Next morning, it was 2 days
until the wedding. Hannah and Jess sat in the breakfast room
being served by the facilities manager, who was looking glum. She
returned from the kitchen with a carton of soya milk for Hannah.
"Here." She shoved it into her hands.
"Careful!" Hannah said. "I'm a bride-to-be, you
know."
"Yes, we wouldn't want you to fall on your face would
we?"
"Oooh." The facilities manager walked off and Hannah
went back to briefing Jess on the day's activities. "Right,
so the flowers are being delivered down the road and you need to
check they're correct whilst I go veil shopping and-"
"Where are you getting married?"
"Oh, some big church down the road…" Hannah said,
sounding bored. "It's quite famous apparently."
"Do you mean Westminster Abbey?!" Jess gasped.
"Mmm, sounds like it."
"Oh my GOD."
"Yes, yes. Now go fetch those flowers." Hannah
scampered off to get her purse in preparation for her search for
her veil. She was still having an inner conflict about whether to
marry Chris or not and she was avoiding Daniel like the plague.
"Right. Flowers." Jess left their room and headed
downstairs.
She met Sean in the lift.
"Ooh. Hello."
"Hi. Where you going?"
"Got to get some flowers for the wedding."
"Ah. Want some company?"
"YES." The lift got to the ground floor and they
got out.
"Did you know Hannah's getting married in Westminster
Abbey?" Sean asked as they left the foyer.
"I KNOW. It'll take me half an hour to walk up that
aisle."
Jess and Sean walked
down a corridor, passing a door that said 'Conference Room'. They
heard some shrieks from inside.
"HA! That was 20 seconds longer than last time!!"
"I can't help it! This room's big and there are lots of
tables!"
"Whinge! Whinge! Next you're going to say your foot fell
off."
"Well, my shoe did."
"Dom! Billy! What a surprise!" Sean exclaimed. The two
hobbit-actors looked up guiltily. "What were you
doing?"
"Nothing."
"You two can help me with some flowers." Jess said,
beckoning them.
"Look Jess, we told you that camp thing was just a
phase."
"No, come and help me put flowers in Westminster
Abbey."
"Ooh, right." Billy said.
They left the hotel and began walking down the road to the flower
shop.
"Ok, how about this
one?" Hannah had met Chris in the bridal shop and was trying
on her 29th veil.
"Yeah. Fine." Replied Chris.
"Just like the last 28, then." Said Hannah sulkily,
taking the veil off.
"Look, they all look great, it's just I've got other things
on my mind."
"Like what?" Hannah put on veil number 30, which
had horrific pink hearts stitched into the lace.
"Daniel. And why he's not talking to me. And Ben. And why he
won't be my best man."
"Do you like this one?" Hannah indicated to the minging
veil.
"Yeah, sure."
Hannah frowned. He blatantly wasn't paying attention or he would
have hated the veil.
"So who's going to replace Ben?"
"I dunno."
"You have to have a best man. I have a bridesmaid."
"I KNOW. It's not my fault Ben blew me out for
Daniel."
Hannah suddenly had a
moment of clarity that she might be the cause of the split-up of
Silverchair. But before she could follow up that thought, the
door to the shop swung open and Natalie flew in saying: "I
can't believe that OUR wedding is going to be upstaged by
that bitch who tried to kill me." Daniel followed her
through the door and Hannah cleared her throat to get the
attention of the two stars who clearly hadn't noticed her.
"Oh." Natalie was clearly shocked. "You must be pretending
to have good taste to be in this shop. Either that or you are
simply doing this to be like me." She ran a hand through her
annoyingly straight brown hair.
Hannah had had enough. She picked up the nicest white plain veil
she had tried on and walked up to Chris.
"You can tell your best friend to get a grip and stop
kidding himself that he wants to be at any other wedding the day
after tomorrow. And YOU," She walked over to Daniel and
pointed an accusing finger at him. "Can get a GRIP!
And YOU!" She walked over to Natalie.
