The Real Thing [antikvár]

Chapter OneI put the receiver down and felt panic rise. It shot through my body like a turbo-charged lift. My eyes glazed, my insides curdled.'Jesus!' I breathed.I glanced quickly at the kitchen clock. One o'clock. One o'clock! Only two hours to go.'What? What's happened?' demanded Laura, bent at right-angles over my kitchen table, her icing bag poised precariously above the dinosaur's left eyeball.'Spotty Lottie's got cystitis!' I yelped.Laura's icing bag quivered nervously and she inadvertently gave Tyrannosaurus Rex a squint. 'Spotty Lottie?' she demanded. 'Who's that - a dog?''The entertainer, you fool,' I hissed, running my hands through my hair till it stood on end, and rising from the table like a sea monster coming up from the depths. 'For Clemmie's party! The female equivalent of Paul Daniels for four-year-olds has cancelled - says she can't possibly come, because she's welded to the loo seat. Oh God, Laura, what am I going to do?' My hands left my dark curls and began to wring desperately. 'In precisely two hours' time, seventeen four-year-olds will be thundering through that door,' I pointed a quivering finger, 'demanding white rabbits, puppet shows and hideously twisted balloons, and all I'll have to offer them are some Mar mite sandwiches and a few bowls of Hula Hoops. I'll be lynched!''Oh, is that all?' My sister calmly flicked back her long blonde hair and resumed her icing. 'For a moment I thought something awful had happened. I mean, you don't have to have an entertainer, do you? Just play a few jolly games and give them a piece of soggy cake in a napkin like Mum used to. They're only four, for God's sake.''Jolly games? Soggy cake?' I gave a hollow laugh and sank back down on my chair again.I regarded Laura in her casual yet immaculate navy-blue linen ensemble, which somehow reeked of taking the day off from one's PR agency to help at one's niece's party but not sinking to leggings,1