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  ‘But it’s all right, Dad. It’s all sorted. Matty’s mum says I can always go to their house.’

  ‘No you can’t – it wouldn’t be fair on them,’ said Dad.

  Matty took the phone away from me. She’d been listening to every word.

  ‘It would be extremely fair, Mr Andrews, because we love having Tilly to tea,’ she said. ‘It’s nowhere near as much fun when it’s just Lewis. Please say she can come every day,’ she begged.

  ‘Well, I’ll have a chat to your mother about it. Please thank her for having Tilly to tea tonight,’ said Dad.

  ‘Tilly’s dad says thanks, Mum,’ Matty called, hanging up. ‘Come on, Tilly, let’s go and play.’

  ‘And me,’ said Lewis.

  Matty sighed. ‘Do you have to come too, Lewis? Tilly and I never get to play on our own.’

  ‘Me want to play too!’ said Lewis in a baby voice, hanging his head.

  ‘He’s just acting like a baby to make Mum take his side,’ Matty whispered to me.

  Lewis stayed acting like a baby when Angie told us to let him play too. He pretended not to know how to play Warrior Princesses.

  ‘No, me a baby!’ he said.

  He just sat on the floor squealing, waving his plump little fists at the dinosaurs and knocking them over like ninepins. Matty got seriously annoyed with him, but we couldn’t help giggling too. Lewis was quite good at being a baby, making funny cooing sounds and then pretending he had a damp nappy. We ended up playing that he really was a baby. I made all my ponies trot round and round him, and then they galloped up and down his plump legs as if they were a race track while he laughed and laughed.

  I wished I had a funny little brother. I wished I had Matty for my sister. I wished I had a mum and dad like Matty’s, safe and warm and happy and always there.

  I felt guilty when Dad came to collect me. He looked so pale and anxious, and his eyes kept blinking because they got tired looking at rows of figures on his computer all day long. He never said anything about his work, but I knew he didn’t like this new job anywhere near as much as his old one. He’d worked in the accounts department of a big publishing firm. That’s where he’d met Mum. She worked in the art department. Dad once said that he never ever in a million years thought someone like Mum would go out with him.

  ‘Everyone was sweet on your mum,’ he said.

  It was the first time I’d heard that expression. I imagined Mum like a magic princess in a fairy tale, and everyone who looked at her turned sweet as sugar candy, melting like chocolate, sticky as toffee.

  Dad was the strange little frog who came scuttling along, and Mum carelessly blew him a kiss, and then he turned into a handsome prince and carried her off so they could live happily ever after. Only they didn’t.

  ‘Dad!’ I said, and rushed to give him a hug.

  ‘Now then, Tilly,’ he said. ‘I don’t like to hear that you’ve been rude. What are we going to do about poor Aunty Sue? She’s very upset.’

  ‘That Aunty Sue is horrible,’ said Matty. ‘She was rude to Tilly. And she was actually even ruder to me. But you don’t have to worry, Mr Andrews, Tilly can come to tea with us every day now and it will be magic.’

  ‘That’s very sweet of you, Matty, but we can’t possibly impose on your mum like that. Tilly’s round here nearly all the time already,’ said Dad.

  ‘We love having her. Please let her come here,’ said Angie.

  ‘Then you must let me pay you properly for your trouble.’

  ‘Of course you can’t! Tilly’s practically family.’

  ‘Well, it’s very kind of you. Are you really sure? You must let me know if it gets too much for you,’ said Dad. ‘Come along, Tilly, then.’

  ‘You don’t have to rush off straight away, do you? Let me make you a cup of coffee first,’ said Angie.

  ‘I think a beer would be a better idea,’ said Tom, Matty’s dad.

  I could tell Dad just wanted to get home, but he smiled bravely and had half a glass of beer and some crisps, and then a cup of coffee with a home-made chocolate-chip cookie. He tried hard to make conversation all the time. I squeezed up on the sofa beside him and snuggled against him.

  He kept thanking Matty’s parents.

  ‘It’s no trouble at all,’ Angie said for the fifth time. ‘We love having Tilly. She’s a very special little girl. You’re doing a great job, bringing her up on your own.’

  Dad and I stiffened. If we didn’t say a word about Mum not being with us, we madly hoped that no one would notice.

  ‘Thank you,’ he mumbled eventually. ‘Well, we really must be going now.’

  ‘Don’t forget your present, Tilly!’ said Matty.

  Dad had to be grateful all over again for the bridesmaid’s dress. I sat in the back of the car with it spread carefully over the seat in its plastic wrapper.

  ‘It is all right if I go to Matty’s house, isn’t it, Dad?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, they’re a very kind family. I can see you have much more fun there than with poor Sue,’ he said.

  ‘They’re very, very kind to give me Matty’s bridesmaid’s dress. Just wait till you see it on me, Dad. I look almost pretty!’ I said.

  ‘You are pretty,’ said Dad. He was being kind now. I knew I wasn’t the slightest bit pretty. I didn’t take after Mum in any way whatsoever. But when we were home and I put the dress on again, I truly did feel beautiful.

  ‘Look, Dad!’ I called, from the top of the stairs.

  Dad came and looked. He put his hand up to shield his eyes, pretending to be dazzled. ‘You look like a real princess. You’d outshine any bride,’ he said.

  ‘Dad, do you think I could be a real bridesmaid? Do you know anyone who’s going to get married soon? Oh, Dad, I’d give anything to wear my dress to a real wedding,’ I said.

  Chapter Six

  I GOT UP ten minutes early every day and put on the bridesmaid’s dress. I practised walking slowly and solemnly as if I were walking up the aisle, and I held my head high and clasped my hands as if I were holding a posy. I even practised bending down quickly and gracefully, twitching the imaginary bride’s train into place. I stood patiently, still as a church pillar, pretending the ceremony was happening, and then I marched triumphantly round my bed and back again, humming my version of churchy organ music.

  When Dad called that breakfast was nearly ready, I pulled off my bridesmaid’s dress, smoothed it down gently, rubbing my cheek on the soft silk before slipping it back inside its protective plastic. I put on my ugly check dress for school and sloped off downstairs, back to being ordinary me again.

  Whenever I was bored or stuck at school I tried to make a list in the back of my jotter of all the people I could think of who might need a bridesmaid in the next year. I was small but I was still growing. If the bridesmaid’s dress fitted me perfectly now, it might be getting a bit too short and tight in nine months’ time, let alone a year.

  My list was small too.

  No 1: Dad.

  I had to put him first, even though I knew it wasn’t very likely. Dad still loved Mum. I think he secretly hoped she might still come back, even though he told me firmly that it was never going to happen. He was particularly angry when she forgot my birthday. No present, no card, no phone call. We’d given up trying to phone her. She seemed to keep changing phones, and shortly after we set up Skype so that I could still chat to her, she changed her email address.

  Dad pretended she’d sent him money for my birthday present and bought me sequinned trainers just like Matty’s, but red, and a red-and-blue jacket like hers, and a big box of paints. He wrote on each parcel:

  Sorry this is a bit late!

  Hope you had a very happy

  birthday, Tilly. Lots of love

  from Mum

  I half believed she might have put some money in his bank account, like he said. But then a whole month late a big parcel arrived that really was from Mum. It was an odd white dress covered with pink and red and yellow and green embro