Becky's Dress Disaster (5 page)

Chapter Five

Once the dresses were safely put away (or hers was, anyway) Katie was able to forget about them for a while, and her mood improved. Mum had gone out with Max's dad again that Sunday evening, but she was being careful not to make the relationship too annoyingly obvious to the triplets, and they were doing their best to forget about it. A cheerful Katie made life a lot more fun, Becky thought to herself, watching her sister and the others all giggling over some silly joke as they waited for their English teacher to turn up on Monday. Maybe she could stop worrying about Katie, and just concentrate on enjoying the run-up to the wedding?

“Hey!” A hiss broke into her happy daydream. Becky sat up and looked over, and Katie and Annabel paused their discussion of who was the worst-dressed teacher in the school (current finalist, Mr Jones, their maths teacher, for his habit of wearing grey shoes).

Amy Mannering smiled sweetly at them, and Cara and Emily, her faithful followers, sniggered meaningfully.

Becky's heart sank. It would be so nice to have a day without Katie throwing a strop, or Max being vile, or this little lot trying to ruin things.

“What?” she snapped, far more forcefully than she would normally speak to Amy, who'd always scared her.

Amy blinked, not expecting a sharp answer from Becky, who she thought of as a total baby. But then she rallied. “So,” she purred, “how are you getting on with your new big brother?”

Becky looked blank for a second, then realized that Amy must have picked up on the situation with Max. How did she
do
it? She was like a one-girl gossip column.

“So I suppose him and your new daddy will be moving in soon then?”

Katie looked as though she was about to leap up and throttle Amy right there in the classroom, but luckily Annabel broke in first.

“Oh shut up. How stupid can you be, Amy? Just shows how much you know about relationships, doesn't it?” She gave Amy one more dismissive, disgusted look, and turned back to the others, drawing Becky with her by the power of sisterly glare. Then she continued to talk, in a whisper that was calculated to carry as far as possible.

“I can't believe anyone could be that babyish, can you? I mean, I know Josh Matthews dumped her, but I thought she knew
something
about dating. So sad.”

Much to Annabel's grim delight, Josh had indeed dumped Amy, only a week or so after the Valentine's Ball where she'd discovered them snuggled up together on a windowsill. The triplets hadn't been sure whether to be glad or sorry – as Annabel said, he and Amy deserved each other – but at least it wiped the triumphant smirk off Amy's face.

Even though Annabel had shut Amy up, the gloss had still gone from the day – the spectre of Max was back. And Becky had a horrible suspicion that Amy had been teasing him too – the triplets were her favourite prey, but she'd have a go at anybody she thought she could get at. Max was looking jumpy and upset – as though he might go off at the first person who annoyed him. Unfortunately, the triplets didn't actually have to
do
anything to annoy Max. At the moment, their very existence was enough to drive him mad, especially after Katie had humiliated him the week before. He'd recovered all his old nastiness, but he seemed to be even more desperate, and more hurtful. Katie was his main target – he was aching to pay her back – but he was ready to attack any of the triplets, or their gang of friends. He spent a good ten minutes of their French class that afternoon chucking little balls of paper over at their table, which all turned out to have horrible comments written on them. That just showed how desperate he was, as Mr Hatton, their French teacher, was the strictest person on the planet, and practically telepathic about people messing around in his lessons. Max was lucky, though – Mr Hatton must have been having an off-day.Either that or he was too fascinated by irregular verbs to spot Max's tricks.

Becky was really relieved to get home that afternoon – she wanted some time to relax, safely away from Max and Amy and all the stress of school. Mum had a rush project on at the moment, so she greeted the triplets with her hair all on end, and a request to make toast to tide them over for a bit, and she'd get on with tea as soon as she'd got a bit more done. Becky wasn't feeling particularly hungry, so she nipped upstairs to dump her school bag and get changed, and say hello to Cassie and Fang, then she headed out to the garden shed to spend some quality time with the guinea pigs.

