was talking to, but they had a horrible suspicion and they wanted to know for sure! Unfortunately, they couldn't really hear much, even with their ears squashed painfully against the door. They could tell that Mum sounded excited, though, and luckily they could just about make out when she was saying goodbye, as that gave them the chance to beetle into the kitchen and stand around looking casual.

It was lucky that Mrs Ryan was still preoccupied with her phone call, otherwise the triplets' consciously disinterested poses would have struck her as very suspicious. As it was, she ignored the fact that Becky was studiously reading the financial section of the newspaper, and that Katie and Annabel were apparently fascinated by the milk in the door of the fridge.

“Girls, I hope it's OK, but I'm planning to go out this evening, with … a friend. We're going to have dinner, and I've arranged for Mrs Lucy from next door to come and look after you while I'm out.” Mrs Ryan had almost said babysit, but then remembered just in time that Annabel tended to go ballistic when anyone implied she still needed babysitting. She looked thoughtfully at her daughters. How much should she tell them? Maybe it was time to let them know what was going on – they were far too old to have secrets kept from them. She smiled to herself. Annabel had looked like a teenager, posing with that beautiful dress on earlier in the afternoon.

She looked round at them all – and got three intrigued stares back. Oh, they knew something was going on all right! She smiled, and took a deep breath. “Actually, this friend is the dad of someone you know.” She failed to pick up Katie's horrified glance at the other two, and Annabel's indrawn breath – they'd been right! “Jeff Cooper – Max's dad.” Mrs Ryan met Katie's gaze this time, and flinched slightly. “Oh, yes. I'd forgotten you had that little run-in with him, Katie.”

The triplets looked disbelievingly at her. How could she have forgotten? Max had nearly broken Katie's leg!

Mrs Ryan looked at them a little worriedly. “I won't be out late. You like Mrs Lucy, don't you?”

They nodded slowly. It wasn't Mrs Lucy who was the problem! They'd suspected for a while that Mum had been getting on far too well with Max's dad, and they had even been pretty sure that he'd sent her a Valentine's card, but they'd had no idea it had got this far. Once Katie had told the others what she thought was going on – she and Megan had been the first to spot it – telling the story had taken such a weight off her mind that she'd almost managed to convince herself that the whole thing had fizzled out. It was over a month since Valentine's Day and nothing had happened, after all.

Mum started getting stuff ready for their tea, so the triplets disappeared quickly in case she decided to ask for help. They didn't mind helping usually, but they needed to talk this over. They sped up to their room and huddled on Annabel's bed.

“This is a disaster!' proclaimed Annabel dramatically.

Normally Katie would have told her off for being a drama queen, but she felt pretty much the same way at the moment. She nodded dolefully. “How
can
she go out with him? Imagine, it's like one of us going out with Max!”

Annabel groaned realistic sick noises, but Becky shrugged. “Maybe he's not like Max – I mean, Mum wouldn't go out with him if he wasn't nice.”

The other two looked at her disbelievingly, and shook their heads. Annabel folded her arms. “All I can say is, Mum's gone mad – and maybe you have too, Becky! Max's dad! Nice!” She and Katie rolled their eyes at each other.

Becky glared. “I'm not saying it's not a disaster – you know I can't stand Max – you just never know, that's all.”

That was true, at least. The triplets sighed, and slumped back on to the bed, pondering the general unfairness of life…

 

The triplets were rather silent that evening. Mrs Lucy, who enjoyed babysitting for them, as they were normally very happy to sit down and play silly games like Pictionary, or try to teach her how to use the PlayStation, found them a bit of a puzzle. She eventually persuaded them into a game of Trivial Pursuit, but when she found that Katie was actually getting the sport questions all wrong, she realized that they just weren't concentrating.

“Are you three all right?” she asked, putting the cards back into the box. “You don't seem to be having much fun tonight.”

Becky gave her an apologetic smile. “We're OK – Mum's gone out with someone we don't like very much, that's all.”

“Huh!” Katie didn't so much say this as spit it. “
That's
a nice way of putting it.”

“We've never actually met him, you know,” Becky pointed out reasonably. It was a bad idea – Katie wasn't up for reasonableness right now.

“Don't need to meet him,” she snapped. “If he's Max's dad he's got to be horrible, it's just common sense, which you obviously haven't got any of.”

Mrs Lucy looked shocked. “Katie!”

Katie shrugged, and muttered, “Sorry,” without even looking at her sister.

Becky tried hard not to mind – it was understandable that Katie would be extra-furious about Mr Cooper, after all her scraps with Max – but did she really need to be so hurtful about it? Becky had only been trying to calm things down. She stared down at her hands and very carefully put all the little wedges back into their bag, trying not to let the tears get any further than the corners of her eyes. It was bad enough having to deal with Mum having a horrible new boyfriend, without it meaning a cross, snappish sister as well.

Annabel gave Katie a look of surprise – normally she was very protective of Becky, and if Annabel had made a comment like that Katie would probably have given her a real telling-off. She decided not to say anything though – she didn't feel like a fight, and Katie seemed to be itching for one right now.

 

That night, for once, the triplets didn't chat for ages when they went to bed. Usually they ended up gradually falling asleep mid-gossip at the weekends (during the week Mum came in and shut them up). But no one was quite in the mood tonight. Becky lay awake listening for the telltale click of the door-latch, and Mum and Mrs Lucy's whispered conversation, followed by Mum coming up to bed really, really quietly. It was something Becky'd always done, ever since she could first remember her parents going out and leaving them with someone. After all, what if something happened to them while they were out? Becky knew it was stupid really, but it was a hard habit to break. And tonight it sounded like Katie was doing it too, because as soon as the door went Becky heard her sister sigh and turn over.

