Hailey Twitch and the Wedding Glitch (3 page)

But before I can even say anything back, we are at the music room.

Music is a very fun class. It is even more fun when we get to play instruments. These are all the instruments to choose from: triangle, bongo drums, harmonica, pipe. The instruments are in a big basket in the middle of the room.

Our music teacher, Mr. Green, lets us pick out whatever instrument we want!

And so we all go running up to the basket. I am push, push, pushing so I can get those bongo drums. Bongo drums are the best instrument to have. You can pound on them very hard. And you can be the loudest one of all of the instruments.

There is one more reason those bongo drums are the best to have. And that is because when we are done with our instrument unit, we are going to get to keep those instruments to bring home! So if you have the bongo drums, you might get to keep them all for your own self.

But I do not end up with the bongo drums. Instead I end up with the very worst instrument. And that is the instrument of the harmonica.

“Natalie Brice!” I yell. “Pushing is not allowed!”

“I was not pushing,” she says. She gives a little sniff with her nose. And then she pounds right on those bongo drums with the drumstick.

“Mr. Green!” I say. I wave my hand in the air all around. “Mr. Green! Natalie Brice is pushing, and she stepped right on my toe!”

“What is going on over here, girls?” Mr. Green asks.

“Natalie pushed me and stepped on my toe. It's broken.”

“Your toe is broken?” Mr. Green asks. He is looking very confused on his face.

Natalie does a big sigh. “Oh, Hailey Twitch,” she says. “You have a very big imagination.” Natalie Brice is always trying to use big words and pretend she is a grown-up.

“My toe got broken yesterday at a bride store,” I explain to Mr. Green. “I might need to get a cast on it. And then Natalie stepped on it while she was pushing to get those bongo drums.” I hop up and down. “Ow, my bad toe, ow!”

I am hoping Mr. Green is going to tell Natalie to hand those drums right over to me. But he does not. All he does is say, “I'm sure your toe will feel better soon, Hailey. Now, everyone, please line up so we can have a parade.”

I am still mad. But I do get cheered up a little by that parade. It is only a parade around the classroom. But it is very loud. Things that are that loud make me very hap, hap, happy.

I get in line between Addie Jokobeck and Russ Robertson.

Then I whisper to Maybelle, “Maybelle, please make Natalie Brice's drums to be not that loud. Make them all very quiet as a mouse so that no one hears them.” This is one of the good things about having a wonderful magic sprite. You can make her use her magic to do things you want.

But when our parade starts, something very horrible happens. And that is that my harmonica is broken! It does not even make one noise. I am blowing, blowing, blowing into it hard, hard, hard. Even harder than one time when I had to blow up seven whole red balloons for my birthday party.

“Stop the parade!” I yell. “Stop this parade right this minute! Hailey Twitch's harmonica is broken!” But no one can hear me. Everyone just keeps march, march, marching. They are not even paying one bit of attention to me. I look around for Maybelle.

She is over sitting on the top of Natalie Brice's bongo drums. I have a bad feeling in my stomach. And that bad feeling has to do with Maybelle making my harmonica quiet.

“Maybelle,” I say to her when we are home. I am outside throwing a ball against the garage and catching it.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
It is very fun. “What you did in music class was very naughty.”

“I had to do it,” she says. “That is me being bad at my magic.”

I throw the ball against the house again.
Slam!

“No, that is you making Natalie Brice have very loud bongo drums like I wanted. And then you made my harmonica quiet. That is not very fun or funny, Maybelle.”

Then I start to get a very good idea. The music for the wedding! If I am allowed to keep those bongo drums, then I can make the music. I will save the day with those drums!

I am getting very excited about this plan. Then I hear a very familiar sound. A very familiar drum sound. A very familiar drum sound that sounds just like those bongo drums. I look down to where Maybelle is sitting on a rock. She somehow has some tiny bongo drums. And tiny drumsticks, too, even.

“Maybelle,” I say, “where did you get those?”

“Out of the play schoolhouse in the corner of room one.”

“Room one is kindergarten,” I say. “You cannot just go around stealing things from kindergarten.”

“I am just borrowing it. For maybe a few days.” She starts to play those wonderful drums. “It is a very fun instrument.”

“I know,” I say. I am in a very grumpy mood from all of this.

Maybelle is really having fun with those drums. She is on the grass now and pretending she is having a big parade. She is taking very big steps, up, down, up, down, up, down.

“Be in my parade, Hailey!” she yells.