After twenty minutes of soothing squeaks, peanut-nibbling and soft fur, she was feeling a lot better. She almost felt ready to face her French homework, which was really saying something. She passed Katie up at the top of the garden, where there was a clear space that she used for football practice. She wasn't looking as though she wanted to talk, but was glaring grimly at the ball, as though daring it not to do what she wanted. Max had really got to her.

Annabel was in the kitchen, helping Mum make dinner – Mum was looking a lot more human, and humming happily as she chopped the vegetables.

Becky headed upstairs, and found Orlando and Pixie on the landing, looking ve-e-ery smug for some reason. Becky looked at them suspiciously. They didn't always get on, so it was quite rare to see them sitting so cosily together. They gazed back at her innocently, and Orlando licked his lips and gave a luxurious stretch.

The triplets' bedroom door was open, which was annoying, as everyone was supposed to keep it shut to make sure the cats didn't get in. They were quite capable of frightening the rats to death by prowling round the cage, or if they worked together they could probably knock it over. If they worked together! Oh no! Becky looked back at the cats' smug faces, and quickened her pace up the stairs towards the open door. She was dreading what she would find as she rushed into the bedroom.

The cage door was hanging open. Becky's heart seemed to jump into her mouth and she gave a little squawk of horror. She scanned the floor desperately – no sad small furry heaps. But what if the cats had eaten …
everything!
She felt sick, but she forced herself to search the room methodically; under all the beds, everywhere. Nothing. She'd been leaving the cage till last. She didn't want to see the evidence of the cats' attack – the broken door, rat toys and bedding spilt everywhere.

Finally she couldn't put it off any longer, and she crept over to the windowseat. Strangely, the cage door seemed to be fine – it was just open. And the cage looked as tidy as a cage full of rats ever looks. In fact, that was what it was – a cage full of rats. Becky stared in amazement at Cassie and Fang, snoozing blissfully in their nest, whiskers whiffling gently as they breathed in and out. They were both very much alive.

Becky took what seemed like the first full breath she'd had in ages, shut the cage door with trembling fingers and then sat down suddenly on the windowseat beside them. She couldn't believe it. She must not have closed the cage properly when she'd come up to say hi to the rats earlier, and it had swung open. She was amazed that the rats hadn't made a bid for freedom, though. They loved to run about on the floor. The problem normally was stopping them invading Annabel's declared rat-free zone. Becky had to build book barricades to keep them where they were allowed to be, and that was almost useless anyway, as they were such fantastic climbers. Becky shook her head slowly as she stared down into the cage.

Then suddenly she leaned forward. Just what were Cassie and Fang sleeping on? That was not their normal bed of chewed-up paper – it was shiny.
Satiny,
in fact. Yes, their nest was flecked with scraps of soft, white, satiny fabric.

Becky froze. Then she turned round very slowly, and looked over at Annabel's bed. Uh-huh. Her sister had been trying on the bridesmaid's dress again, and left it lying spread out on her bed, the hem trailing very slightly on the floor – almost as though it had been pulled there by little rat claws. Becky got up, and walked jerkily over to the dress. It was still beautiful. In fact, the delicate pattern of lacy holes around the hem of the front panel really added something, she told herself frantically. She just wasn't sure that Annabel, or – an even worse thought – Auntie Jan, were going to agree…

Becky panicked. What was she going to do? Annabel was going to kill her, and then the rats – or possibly the other way round. Becky's mind was jumping desperately around, willing it not to be true, searching for some magical solution.

“Becky!”

She jumped, and yelped in horror. That was Annabel! Was she coming upstairs? What should she do? She snatched up the dress and clutched it to her, hiding the chewed side.

“Becky! Tea-ea!”

Oh. It was OK – for the moment. Annabel was just standing at the bottom of the stairs to call her down.

Becky licked her lips nervously, and managed to croak, “Coming.”

She heard Annabel bouncing back into the kitchen.

There was no time for any clever ideas right now, but Becky couldn't just leave the dress. Annabel would be back to put it away later, and she'd be bound to spot the holes. Becky quickly stuffed the dress back into its bag, and put it away – in her bit of the wardrobe. Fingers slipping with nervousness, she took her own dress, unzipped the bag, and laid the satiny creation gently on Annabel's bed, as close as she could to where she guessed the original had been.

