Free The Sleepover Club Bridesmaids by Angie Bates Page A

routine was actually terminal shyness.
    “But how did they manage to do it so fast?” I said. “No offence, Mum, but it’s taken you AGES to make those other dresses.”
    “Aha,” grinned Jilly. “You obviously haven’t heard about Patsy’s secret past!”
    “Apparently Patsy used to be some kind of dressmaker in London,” Amber explained.
    Mum acted shocked. “Dressmaker! Patsy used to work for a major French fashion house, darling!”
    “So making one itty bitty bridesmaid’s dress was not exactly a major problem for her,” Jilly explained.
    “I don’t know what we’d have done without her,” sighed Mum. “Patsy’s worked absolute miracles today.”
    I started to giggle. I couldn’t help it.
    “What?” said everyone.
    But it wasn’t a thought I could exactly share with them, seeing as Patsy herself had just sailed back in with the tea-things. I DID tell it to my Wedding Diary though, before I went to sleep. Want to see what I wrote?
    I kept saying I needed a miracle. It just NEVER occurred to me that a miracle could ever come through someone as scary as Patsy! Maybe that’s what our vicar means when he says, “God works in mysterious ways”!!
    After Frankie went home, Amber and I figured that the grown-ups in the house were all far too busy with wedding preparations to do anything about food. So we sneaked a tub of Ben and Jerry’s Rainforest Crunch out of the freezer, grabbed a spoon each, and went up to my room.
    But there wasn’t really much on TV and gradually we got talking. Actually it turned into a real heart-to-heart.
    “You must have thought I was a real pill,” Amber said suddenly.
    “Oh, er, not really,” I said politely.
    She laughed. “Sure you did. The fact is, I was incredibly jealous.”
    “Yeah, right,” I said. “You live in LA, next door to Mickey Mouse and – and lots of other famous people whose names I can’t remember just now, and you’re jealous of me . That makes sense. NOT!”
    “Sorry to disappoint you, Fliss, but me and Mickey don’t actually hang out on a regular basis,” Amber teased. Then she sighed. “I do have a great life though, and I wouldn’t change it. Except for one thing.”
    I stared at her.
    “I wish I had great friends, like you guys,” she said. “The first time I heard you going on about them, it made me feel kind of lonely.” I could tell Amber meant it too. Her voice had this husky little catch in it.
    “Don’t you have loads of friends in LA?” I said.
    Amber grinned. “Don’t look so worried. I’m not like, a total hermit or anything. But none of my friends really know me. Not the way you guys know each other.”
    “We have these huge fights sometimes,” I said.
    “Yeah, but you make up, right?” Amber helped herself to a mega spoonful of Rainforest Crunch. “I did have this really cool friend, once,” she said. “Her name was Lauren McGravy.”
    “You’re kidding.”
    “No, I swear. That’s her real name.” Amber went into a fit of giggles. “Poor Lauren,” she said. “She’s allergic to everything, so she’s like, sneezing constantly. But this is totally not a human sneeze, right? It sounds like it’s made by some cute little Disney cartoon.” And she did a wicked imitation of a Lauren McGravy-type sneeze.
    “What happened to her?”
    She sighed. “The usual thing. Lauren’s parents split and her mother took her off to New York.”
    “You can still phone,” I suggested.
    “Yeah, yeah,” said Amber. “I call her up sometimes. I just hate how after you put down the receiver, you feel like twenty times more lonely than you did before.”
    There was quite a long silence after she said this. It wasn’t a seriously squirm-making silence, but I got the feeling that Amber felt a bit down in the dumps. So it was probably best not to ask her any more about Lauren McGravy just yet.
    “Hey,” I said suddenly. “There’s a really mushy film on later. Want to watch it with me?”
    Amber’s eyes lit