Hailey Twitch and the Wedding Glitch Read online

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2011 by Lauren Barnholdt

  Cover and internal illustrations © 2011 by Suzanne Beaky

  Cover and internal design © 2011 by Sourcebooks, Inc.

  Cover design by William Riley/Sourcebooks

  Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Published by Sourcebooks Jabberwocky, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410

  (630) 961-3900

  Fax: (630) 961-2168

  www.jabberwockykids.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is on file with the publisher.

  Source of Production: Webcom, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

  Date of Production: September 2011

  Run Number: 16052

  Front Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter One: Wonderful News

  Chapter Two: A Sprite with Problems

  Chapter Three: Sparkly Shoes

  Chapter Four: A Big Blue Mess

  Chapter Five: A Job at Aunt Denise’s House

  Chapter Six: Get Them off My Feet

  Chapter Seven: A Permission for Maybelle

  Chapter Eight: A Couple of Disasters

  Chapter Nine: Kaitlyn to the Rescue

  Chapter Ten: The Wedding at Last

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  About the Illustrator

  Back Cover

  For Aaron, always

  Something very wonderful is happening right at this very moment. And that wonderful thing is called being a flower girl! Yay! The flower girl is the most important part in a wedding. That is because she is in charge of dropping beautiful rose petals onto the ground right in front of the bride.

  The bride is my cousin, Genevieve. She is getting married in one week.

  That means that in seven whole days I get to wear a fab, fab, fabulous princess dress. Because that is what flower girls do. In fact, that is where I am right now. At the fabulous princess dress shop. It is called Brides and More. And it is only for dresses for weddings. For brides. And flower girls.

  “I want this one!” I yell. I am run, run, running right into the store and right up to a very beautiful white long dress with lace all on it.

  “Hailey,” my mom says. “That is a dress for a bride.”

  “Or a flower girl,” I say.

  “A bride,” she says.

  “Or a flower girl,” I tell her.

  “No,” my mom says.

  “Why not?” I look around for someone who works in that store. I see a lady over in the corner. She is wearing a name tag. And she has very frizzy brown hair. “Excuse me, lady!” I yell. “We need some help with this dress right over here. We need to wrap one up for a flower girl.”

  That lady does not look too happy at all about the yelling. But she comes over anyway.

  “Can I help you?” she asks. Then she points over to a sign that is hanging on the wall. I sound out the words. Please Watch Children in the Store, it says.

  I am a child. Because I am seven years old. But I do not need to be watched. On account of me being a flower girl.

  “That sign is not very nice,” I tell that lady. “I am going to be a very beautiful flower girl in my cousin Genevieve’s wedding.” I do a curtsy so she can tell just how beautiful it will be. “And I would like you to wrap up this dress, please.”

  “That is a bride’s dress,” the lady says. She is getting a little bit of a mean voice. Kind of like the voice my neighbor Mr. Frisk uses when I am bothering him.

  “No, it isn’t,” I say. “It is not just for brides. Flower girls can wear it, too.” I am about to have a good tantrum right in this store. I can feel it already starting right up inside of me.

  “Hailey,” my mom says. Then she points over toward the door. “Look who it is! It’s your cousin Angela!”

  I turn around to look. And there is Cousin Angela. She is walking right into the store of Brides and More. She is with Aunt Denise. Aunt Denise is Angela’s mom. And she is my mom’s sister. It is all a very confusing family tree.

  “What are those two doing here?” I ask. “Is Aunt Denise getting married, too?”

  “No,” my mom says. “Aunt Denise is already married to Uncle Adam. You know that.”

  “Then why are they coming to a bride shop, please? Are they going to take pictures of me in my princess dress?” That would be very fun. I will pose and pose and pose. And then I will put those pictures in beautiful frames all over the house. I will even autograph them with my nickname “Hails.”

  “Well,” my mom says. She is getting a very nervous look on her face. It is the look she gets right when she is about to tell me something terrible. “Cousin Angela is going to be a flower girl, too. Isn’t that wonderful?”

  I get a very dark face on. That is not wonderful news. That is very bad and horrible news. And I am already at my limit for bad news.

  That is because I am already dealing with some bad news about my magic sprite Maybelle. And that is that she might have to go back to living in her magic castle and leave the Twitch house for good.

  Mr. Tuttle, who is in charge of the Department of Magic, said so. He said he will be coming back very soon to take Maybelle away.

  This is making me very sad.

  It is making Maybelle very sad, too. Even though she does not look so sad right now. Right now she is curled up in a shoe in this store having a nap.

  “That is not such wonderful news about Cousin Angela,” I tell my mom. “There is only supposed to be one flower girl.” And that one flower girl should be me. But I do not say that last part.

  “Hello, Aunt Denise and Cousin Angela!” my mom is saying.

  Cousin Angela is wearing very dirty overalls. She is five. And she picks her nose. I have seen her do it lots and lots of times. “Hailey, say hello,” my mom says.