"Can find yourself another BLOODY SHOP!!" She
walked over to the till and stood there for a while doing nothing
as they all watched her. After a minute she said through gritted
teeth, "Chris? The credit card?!"
Meanwhile, Jess was
knee-deep in flowers.
"How many did she order?!" Asked Dom, sneezing as
pollen rose in clouds from the floor.
"I don't know, but we have to fill the whole of
Westminster Abbey, so probably quite a lot."
Elijah walked past the window and disappeared. After a few
seconds he reappeared, walking backwards, and did a double take.
"What the hell are you guys doing?" He asked,
poking his head inside.
"Flowers." Billy mumbled from underneath a pile of
carnations.
"Oh."
"Well, are you going to HELP?!" Sean asked him.
"Yeah, ok." Elijah waded into the shop.
"Now, I had a checklist in here somewhere…"
Jess held her nose and dived underneath the sea of flowers.
"Was that your leg?"
"What?"
Jess' head appeared from under an orchid leaf.
"Sorry about that." She said, her face as red as the
roses Sean was holding. She dived under again.
"Is this it?" Elijah picked up a piece of paper from
the counter.
Jess resurfaced, covered in orange pollen.
"Ah…yes."
"Maybe we should
buy a cart, or something, to shift all this stuff down the
road?" Sean suggested.
A large flower delivery truck pulled up outside the shop. The
driver jumped out and ran over to McDonald's across the road
leaving the keys in the ignition and the door wide open.
"I don't know how to drive a truck, but I'm thinking it's
pretty similar to a car, just bigger." Dom said.
"Let's go!" Billy said. Then he stood on a thorn:
"Ooh!"
Jess and the four hobbit-actors scuttled backwards and forwards
from the shop to the truck with buckets of flowers and managed to
fill the truck in a record-breaking time (if there is such a
record).
They all jumped in the cab with a squish and Dom started up the
engine. Suddenly the truck driver reappeared from McDonald's
shouting blue murder and started to run after the truck.
"Put your foot down!" Jess squeaked, nudging Dom with
her elbow.
"Surely the honest thing to do would be to stop the
truck, get out and calmly explain to the driver that we-"
"GO, GO, GO!" Elijah, Jess and Billy interrupted Sean's
rational reasoning by screaming at Dom, who put the truck into
gear and put his foot down. It lurched forward and started off
down the street.
It was a bit of a tight squeeze in the cab and every time they
hurtled around a corner they all fell on top of each other.
"LOOK OUT!" Billy shouted, before giving an
ear-piercing shriek. Dom looked at the road and saw a nun pushing
a pram containing a very cute baby, helping an old lady across
the road.
"Oh, GOD!" Dom swerved, killing 2 stray cats and
a little boy's pet puppy. But at least he avoided the nun, baby
and little old lady.
"Is he still behind us?" Asked Elijah, clutching onto
the dashboard for support.
Jess leant over Dom to look in the wing mirror.
"JESS! Daddy's TRYING to DRIVE!"
Jess saw a very red-in-the-face lorry driver running behind them,
dodging the traffic and shouting.
"He's still there!" She cried in dismay.
"I TOLD you we should have just got out and explained
to him what-"
"SHUT UP, SEAN!" Dom skidded into a side road.
The lorry wobbled dangerously.
"Oh, God… I don't wanna die!" Jess whinged,
clinging onto Elijah. "I'm too young!"
"Me too!" Elijah cried.
"And me!" Dom muttered, turning the steering wheel
suddenly.
"And me!" Sean added.
"And…oh." Billy didn't bother to finish his
sentence. Jess clambered over Dom's head and looked in the mirror
again.
"OW!"
"Sorry, Dom – but I think we've lost him!"
A resounding cheer went up in the lorry cab.
Suddenly Elijah, previously sitting quietly by the window, piped
up:
"Um…guys?" They all turned to look at him. "I
think we have company."
Sure enough, an irate lorry driver had caught hold of the
passenger wing mirror and was pressing his face against the
window, inches from them. He looked PISSED.
� Jess and Hannah 2002