Mum didn't mention anything about her date when the triplets finally surfaced quite late the next morning, but Becky thought she looked particularly happy. It was really sad, Becky thought, that something that was obviously making their mum feel good should make them so miserable. Katie came down to breakfast in a tracksuit and trainers, and seemed surprised that Becky was wearing a skirt.

“You can't practise in that!”

Becky tried to protest. “We're not going to the park till this afternoon!”

But Katie looked so pleading that she trailed back upstairs to put a pair of tracksuit bottoms on. Becky had a feeling it was going to be a long day. She hadn't had much time for homework the day before because of the dress-fitting, so she spent the morning slogging through her maths and science, which Katie, of course, had whizzed through on Friday night, as they were her best subjects. She hadn't seen Annabel do any homework at all, but then Bel always seemed to get by on a snatched five minutes here and there.

She fitted in a quick call to Fran to break the news that they would be joining football training. She'd been prepared to grovel, but Fran didn't mind. She was an only child and she lived just with her dad, so she loved doing stuff with the triplets – there was always so much going on in their house.

“And I've got the worst news as well,” Becky added, after she'd explained the football stuff.

“What?” Fran was intrigued.

“You remember that thing we thought was going on with Mum and Max's dad?”

“Uh-huh.”

“They went out on a date last night!”

Fran let out a suitably horrified gasp. “No!”

‘Yup. So watch out for Katie – she's in and out of the world's worst mood. Hopefully some football will cheer her up.”

 

Megan's dad dropped her at the triplets' house just after lunch – they'd arranged to meet Fran and Feathers at the park, as her house was just on the other side of it. Katie and Megan were looking sickeningly energetic, Becky thought, yawning after her late night lying awake. They dashed round the house finding footballs, and boots, and a million and one other things that Becky really couldn't see the point of.
And
it seemed to be her job to carry half of them. Annabel stood watching, nibbling blissfully on a piece of peanut butter toast, and smirking at Becky.

“Why don't you come too, Bel?” asked Megan, enthusiasm practically bubbling out of her ears.

“Sorry, Megan, I'm really busy this afternoon,” Annabel replied earnestly. Then she grinned, and fluttered her fingers at them. “Got some heavy-duty manicuring to do.”

Katie and Megan shook their heads in disbelief and Becky glared at Annabel. “I hope you've done your maths homework,” she said crossly. “You needn't think you're going to ‘borrow' mine like you did last week.”

Katie looked shocked. “You let her copy your homework?”

“No! Well, I suppose so. She said she just wanted to check she was on the right lines.”

“Mmm, and if I'd borrowed yours, Katie, Mr Jones would have noticed for sure.” Annabel nodded seriously. “You get them all right. Becky and me normally get the same kind of stuff totally wrong.”

Katie and Becky exchanged long-suffering glances, and left her to it.

Deepdene Park was only five minutes' walk from the triplets' house, and they'd been going there since they were tiny. It had a gorgeous little pond with loads of ducks and a couple of swans, and plenty of open space for football practice, even if it didn't have a proper pitch. It was also a paradise for dogs, as there were quite a few little woody bits, and some long grass. When Becky, Katie and Megan arrived, Becky took a quick look round. No Fran, as far as she could see – but then a golden shape launched itself out of the trees a little way away and came bounding towards her at what looked like the speed of light, barking its head off.

“Watch out! Dog incoming!” yelled the black-haired person racing after him, and the three girls dropped all their stuff and prepared to field Feathers.

He was obviously in a very good mood – well, he always was, except on visits to the V-E-T – and he wanted to share it with them all, especially Becky, whom he adored. He waltzed round them, his whole body wagging along with his tail, and tried to lick as much person as he possibly could. Fran panted up after him, and tried to grab his collar, and eventually she and Becky got him calmed down enough to put his lead back on.

“Sorry!” Fran gasped. “He didn't get much of a walk yesterday 'cause me and Dad were out, so he's gone hyper today. Did he break anything?”

Much as Fran adored Feathers, she lived in constant fear of him doing something awful. He was a lovely dog, very sweet-natured, but very big, very stupid, and very excitable. He lived for food and chasing things, and he tended to ignore whatever got in his way, like people … or furniture. He had a special talent for finding whichever table had china on it, and walking through it, hard.

Katie looked down at the furry whirlwind who was now chasing his own tail. “I thought Golden Retrievers were supposed to be really obedient.”

“Mmmm,” Becky and Fran agreed with her.

“And sensible.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Guide dogs are Golden Retrievers lots of the time.”

“Yup.”

“So?”

Fran grinned. “Feathers thinks he's a Chihuahua. That's why he bumps into things all the time.”

Katie frowned. “Is he going to behave while we practise?”

“Can't he join in?” asked Becky hopefully. “He's good at football. Don't you remember when Fran brought him round?”

Katie sighed, and shrugged. “Oh, I suppose so. But if he runs off with the ball, I'm not chasing after him, OK? You two can do it.”

“Absolutely.” Becky nodded vigorously. “He'll be really good, Katie, honestly. He's a great striker – we'll use him to test you out!” She and Fran giggled.

Actually, Feathers
was
really good at football – the problem was he didn't like letting go of the ball, and passing, obviously, was something he didn't get. Why on earth would he want to give this lovely ball to
someone else
? But chasing him round the field was certainly good exercise, and after fifteen minutes of Feathersball, the girls slumped down on the grass for a rest.