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.
I stopped dead a few metres from the ladder and swallowed hard. I could hear the Gruesome Twosome whispering on the other side of the street, and I just KNEW they were cooking something up.
Suddenly Emily squawked:
“I dare you to walk under that ladder, Felicity Sidebotham!”
“Yeah, right,” jeered Emma. “And pigs might fly!”
And from the way the M&Ms smirked, you could tell they thought they’d totally trapped me.
I can’t explain what got into me then. It’s not like I’ve ever been the daredevil type. It’s true that I was on a serious wedding high, but it was more than that. Maybe I was just fed up with people calling me a wimp all the time.
I gave the M&Ms my iciest stare. “OK,” I snapped. “Then you’d better start looking up and checking for flying pig poo!”
The others gasped and Frankie actually made a grab for me, but they were all much too late.
I sailed under that ladder, as smooth as butterscotch. I didn’t even cross my fingers inside my pockets. In fact I moved so fast, the others had to put on a real spurt to catch up.
No-one spoke after that. We just kind of marched along in deadly silence. The others looked a bit stunned. The M&Ms had totally vanished. I suppose they’d slithered off to their coffins, or whatever the undead normally do after school.
Finally Frankie said, “Personally, Fliss, I wouldn’t have done that. Not this week.”
“Me neither,” said Rosie in an awed voice.
Kenny shook her head. “What got into you, Fliss?”
Lyndz had turned deadly pale. “If that was me, I’d have been wetting myself in case I jinxed the entire wedding.”
“Yeah,” agreed Frankie. “Walking under ladders pretty much guarantees seven days’ bad luck. Everyone knows that.”
“Rubbish,” I said uneasily.
Lyndz practically wrung her hands. “But it’s true,” she said.
Rosie had been counting on her fingers. “Seven days,” she squeaked. “But that takes you right up to the eve of the actual wedding! I mean, Fliss, anything could happen. Your house could be struck by a meteorite or something!”
Rosie’s words went through me like a knife. And suddenly I totally went to pieces.
“Why didn’t you guys stop me?” I wailed. “I don’t want Mum and Andy to have bad luck. I want everything to go BRILLIANTLY for them!” I covered my face. “I can’t believe it. I just hexed my mother’s future happiness!!”
Usually when I start one of my major doom monologues, the others say sensible things like, “Don’t be stoo-pid, Fliss. Have a Cheesy Wotsit and look on the bright side.”
But this time, I couldn’t help noticing that no-one exactly rushed to contradict me. In fact, no-one said a WORD.
I looked up in a panic, and saw four worried faces staring back at me. This was terrible. All my friends thought I’d ruined Mum’s wedding too!!
That DID it. I had the howling heebie jeebies right there in the middle of the street. “I’m such a bad person! I ruin everything. I should never have been born!”
The others didn’t know what to do. They made sympathetic noises and someone patted me once or twice, but I was in such a state it didn’t register. At least, not until Kenny suddenly whacked me really hard.
“Will you shut up!” she yelled. “I’m going to tell you how to cancel the bad luck, OK?” And she fished a clean tissue out of her pocket and handed it over.
I stopped yelling immediately. “Really?” I quavered. I gave my nose a big comforting blow. Then I gazed at Kenny like a hopeful puppy, while she told me what I had to do.
I have no idea where that girl picked up her wedding know-how, but I bet it wasn’t at Leicester City football club! I was impressed. I mean, I’m the girly superstitious one, right?
Apparently, all I had to do was find four mysterious “somethings” by the actual wedding day and give them to Mum, and the jinx would be like, cancelled!
“Find four what?” frowned Rosie. “Speak English, Kenny.”
Kenny sighed and gabbled a quaint little rhyme that went: “Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.”
“Oh, those somethings,” the rest of us said immediately.
I wiped my eyes. “I didn’t know that was like a good luck thing,” I sniffled.
Lyndz wasn’t too impressed. “Fliss’s mum seems like the mega-organised type to me,” she objected. “She probably had her somethings sorted ages ago.”
I gave my nose another big blow. “Uh-uh,” I said. “She’s been too busy organising all the dresses and the reception and everything to even think about good luck stuff.”
“Well, there you go,” said Kenny smugly. “Now you can take care of them for her. That way you get to be a good daughter AND cancel the wicked M&Ms’ ladder spell all in one go.”
“Yippee!” grinned Rosie. “Now let’s go and try on our meringues – I mean, dresses!”
“You’d better not call them that in front of my mum,” I warned, cheering up a bit more.
Mum was making our bridesmaid dresses herself. I helped pick out the colour, actually. It was also my idea to have like, cute little ballet shoes dyed to match. Mum had gone to loads of trouble, sitting up night after night, stitching away, and now the dresses were almost ready. The fitting was just for Mum to check the hems before she finished them on her machine.
Actually, I think Mum was as excited about the dresses as we were, because she whipped open the door before I could even get my key out.
“Do you girls fancy a little snack,” she said, “before we do the fitting?”
Frankie giggled. “Maybe we should have the fitting and then have our little snack,” she said. (I don’t know if the others have told you, but my mum’s snacks are sometimes a wee bit over the top and take forever to prepare!)
“Good point,” agreed Kenny.
“Oh, well, if you’re sure.” Mum flew upstairs to fetch the dresses. She called down to us from the landing: “Shut your eyes, girls!”
“Mu-um!” I moaned. “We’re not five years old.”
We shut our eyes all the same. There was loads of mysterious rustling as Mum came back downstairs. Suddenly I got this wildly excited feeling, like you do just before you open your eyes on Christmas morning.
“You can look now,” said Mum, sounding breathless.
She had draped the dresses over the sofa, so we could see them properly. We gasped.
“Oh, they are so-o gorgeous,” breathed Rosie.