“No, thank you,” I tell her. “I am too mad at you.”

But that parade does look very fun. So I decide that maybe I will be in it after all. So I go and get behind Maybelle. And we are marching all over the lawn. I do not have an instrument. Not even that dumb harmonica. But I pretend I have some very big cymbals. And I am crashing them.
Crash! Crash! Crash!

We are going around and around and around the yard. I am waving to the imaginary crowd. But then something bad happens.

Maybelle is taking such big steps that she falls right into a big mud puddle! And a big thing of ooey, gooey, disgusting sticky brown mud goes flying up in the air and splatters all over me.

“Uh-oh,” I say. I look down at my shirt. I do not care about mud too much. But my mom does care about it. She does not like it when I get all dirty. I am just deciding that it is time to go upstairs and maybe have a quick change before my mom can see.

But then my mom comes right outside. “Hailey!” she says. “Why are you all dirty? We are supposed to be going to another dress shop! Now get upstairs and change right now, young lady!”

• • •

My mom is very mad. On account of all that mud.

She is very quiet and giving me the silent treatment all the way to the dress shop. This dress shop is different than the one from yesterday.

And it does not have the dress I wanted. But it does have sparkly shoes! Beautiful glittery sparkly shoes that are glimmery and gorgeous.

“These are the shoes for me!” I yell. I take them right off the shelf and put them right on my feet. “How do I look?” I am shuf, shuf, shuffling all around the store. It is very fun. The saleslady gives me a big smile. She is a nice one. There are no signs on the walls here about keeping your children tied up and quiet.

But then something not that fun happens. And that is Cousin Angela coming into the store. “Those shoes are mine!” she screams very loud at the top of her lungs.

“No, they are not,” I say. “These are my shoes. You will have to get your own pair.” I am trying to get away from her. But the shoes are too big. And so I trip right onto the floor. And those shoes go flying. And Angela picks them up and puts them right on her own feet.

“Mom!” I scream. “Angela took my shoes!”

That saleslady comes right over. She is not smiling so much anymore. She tells us that it is time for us to leave because we are making a big scene. I guess they do not like children in this store either. My mom and Aunt Denise are not very happy. Not even one little bit.

“Please,” I tell the saleslady. “I will be good. I promise. We are going to spend a lot of money in this store.”

I have a feeling that those glitter shoes are going to be very a lot of money. Maybe even more than one hundred dollars.

The saleswoman is putting her lips together very tight.

“You're pretty,” Angela says to her.

“Well, aren't you just so cute?” the saleslady says. “I have a beautiful blue flower girl dress that would just look perfect on you.”

“What about me?” I ask. “Do you have any good pink dresses that would look good on me, Hailey Twitch? Or maybe a white bride dress?”

“Who are you?” the saleslady asks me. She is looking down at Angela and giving her a nice big smile. “Are you this adorable little girl's sister?”

“No,” I say. “I am the flower girl.”

“I AM THE FLOWER GIRL!” Angela yells.

“There cannot be two flower girls,” the saleslady says.

I take a big sigh. This is going to be a long day.

• • •

Finally we have picked out the dress! The most beautiful perfect blue dress in the whole wide world. My mom and Aunt Denise think I look very beautiful in it. And I have not even said the best part. And that best part is that I am going to get to wear a crown. A crown of flowers! Blue and white ones that are very fancy. A crown of real flowers is very much better than a jewel crown.

I am so happy that I am skip, skip, skipping into school the next day.

“Guess what, Addie Jokobeck?” I ask her. “I am going to have a beautiful blue dress and a crown full of flowers to wear when I am a flower girl.”

“Wow,” Addie Jokobeck says. Her mouth goes right into the shape of an
O
. “I wish I was going to be a flower girl.”

“I will see if my mom will let me bring in my crown of flowers, and I will let you wear it,” I say. I am crossing my fingers behind my back when I am saying this. And that is because I am not going to really ask my mom. She would never give me a permission for that. But I am going to bring it in anyway.

“When I was a flower girl, I got to wear a sparkly tiara,” Natalie Brice says. “It had diamonds. Real ones. And my dress was a lot fancier than yours.”

“That is a big lie, Natalie,” I say. “You did not have real diamonds on your crown. And you are just jealous of my blue dress.”

“I think
you
are a big liar,” Natalie says. “You are probably not even going to be a flower girl. You are always lying.”

There is only one thing to do. And that is to wear my flower girl dress to school.