Читать книгу Nathalia Buttface and the Totally Embarrassing Bridesmaid Disaster - Nigel Smith - Страница 9

“I’m actually quite clean,” said Nat, scraping bits of drying mud off herself as she tried to make a break for the door but discovered her knees were locked together with gloop.

Daisy was way too fast. Nat was backed against the wall as the Chief Bridesmaid pointed the hose at her and the other girls gathered round on all sides, hemming her in. With an evil grin, Daisy began to turn the big metal wheel with ‘WATER PRESSURE’ written on it, twisting it right round to:

FULL POWER – ONLY TO BE USED BY EXPERIENCED STAFF.

The other bridesmaids snickered as Nat looked frantically around the small room, trying to escape. But there was nowhere to hide.

“Enjoy your shower, you little creep,” said Daisy, and pressed the ON switch.

For a long moment nothing happened except a horrid gurgling noise, deep in the pipes. The hose trembled as the pressure built up.

“I’m gonna spray you to kingdom come,” cackled Daisy, gripping the hose tightly with both hands.

And then the water shot out like a rocket.

Now, Nat had done rockets at school, and Darius liked building them, so she was a bit less surprised than Daisy by what happened next. Instead of the water lifting Nat off her feet and shooting her across the shower room, the OPPOSITE happened.

“Aaaargh! Help!” squealed Daisy, as she was hurled into the air by the power of the water, shooting out of the wildly bucking hose.

“Waaaah!” she screamed as she was shot around the room in a big circle, sliding across the walls, like one of those motorbike riders on the wall of death at the circus.

“Let go!” shouted Bella.

“I can’t! I’m too scared!” shouted Daisy, the pressure lifting her six feet off the ground. “Turn it off, turn it off!”

She was now whizzing around at the top of the room, and gathering speed all the time.

“The wheel’s jammed!” squealed Annie Chicken, frantically trying to turn it off.

“You’re turning it the wrong way!” shouted Tilly.

“Now it IS stuck!” squealed Bella. “You absolute idiot – blaaaagh!”

The last noise was because she got hit, smack-bang in the mouth, by the water.

“I’m drowning!” shrieked Bella.

“If you were drowning, you couldn’t speak,” cackled Nat, dodging the watery jet. She was quite enjoying herself now.

Suddenly, Bella’s loo-brush hair shot off in a big black frizzy mass. She shrieked even louder. “My hair extension! That cost me a fortune. Someone grab it before it goes down the drain…”

All hell broke loose. Two bridesmaids tried to grab the flying Daisy, Annie struggled with the wheel and Bella scrabbled after her disappearing hair, which slithered towards the drain like a big soggy spider getting flushed down the loo.

Nat realised that all the spray had sloshed her clean as a whistle and she could move again. She saw her chance and dashed for the exit.

She slipped through and slammed it behind her in relief.

“Everything all right?” said Gertie, who had come over to check on the faint wails and squeals that were coming from behind the door.

“Very all right,” said Nat.

“Are you sure? I thought I heard screaming and the words: ‘HELP, HELP, I’m going to die’.”

“Oh, you know us bridesmaids,” said Nat. “We do like to scream. It’s all the excitement, waiting for the big day.”

Just then, the door burst open and Bella came hurtling through it, gripping her sodden, ruined hair extensions. She skidded on the floor like a rocket-powered fish and lay, panting, at Nat’s feet.

“You… you…” said Bella, pointing at Nat and coughing up water. “You are responsible…”

“For all the fun and good bridesmaid times? Too kind,” said Nat. She grabbed a nearby towel and began to help dry Bella off, making very sure she shoved the towel in her face, really firmly.

“You’re wiping my eyebrows off you little— mumph,” said Bella, but her words were muffled by the fluffy towel.

“Lovely spa you’ve got,” shouted Nat to Gertie, rubbing even harder.

“Gerroff!” said Bella.

Behind them, the wailing slowed down and eventually stopped.

The Second Assistant Fairy Princess Bridesmaid, now with short hair and no eyebrows, grabbed the towel and flung it across the floor. “I give up,” she said, bursting into tears. “Take my place! I can’t win. You are a bridesmaid MONSTER.”

With that, she ran off to the changing rooms.

The door to the shower room opened once more. Nat felt the glares of Tiffannee’s remaining fairy princesses boring into her back like hot fairy knives.

The rest of the spa day was just as horrid. Nat tried to talk to the other bridesmaids and tell them she wasn’t ACTUALLY trying to nobble them all, but they refused to listen. In fact, they all kept their distance, jumping a mile every time she tried to say anything. They looked at her the way very tasty gazelles look at very hungry lions.

The only reason Nat didn’t get more upset about the horrid bridesmaids was that she was kept too busy to think much about them. The rest of the day wasn’t so much a relaxing pampering spa experience – with warm fluffy towels and hot oils and foot rubs and gentle eyebrow-shaping – as a terrifying boot camp of pain.

Instead of glittery toenail painting she got the EXTREME ZUMBA POWER HOUR which made every muscle ache. And instead of a gentle massage she got OLGA THE PUMMELER who found those muscles and pounded them into weeping submission. Then there was a JOG AND SWEAT DETOX session in a big damp plastic suit and finally she had to drink a huge glass of HEALTHY HELGA’S CLEAN IT OUT NOW! JUICE. And all under the silent evil glare of the other fairy princesses, who weren’t QUITE pummelled and sweaty and detoxed enough to forget to glare.

It was miserable. She was glad when it was all over and the minibus dropped her home again.

“I thought you’d gone to get de-stressed,” said Dad as she barged through the door and up to her room, “you look ten times worse!”