Then, still trembling, she went downstairs to force down some food.

Chapter Six

Now that she'd added the pattern of twinkly beads round the hem of her bridesmaid's dress, Annabel was even more in love with it than before. It was partly her own work now, which made it so much better. Of course, it meant that she wanted to try it on even more often. On Tuesday evening, after a trying day at school, she headed upstairs for a spot of dress therapy. All of their teachers seemed to have had the sole aim of making everyone's lives miserable by loading them with homework, and Max Cooper had spent the entire day hissing mean comments at the triplets. Not that Annabel really let Max get to her – she didn't intend to, anyway – but the constant drip-drip-drip of nastiness was quite depressing. Even Becky had started to doubt her nice ideas about making friends with such a monster.

Annabel had been curled up on the stairs, trying to force her brain to understand the periodic table, when she'd decided enough was enough. She'd even tried her patented (well, it would be if she knew how) method for when homework was particularly impossible. She would reverse her normal position, so that instead of facing up the stairs, she was facing down, with her books on the third step, elbows on the fourth and so on. It was supposed to send the blood to her brain, but it had proved absolutely useless in the face of the noble gases. Honestly! Why did anyone need to know this stuff? She shoved all her books and bits to the side of the stairs – Mum had got sick of tripping over her pencil case – and made for their bedroom. Katie and Becky were sitting at the big table looking as though the periodic table was taking its toll on them too. Actually, Becky had been looking funny all day, and Annabel had assumed it was because Max was really getting to her. She even looked as though she hadn't slept properly; all white, and shadowy eyes. Drat Max! Annabel resolved to work out some really choice insults ready for tomorrow, so she could leap in and reduce him to a puddle of quivering jelly if he so much as looked at Becky. The dress would probably inspire her, and she was pretty sure Katie and Becky wouldn't notice what she'd done – it was quite subtle, and they were concentrating. She smiled to herself as she lifted the dress-bag out of the wardrobe.

Meanwhile, Becky had flinched as she saw Annabel come in, and was now watching miserably as her sister got out the dress – her dress. What
was
she going to do? It was less than two weeks to the wedding, and she hadn't got even the merest wisp of a plan. She had a little bit of money in her bank account – maybe she could get it out and somehow sneak off to the dressmaker with Bel's dress and beg her to mend the chewed bits? But she had a horrible feeling that the dressmaker would ring Mum as soon as she walked in the door.

Annabel's happy expression as she lifted out the dress was torture. Becky sighed, which caught Annabel's attention. She smiled sympathetically. “Max has got to you too? Look, come and try your dress on – it'll cheer you up, honestly!”

Becky shuddered, and shook her head. She muttered something about homework and turned back to the table.

Annabel stroked the smooth folds of the dress, and admired the crystal beads she'd sewn on so carefully – or would have done, except they weren't there. She gave the dress a puzzled look, and then her face cleared. Somehow her dress had got mixed up with one of the other two. Perhaps Becky had been trying hers on again too! She flicked a glance quickly round at her sisters – Katie was working away, and Becky was now staring hard at the table, probably pondering a difficult question. She didn't really want it to be too obvious that she was putting this dress back – after all, the three dresses were supposed to be absolutely identical, so how would she know this one wasn't hers? Even though she'd convinced herself it was OK to make her dress different, she wasn't sure what Katie and Becky's reactions to the added extras would be. Quickly she found the dress-bag in Becky's wardrobe and pulled it out, not noticing that Becky was now gazing at her in horror.

Annabel had got as far as undoing the zip, before Becky managed to find her tongue. “Wh-what are you doing?” she quavered.

Annabel jumped, and nearly dropped the dress, and Katie turned round curiously. “I'm just going to try the dress on again, that's all!” Annabel blustered.

“But that's Becky's dress,” Katie pointed out – she could see that it was Becky's wardrobe door that was open.