  “Hello.”

  “Now, girls, you are going to have to pick out the same dress,” Aunt Denise says. I am worried about this for one minute. But then I remember that I am seven. And Cousin Angela is only five. So I am the boss of her for definite.

  “Why don’t I show you some flower girl dresses that we just got in,” the saleslady says. She takes my mom and Aunt Denise over to some dresses. Some dresses that look like they were made for babies.

  “Cousin Angela, wouldn’t you like to wear this wonderful, beautiful, perfect dress?” I show her that wonderful bride dress that I picked right out. It is very sparkly. “It has jewels all on it,” I say. “It is for princesses.”

  “No,” Cousin Angela says. “That dress is ugly.”

  “It is not,” I say. I am feeling very upset in my heart about all of this. That dress is very beautiful and very perfect, and I want it.

  “Yes. It. Is,” Angela says. Then she puts her finger right in her nose. That is very disgusting.

  “That,” I say, “is very disgusting.
Nose picking is what disgusting babies do.”

  Angela makes her eyes look very small in her head. And then she stomps right down on my foot very hard.

  “Ow!” I scream, jumping up and down like a maniac. “Ow, ow, ow!”

  “Wow,” Maybelle says. She is waking up from her nap. On account of all the yelling, I think. “Cousin Angela is not very well behaved.”

  My mom and Aunt Denise are looking around to see what all this big fuss is about.

  “Hailey,” my mom says. “Why are you screaming like that?”

  “I am screaming like that because Cousin Angela stomped right on my foot.” I hop, hop, hop right over to her on one foot only. Even though that foot is not really even hurting anymore.

  “No, I did not,” Angela says. “Hailey is being a bad liar.” And then that little five-year-old baby starts crying. Right in the store. That is called having a meltdown in public.

  “Yes, you did,” I say. I shake, shake, shake my finger right at her. “You stepped right on it and crushed my toes. And so now you need to have a punishment.”

  Aunt Denise picks Cousin Angela up into her arms. Cousin Angela is too old to be getting picked up, if you ask me. Then Aunt Denise says, “Girls, please. No fighting. Let’s go look at the flower girl dresses that are over here.”

  “Come on, Hailey,” my mom says. She walks to the back of the store. Aunt Denise follows her right away. And Cousin Angela sticks her tongue out at me! Right when no one can see.

  “That girl is a brat,” Maybelle says.

  “Yes,” I say, very sad. “She is. And me and her have got to be flower girl twins.”

  It is enough to make a girl very upset.

  We have to leave that store without even getting a dress! And that is because Cousin Angela was in a very cranky mood. She was being very loud in that store. I read that sign right out loud to Aunt Denise about watching your children. But she just ignored me. Which is very rude if you want to know the truth.

  The one good thing is that we stop at the drive-through on the way home. I love stopping at the drive-through! We used to do it a lot more. But now we are only eating healthy dinners and snacks. So it is not allowed.

  I lean over in the car and say the order right into the microphone. I say, “Please, can I have some French fries and one order of chicken nuggets?”

  Then the man says, “What did you say?”

  So I say it again. Only this time much more loud.

  “Who has been eating these fries?” my big sister Kaitlyn says when we get home. She is looking in the bag. And seeing all the missing fries.

  I sit down at the kitchen table. And then I quick try and change the subject. Maybe because I was the one eating those fries. It was a very hungry drive home. “Cousin Angela stomped right down on my foot,” I tell Kaitlyn. I hold my foot up. “Because we cannot agree on the same dress. I might have a broken toe and need a cast around it.”

  “Ew, Hailey,” Kaitlyn says. “Get your sneakers off the table.”

  She is unpacking all the bags and putting those very delicious nuggets right in front of me. Then she takes out the little tub of honey mustard. She takes the top off it and sets it down.

  “Thank you for opening my honey mustard, Kaitlyn. You are a very good sister.”

  “You’re welcome, Hailey.”

  “I want to try one of those fries,” Maybelle says. She sits down on the table and starts munching on one of them.

  “Kaitlyn,” I say. “What do you think about Cousin Genevieve’s wedding, please?”

  “Weddings are boring.” Kaitlyn takes a big bite of her ooey, gooey cheeseburger.

  “They are not boring,” I say. “Not when you are getting to be a flower girl.” I reach out and give Kaitlyn a little pat on her hand. Kaitlyn is very jealous, probably. Because she is fourteen years old. And fourteen is too old to be a flower girl. “It is okay to be jealous. It happens to the best of us.”

  Kaitlyn rolls her eyes and takes one of my fries. She almost smacks Maybelle right in the head with it.

  “So, Kaitlyn,” I say. “What am I going to do about this whole problem?”

  “What whole problem?” She has her cell phone out. She is texting away on it. Probably to her friend Maya Greenbert. All about boys, boys, boys.

