Rent a Bridesmaid Read online

  ‘Careful!’ he said. ‘Better go and take off your bridesmaid’s dress first. You don’t want tea stains all down it if you’re going to be wearing it to another wedding.’

  ‘So I can go to it!’ I gasped.

  ‘I said if, Tilly.’

  I didn’t push him further. I knew he was going to give in. I changed into my pyjamas and hung my bridesmaid’s dress up carefully, fluffing out the skirts. I examined it all over for stains or little rips and was very relieved to find it was still pristine.

  I drank my tea and ate my cake and then lolled around on the sofa with Dad watching television. His mobile pinged with a message. Dad won’t let me have my own mobile yet, which is incredibly mean and old-fashioned of him, but there’s nothing I can do about it. I have to wait until I’m ten.

  Matty has her own mobile, needless to say.

  ‘Here. Message for you, Tilly,’ said Dad, handing me his phone.

  Was ur dress success with wrinklies???

  Zoo was Ace. Monkeys RUDE.

  Their red bums!!! LOL. Matty.

  She’d added three smiley faces for good measure.

  I fidgeted, not sure how to reply. Maybe I didn’t even want to. I hated it when Matty called dear Mr and Mrs Flower and all their friends wrinklies. Well, Julie really was wrinkly – so much so that her thick powder got caked in her creases, but that wasn’t really her fault. Mrs Flower had a dear little face with hardly any wrinkles at all.

  I was even more upset that she’d said the zoo was ace, using capitals for emphasis. I pictured her having a brilliant time with that awful Marty, both of them shrieking idiotically at the monkeys.

  I’d always loved the monkeys best when Dad and I used to go on our Sunday trips to the zoo. I laughed at them when they scampered about or made faces or snatched food from each other – but I felt like crying when the mother monkeys cuddled their babies, running their fingers tenderly through their fur. There was nothing remotely funny about their neat little bottoms tucked under their tails.

  Matty clearly meant the baboons, which actually did have pretty startling behinds. Fancy not knowing the difference.

  Ur stupid. U mean baboons, not monkeys,

  I started texting.

  Dad was looking over my shoulder. ‘Hey, don’t send that,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t sound very friendly.’

  ‘Well, I’m not sure I want to be friendly. I’m a bit sick of her. I’m not sure I even want her for my best friend any more,’ I said. ‘She can be so stupid at times.’

  ‘Downright stupid,’ said Dad. He said it in a squeaky old-lady voice. He sounded just like Julie.

  That shut me up. I deleted my message and got my drawing book and crayons. I wondered about doing a zoo picture, but I’d already done that. I drew Mr and Mrs Flower on their honeymoon instead. I didn’t know what the Isle of Wight looked like, but it seemed safe enough to draw them on a sandy beach. I gave Mrs Flower a pretty sundress with a floral print. Mr Flower wore a big bright shirt and shorts down to his knees. They were both in deckchairs eating ice creams.

  The beach all around them looked a bit empty, so I drew Dad and me too, building a sandcastle together. I filled in the rest of the sand with palm trees, though I wondered if they were a little tropical for the Isle of Wight. I wanted the trees there so I could draw lots of different monkey families on their holidays. I drew a row of tiny deckchairs along the branches so the mum and dad monkeys could bask in the sunshine, while the baby monkeys slid down a slide into a paddling pool on the sand, and then scampered all the way to the top again to repeat the experience.

  They looked so funny that I couldn’t help chuckling, even though I’d invented the joke myself. Dad peered over my shoulder and he laughed out loud, telling me I was a brilliant artist. He’d said that several times to me in the past, but then he’d always added, ‘You obviously take after Mum,’ which always upset us both. But this time he didn’t say it, just went on remarking on the monkey antics and shaking his head at my invention.

  I think he was exaggerating simply to make me feel good – but it certainly worked. I returned Matty’s text just before I went to bed.

  Dress mega success. Luv monkeys too.

  Tilly x

  Dad brought me breakfast in bed on Sunday morning (a bowl of apricot yoghurt with a real apricot cut up on top, and then toast and honey) and then we lazed around in our pyjamas in the living room. Dad browsed the Sunday papers on his iPad and I did another drawing. It had a monkey theme again, because I wanted Dad to like it.

  I drew a monkey wedding, with a little monkey bride in a white dress, a matching white ribbon tied on the end of her tail, and a miniature bunch of bananas for a bouquet. The groom balanced a top hat on his head, and wore a tail coat and striped trousers, but I left his funny monkey feet bare. They had a bridesmaid, of course – in fact they had a whole troupe of bridesmaids processing two by two. The older taller ones were walking upright, holding out their silk skirts carefully, but the little ones at the back were gambolling about on all fours, their dresses tucked into their frilly knickers.

  I called Dad to have a look, and he laughed and told me I was brilliant again. I coloured it all in, while Dad listened to that funny old Archers programme on the radio. Two of the Archer men were deep in discussion about a new type of combine harvester. I decided to start a third monkey picture, with a countryside setting this time, though I wasn’t at all sure how to draw a combine harvester or even a tractor, but Dad said I’d better go and have a bath and get dressed instead.

  ‘Can’t I stay in my PJs all day?’

  ‘Well, you can, but you’ll look a little odd going out to lunch in them,’ said Dad.

  ‘We’re going out to lunch? Yay! Can we go to Wagamama?’

  ‘No, we’re going to have a Sunday roast today – well, I think we are.’

  ‘In a pub? Can I have a fizzy lemonade again?’

  ‘We’ve been invited to lunch at someone’s home.’

  ‘Really?’ I was puzzled. We never went out to lunch with anyone. ‘Did Matty’s mum ask us?’

  ‘No, though she’s always said we’d be very welcome.’

  ‘So who is it? Dad, stop messing about and tell me!’

  ‘We’re going to lunch with your friend Simon,’ said Dad.

  I stared at him, wrinkling my nose. My friend Simon? The only Simon I could think of was a horrible boy in my class who always picked his nose and made me feel sick.

  ‘Not Simon in Miss Hope’s class?’ I asked incredulously.

  ‘No, your Simon. The potential bridegroom,’ said Dad.

  ‘But we don’t know him. We haven’t phoned him yet, though I do hope you do soon.’

  ‘I phoned last night, after you were asleep.’

  ‘Oh, Dad, I wanted to listen too!’

  ‘Yes, well, I wanted to check everything out first.’

  ‘And did he sound nice?’

  Dad smiled. ‘He sounds incredibly nice. We had a really long chat. And then Simon invited us for lunch. So chop chop, Tilly. You can have first bath.’

  I skipped upstairs and rushed to get ready.

  ‘Should I wear my bridesmaid’s dress, Dad, so they can see what it looks like?’ I asked.

  ‘No, you need to keep it spotless. But we’ll take it with us in the car so they can have a look at it,’ Dad called from the bathroom.

  ‘Yes, but they’ll be taking a look at me too, and I don’t look anywhere near as pretty when I’m not in the dress,’ I said.

  ‘You’d look pretty in a plastic bag,’ said Dad.

  ‘But you would say that, wouldn’t you. You’re my dad.’

  ‘Well, dads are allowed to be prejudiced,’ said Dad. ‘But you look lovely, honestly.’

  I wasn’t at all convinced. I looked very pale and ordinary when I wasn’t in raspberry silk. My hair wouldn’t fluff out properly and my T-shirt and jeans looked too ordinary. I put my best dress on instead, navy with bluebirds flying all over it. I hoped it looked O