Annabel shrugged, and tried to brazen it out. “I think they got mixed up,” she murmured vaguely, hoping that Katie would just shut up and go back to her homework. She shouldn't have tried to do this with the other two in the room, she told herself crossly. Well, the worst that could happen was Katie had a go at her for trying to make her dress more special – and in Katie's current mood she wouldn't care anyway! This thought trailed off as Annabel drew out the dress and caught sight of the chewed skirt. She gasped sharply.

“What's the matter?” asked Katie, getting up to look. Becky was glued to her chair, watching in panic as the whole disaster began to unfold.

“Beckyyyy!” Annabel snarled. It was obvious that this was something to do with Becky – the dress had been in her wardrobe, and she was looking unbelievably guilty. Annabel wasn't an animal expert, but those holes looked like chewing, and that had to be Becky's fault. She flung the dress on to her bed and marched over to her sister, who shrank back in her chair, gazing up at her like a rabbit caught in headlights.

“What happened to my dress! It was those disgusting little beasts, wasn't it?”

She veered off and headed for the rat cage, looking as though she wanted to strangle one of them. That got Becky out of her chair faster than anything else could have done. She whizzed across the room and stood in front of the cage, fending Annabel off.

“It wasn't their fault! Don't touch them! Annabel,
please
!”

“I said I didn't want them in our room! I said it would be a disaster, and now look what they've done!” Annabel's voice rose to a wail as she pointed at the ruined dress.

Katie peered over. “Oh wow. Oh no – the rats did this?” She turned a horror-struck face to Becky.

“I'm really sorry, Bel!” Becky had realized that the rats were no longer in immediate danger from Annabel, who was practically in tears now as she knelt in front of the dress and fingered the damage, and she came over to look at it with the other two. “I must have left the cage open by accident, and the dress was lying on your bed – they – they –” She trailed off, realizing that Annabel probably wouldn't react well to any more rat info. But it was too late.

“They what?” Annabel snapped.

“They made a nest out of it…” whispered Becky, and Annabel wailed again.

“When was this?” Katie asked, getting straight to the point.

“Yesterday. I didn't know what to do, so I just swapped Bel's dress with mine while I tried to think of a plan.”

Annabel glared at her. “Well, I think that's a very good plan. You can wear the horrible
chewed-up
dress to the wedding, and I'll wear yours! And those rats can go and live in the garden shed where they should have been in the first place!”

Becky's face crumpled. Of course, it was perfectly fair that she should wear the rat-eaten dress, but somehow she'd managed to blank out the reality of one of them having to wear it – and that it was ruined because of her. Now it was obvious that she was going to be the one to spoil Auntie Jan's wedding. And she'd done all that worrying about Katie!

Katie looked at her two sisters, now both crying, and sighed resignedly. No use expecting any help from
them
then. She picked up the dress, and held it out in front of her critically. Stupid thing. Oh, she could see that it was very pretty, but she and “very pretty” just didn't really get on. Still – now that something awful had happened to one of the dresses, she was feeling a bit guilty. After all, this was exactly what she'd been wishing for. Now she'd got it, she was realizing that however much she didn't want to wear a satiny meringue, she wanted the wedding to go beautifully for Auntie Jan even more. It was time somebody
did
something, instead of sitting on the floor crying. Unfortunately, that was as far as she could get – she had no idea what you did with a dress full of holes.

“Oh, stop crying, you two! It won't help. You shouldn't have let the rats get out, Becky, and you shouldn't have left your dress on the bed, Bel. It's both your faults, and now we're just going to have to sort it out.”

Streaming tears, Becky looked up at the dress as Katie held it out, still considering the damage. “That – that dress has got – beads on it,” she hiccupped.

Katie looked at them. “Uh-huh.” She looked at Becky. “And?”

“Well, it – shouldn't have.”

“Oh. I see what you mean. The others don't?”

Becky shook her head, and gazed at Annabel.

“I put the beads on because I wanted it to be sparkly,” Annabel sniffed. “It took ages, and now it's sparkly with holes!”

Katie rolled her eyes – as if a meringue wasn't enough. “So you sewed these on?” she said thoughtfully. “Have you got more?”

