Hailey Twitch and the Wedding Glitch (6 page)

Cousin Angela holds her nose. “That car smells,” she says. Then she drops her trash bag right on the driveway. She picks up a jump rope and starts skipping right away. Skip, skip, skip.

“Maybelle,” I whisper. “Do something about this!”

“About what?” Maybelle asks. She is sitting on the hood of the car. Doing nothing.

“About me having to do all this work all by my own self,” I say.

“What should I do about it?” Maybelle asks.

I sigh. I have to think of everything around here. “You could break that jump rope right in half.”

Maybelle looks over at Cousin Angela. And she pulls out her wand. And then she makes that jump rope all sparkly, and suddenly Cousin Angela is going faster and faster and jumping all over.

“Maybelle!” I whisper. “I said to break that jump rope right in half. Not make it go faster.”

“Sorry.” She gives a big shrug. “I guess I am not so good at magic.”

It is a very big lie. She is pretending not to be good at magic so that Mr. Tuttle will not send her back to the castle.

I think about maybe having a big fit or a tantrum. Or maybe I will go inside and be a big tattletale. But then I have a fab, fab, fabulous idea.

“Oh, Cousin Angela,” I call right over to her. “I have a great idea for you!”

“What?” She sticks her finger right up in her nose again.

“How would you like it if I clean out this whole car, and you do not even have to do one thing? That is called not even having to lift a finger!”

She thinks about it. “So you will be my servant?”

“Yes. I will be your servant.” I do a big sigh. “And if I am your servant, then that means that I have to clean this whole car. And it means that you will not have to be a flower girl! Because I will have to do the whole job for you.” I put a fake sad face on. “That will be a really hard job, but I will have to do it because I am your servant.”

“No!” Cousin Angela screams. She starts swinging the jump rope around her head. “I am the flower girl!” Yikes. She is getting closer and closer with that rope.

“But if you aren't the flower girl, then you don't have to clean out the car.” I am moving back, back, back quick as I can. Because that rope is swinging very close to me. It is making me a little nervous if you want to know the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

“I AM GOING TO BE THE FLOWER GIRL!” Cousin Angela is screaming.

And that is when I lose it.

“MOM!” I yell. I am running all across the lawn like a crazy person. “MOM, AUNT DENISE, COUSIN GENIEVIEVE, PLEASE SOMEONE COME OUT HERE AND SAVE ME FROM THIS ROPE!”

My mom comes running out onto the porch. “Girls!” she says. “What is all this yelling about?”

“Cousin Angela is chasing me with a jump rope!” I say. I am still running all around the yard. My hands are waving all in the air. But when I look behind me, Cousin Angela is not even chasing me one bit.

She is standing in the driveway. She is holding a trash bag. And she is cleaning out Uncle Adam's car.

“Hailey, what are you talking about?” Aunt Denise asks. She is out on the porch now, too. So is Cousin Genevieve. They are all looking at me like I am maybe a little bit crazy in my head.

“Cousin Angela was chasing me around with a jump rope.” I point over to the rope. But it is just sitting on the driveway now. Like it is no big deal.

“Angela!” Aunt Denise calls. “Is that true?”

“Is what true, Mommy?” Cousin Angela asks. She is dropping an old paper cup into her garbage bag.

“Did you chase Hailey around the yard with a jump rope?”

“No, Mommy,” Cousin Angela says. She shakes her head no, no, no. “I was just cleaning out the car.”

“Are you sure, Angela?” Aunt Denise asks.

“Yes.” She is nodding up and down. “But there is one thing that happened. And that is that Hailey told me that if I did not stop being a flower girl, then she would tell you that I chased her around with a jump rope.”

“What?!” I shriek. “That is a big fat lie, Cousin Angela, and you know it!”

“YEAH!” Maybelle says. She puts her hands right on her hips and gives a mean look to Cousin Angela.

“Hailey, please stop yelling at me,” Cousin Angela says. And then she drops her garbage bag on the ground. And bursts right into tears.

And I get stuck cleaning Uncle Adam's car out all by my own self.

After I am done cleaning out that disgusting, gross, horrible car, it is time to go and look at shoes. Perfect, sparkly, beautiful shoes! Just like Dorothy from this one movie I know called
The
Wizard
of
Oz
. Only that girl Dorothy's shoes are red. And mine are going to be pink, pink, pink!

“Oh,” the saleslady says when she sees me. “You again.” She does not look too happy to see me. That is not very polite.

“Yes, it is us again!” I say. “We are here to get some wonderful sparkly shoes. So please show me the shoes for flower girls.” Now I am old enough to know that there are shoes for brides and shoes for flower girls. I am not going to make that mistake again.

“Here are the shoes for the flower girls,” the saleslady says. “Let me know if you need any help.” She is looking at us with a very nervous look on her face. I think she is scared we are going to cause a big scene.

“These are the ones!” I pick up the sparkly shoes. “I would like these in my size, please.”

The saleslady asks the sizes of me and Cousin Angela. Then she goes to get those shoes.

When she comes back, I slide my feet into those shoes right away. They are a little bit pinchy in the toes. But I do not care. They are very perfect. Better than Natalie Brice's jewel crown even.