  “The whole problem with this dress and Cousin Angela!”

  “I do not know.” Kaitlyn is very good with helping with problems. But sometimes she does not want to help. “But there might not even be a wedding.”

  “What do you mean?” I am gasping at this horrible news.

  “You think they can really plan a whole wedding in one week? That is crazy.”

  “One week is enough time. One week is forever. It is seven whole days.”

  “They don’t even have a band picked out,” Kaitlyn says. “How can they have a wedding without music?”

  “It will all work out,” I tell her. That is what my dad tells me whenever I am having a problem. Usually my problem is about Natalie Brice, the meanest girl in room four, Miss Stephanie’s second grade.

  When I am finished with my dinner, I go upstairs.

  “Maybelle,” I say. “Help me with my problem, please.”

  “Your problem?” Maybelle asks. “What about my problem?” She is flying all around my room.

  “You do not have any problems,” I grumble. “You are just a magic sprite.” Magic sprites do not even have to worry about being flower girls. They do not have to worry about stupid babies named Cousin Angela. They do not have to worry about broken toes that probably need a big cast on them. And they do not have to worry about finding music for that wedding.

  “I am very much in trouble with Mr. Tuttle!” Maybelle says. “Maybe you forgot all about that big disaster.”

  “I did not forget,” I say. “But me and you came up with a very good plan about that.”

  Mr. Tuttle is in charge of the Department of Magic. And he told Maybelle that if she did very good magic, then he would give her magic back to her forever! And so Maybelle did very good at her magic. But then Mr. Tuttle told her that now she is going to have to go back to living in the magic castle forever and ever and ever.

  Maybelle does not want to go back to that castle. She wants to live here, in the Twitch house. With me. Like two friends forever!

  So I came up with a very brilliant plan. And that plan is that Maybelle is going to be very bad at her magic again. One big mess of a magic sprite. And then Mr. Tuttle will think she needs some more work. And so she will get to stay here! It is very perfect.

  “I do not think that plan is going to work,” Maybelle says. She is standing in front of my mirror, and she is looking at herself and those sparkly wings of hers.

  “Maybelle,” I tell her, doing a big sigh. “I am very good at brilliant plans.” This is a little bit of a fib. Some of my plans do not always work out so well. Like the time I decided to pick some apples in my neighbor Mr. Frisk’s backyard. It turned out those apples were not ready to be picked. Or the time I decided to draw a big mustache on my friend Addie Jokobeck’s face with a black marker. That is against the rules of room four.

  “Just be very bad at your magic,” I tell Maybelle. “And you will not have to go back to that castle.” I am looking all around in my drawer to find a very good gymnastics suit. Gymnastics suits are also called bodysuits or leotards. I have lots of them. A blue one. A green one. A red one. And a black one. That is because I am always doing gymnastics. Also because they were on sale one day.

  But my favorite gymnastics suit is my sparkly white bathing suit. It is not really a gymnastics suit. But it is sparkly. And it has a skirt on it.

  “I am going to put on my gymnastics suit now,” I tell Maybelle. “And then I am going to do some handstands against my bedroom wall.” This is technically supposed to be not allowed. But I have had a very rou
gh day.

  But before I can even put that perfect gymnastics suit on, Maybelle pulls out her wand. And she points it right at the gymnastics suit. And then that gymnastics suit turns green! And all the sparkles are gone, and the skirt disappears right away!

  “Maybelle!” I yell. “What did you do to this gymnastics suit?”

  “I am being bad at my magic,” she whispers. “So Mr. Tuttle will think I lost it.”

  “You should not have wrecked this gymnastics suit!” I tell her. “This is my most very favorite one. Make it go back to being sparkly right this instant.”

  “No, thank you,” Maybelle says. And then she goes away.

  • • •

  I have decided to give Maybelle the silent treatment. The silent treatment is when you do not talk to someone because they have been very, very bad. My mom gives my dad the silent treatment when he forgets to tie up the garbage can and the neighbors’ dogs get into it and spread it all over our lawn and my mom has to clean it up before work.

  I give Maybelle the silent treatment all night.

  I am still giving it to her the next morning at school, even. I am giving it to her all through the Pledge of Allegiance. And all through printing time. And all through morning snack.

  It is supposed to make Maybelle mad, mad, mad. But she does not even care.

  I decide it is more fun to think about being a flower girl.

  “Hey, Russ,” I say to my friend Russ Robertson when we are walking down the hall to music class. “Did you hear that wonderful news about how I am going to be a flower girl?”

  “Hailey,” Addie Jokobeck whispers. “We are not supposed to be talking in line.”

  This is a true fact. But we are at the back of the line. And Miss Stephanie is in the front. So as long as I am quiet as a mouse, she will not hear me. I do not like being at the back of the line. I like to be line leader. But this week line leader is Antonio Fuerte. And this week I am in charge of watering the plants on the windowsill.