“Some.” Annabel was sitting up straighter now, looking consideringly at the dress. “And Saima's got loads. She was with me when we bought them in the craft shop in town.”

“So, can you mend it? Add more beads somehow?”

“I don't see how,” moaned Annabel, slumping back down again. “It's still got holes in – adding beads won't stop that.”

Becky suddenly jumped up, and headed for the door. “Wait for me a minute,” she called back over her shoulder, leaving the other two staring after her, not sure whether to feel hopeful or not.

She came back waving a copy of
Brides
magazine. “Look! I just remembered when you said about the beads not filling in the holes, Bel. Auntie Jan was looking at this dress, and said she thought it was really pretty, but not her style. But that doesn't mean
we
couldn't do it.”

She pointed to a picture of a wedding dress, modelled by an impossibly tall girl with perfectly upswept hair and the whitest teeth ever.

“Look at the design round the skirt!” The long creamy-white dress had a decoration of shimmery gold beads that formed a lacework around the hem.

Annabel looked at it critically. “It's a bit cutesy – those little heart shapes.”

Becky decided not to comment on this opinion from someone who was wearing heart-shaped earrings, heart hairclips and very probably had hearts printed on her knickers.

“Yes, so we'd do it better! I thought when I saw what Cassie and Fang had done that it was almost like lace…” She shut up. Annabel's face was saying very clearly that she did not want to hear about the lace-making abilities of rats, and Becky really didn't want to remind her sister they existed – she might remember her demand for them to be exiled to the shed.

But Annabel, for the moment, was more concerned with the beading plan. She picked up the magazine and studied the picture carefully, looking from it to the dress and back again. “It might work,” she said dubiously.

Katie looked over her shoulder. “It would be pretty obvious, wouldn't it. I mean, everyone would notice that this dress was different to the other two.”

“It's already got beads on,” Becky argued. “This would just be more.”

But Annabel was nodding. “I only put a few on before – I just thought it would make it a teensy bit different, not that people would really notice. You couldn't not notice that.” She pointed to the photo.

Becky's eyes filled with tears all over again. It had seemed such a good idea!

“I'm not saying we shouldn't do it,” said Katie slowly. “I'm saying we'd have to do the other two dresses as well.”

The others looked at her in shock.

“What, change them on purpose?” whispered Becky.

“Mmm. If you think we can do it well enough, Bel. 'Cause otherwise we're going to have to go to Mum and tell her that this dress needs to go back to the dressmaker and have half a new skirt put on it. And from the look on her face when she found out how much they were going to cost in the first place, I don't think she'd be very happy.”

Becky flinched, and Annabel looked serious for once. That was true. What with the dresses, and shoes and jewellery and everything else, the wedding was costing a lot, and Mum was helping out Auntie Jan with loads of stuff, so she was stressed and busy anyway, plus there was all the work she was trying to cram in.

All three of them realized at the same time that Mum was probably working so hard because she was trying to make some extra money to pay for the dresses. They exchanged worried looks, and then decisive ones. They were going to sort this out themselves, without upsetting Mum any more.

Annabel whipped out her mobile. “We're going to need help. Sorry to be mean, Katie, but you can't sew. We need people who can – and we need somewhere we can do this without Mum walking in and going ballistic. I'm calling Saima, OK?”

Katie and Becky nodded fervently. Saima was almost as much of a fashion goddess as Annabel, and she had a huge loft-conversion bedroom that would be perfect for turning into a dress workshop.

Annabel called, and quickly explained the situation to Saima. Katie and Becky could hear the horrified exclamations as Saima heard the fate of the dress. She seemed to be up for helping out, though.

“Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Oh yes, good idea! Yes, go and ask.” Annabel looked over at Becky and Katie. “Saima's suggesting we have a sleepover on Saturday at her house, and we'll invite the others too. That way we've got a chance of getting all three dresses done. Hi! It's OK? Excellent. Yeah, we'll go and ask our mum, but I'm sure it'll be OK. We're not doing anything this weekend.”