I am looking at myself in these very wonderful little foot mirrors. I cannot get enough of it. “These shoes are the most beautiful shoes in the world,” I tell Cousin Angela. “Do you love them?”

Cousin Angela is looking down at herself in those shoes. She is walking around. She is putting her hand on her hip. She is looking in the foot mirror. And then all of a sudden she is screaming.

“THESE SHOES ARE STUPID!”

“Cousin Angela,” I say real quick, trying to calm her down. “Just relax. See how nice and pretty these shoes are? They look like just the kind of shoes a flower girl would wear.”

“I DON'T LIKE SPARKLES!”

I gasp. That is impossible. Everyone loves sparkles. You cannot
not
love sparkles. This is not making any kind of sense in my head.

Aunt Denise and my mom think this is the most hilarious thing they have ever seen in their lives. They are laughing their heads right off.

“This is not a laughing matter,” I tell them. “Please try to be mature about it.”

But this makes them just laugh even harder.

“Hailey,” my mom says. “You and Cousin Angela have to pick a shoe that you both like.”

“I don't like these ones!” Cousin Angela says.

And then Maybelle does something very bad. She swoops right down in front of Cousin Angela. And she points her wand at those sparkly shoes.

“Maybelle,” I whisper. “What did you just do? I do not have time to clean up any more of your messes.”

“These shoes are tight on my feet,” Cousin Angela says. “I want them off this instant!” She plops herself right down on the floor of that store. And then she tries to take those shoes right off. She tugs. And she tugs. But those shoes will not come off.

“Looks like we will have to buy them,” I say. “Since they will not come off your feet.”

“GET THEM OFF MY FEET, MOMMY!”

“I am sorry, but if you cannot keep your children quiet, you will have to leave this store,” the lady who works there says.

“Yes, I'm sorry, but we cannot stay quiet,” I say. “We are very loud and bad. Now we would like two pairs of these shoes, please. Wrap them up to go.” I point at those sparkle shoes. “And then we will be out of here. And not be causing a big scene anymore.”

“OW, MY FEET, OW!” Cousin Angela is really having a bad screaming fit now. She is pounding her feet right on the ground.

“Calm down, Angela,” Aunt Denise says. She is down trying to pull those shoes off Cousin Angela. But they will not come off. “What size are these shoes?” Aunt Denise is saying. “They are stuck on your foot.”

I look at Maybelle. She is sitting in a big bride shoe that has a big fat bow on it. “Maybelle,” I whisper. “What did you do to that shoe?”

“She cannot get it off,” Maybelle says, giving me a big smile. “That is me using bad magic. And that is you getting those shoes.”

I love that sprite! She is always coming through for me.

Now my mom and Cousin Genevieve are over trying to help get that shoe off Cousin Angela. So I put my sparkly shoes on. And I start to play a skipping game. I grab a bride veil off of a shelf and put it right over my head.

“Yes, I will marry you, Antonio,” I say. “But only if we can live in my house with my mom and dad and Kaitlyn.”

“Angela, hold still!” Aunt Denise is saying. She is pulling on the top of that shoe. And my mom is pulling on the bottom. But that shoe will still not come off. It just does not want to budge.

“Well,” I say real loud, “I guess we will have to buy those shoes. And Cousin Angela will have to wear them everywhere until it is time for the wedding.”

I am still playing a skipping game. No one is paying any attention to me.

“I do,” I say into the mirror. I am pretending I am a bride. And I am marrying Antonio Fuerte. I start to sing a very good wedding song I know and twirl all around. “Dum dum da dummmmm.”

Rrrrrrippp.
Uh-oh. I look down. I accidentally stepped on that veil. And now there is a big rip in it. There is another sign on the wall here. And that sign says
you break it, you buy it
. Yikes.

“Maybelle,” I whisper. “Please come and fix this veil immediately.”

But I forgot about Maybelle trying to be bad at her magic. On account of tricking Mr. Tuttle. And so when Maybelle points her wand, that veil rips even more.

“Guess I'll just return this headdress back where I found it,” I say real loud in case anyone is listening. I put it right back down on the shelf. “It is exactly like it was when I picked it up, perfect and beautiful.”

“Owwww!” Cousin Angela is screaming. “THEY'RE PINCHING! THESE SHOES ARE PINCHING!”

“They are not,” Aunt Denise says. She finally pulls one of them off.
Pop!
She looks in the shoe. “I don't understand. They're your right size. Why are they so small?”

“That is very weird,” I say, shrugging. “Well, anyway, that situation is all over now. And I still think we should buy them. They are very beautiful shoes.”

“Excuse me,” the saleslady says. I turn around. She is holding up that ripped headdress!

“No,” I say quickly. “We do not need a headdress veil today. But we will take two of these pairs of sparkly shoes. And we are in a very big hurry, so hop to it.” Then I remember my manners. “Please.”

“Hailey!” my mom says. “What did you do to that veil?”

“I did not do one thing to that headdress,” I say. I look at it real close. “I have never seen that headdress in my life.”

“You were wearing it around and singing,” the saleslady says. “And then you ripped it.”

“How much is it?” my mom asks. She is looking very pale in her face.

“Three hundred dollars,” the lady says.

“Three hundred dollars!” I yell. “That thing is a rip-off!”

“I think,” Aunt Denise says, “that it is time to go.”