Page 55 of Daydreams & Doughnut Cake

Maisie nodded and ran over to the car. She pulled open the back door and called, ‘She’s asleep! We’ll have to give it to her later.’

‘It’s a miracle,’ grinned Ellie.

I smiled. ‘Are you feeling better now you’ve decided you don’t need to be Supermum?’

She nodded. ‘Much better. And thank you for today.’

‘No problem. I’m just glad everything’s okay.’

As we drove away, I was thinking about Maisie. Ellie appearing in her pyjamas would have shown Maisie just how worried her mum had been.

I had a feeling that things were going to be much better between them from now on...

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

It was the night of the show at Maisie’s school, and I’d left Amelie with Pauline and Nigel next-door for a few hours so I could be there.

Unfortunately, Ellie’s usual babysitter had let them down at the last moment, so Zak had been forced to come along by himself while Ellie stayed at home to look after Isla. I knew how sad Maisie would be that her mum wouldn’t be in the audience watching, and I had nervous butterflies in my stomach as I sat there next to Zak, waiting for the lights to go down.

‘I wanted to stay with Isla myself so that Ellie could come along,’ Zak explained. ‘But she said I should just go and that she would try and sort something out.’

‘I really hope she does.’

He nodded wearily. ‘Maisie doesn’t know about the babysitter cancelling. She’s going to be so disappointed not to see Ellie here.’ He handed me the programme to read. ‘It’s a take on Pride & Prejudice with modern music.’

I nodded. ‘Ironically, just the sort of thing Ellie would love.’

The lights went down at that moment and the show began.

Even though I kept glancing behind me at the door from time to time, checking for Ellie’s arrival, I still found myself getting thoroughly engrossed in the show.

I was especially eager to see the first ball scene, when the gathered assembly of dancers swept onto the stage in all their finery. Maisie looked amazing in her ball gown. Very regal. We’d done a great job on that charity shop dress. The starched petticoat made the dress balloon out softly so that it had the shape of a traditional crinoline. Her dress was the best of all, I decided (Biased? Me?)

The dancers were now forming a rectangle, facing each other in their couples. This must be thequadrilleMaisie had told me about, which had sounded rather complicated to me. She’d said it had taken them ages to learn it because people kept going the wrong way and twirling when they weren’t supposed to. But she’d reassured me that they’d been practising really hard so that it would be perfect on the night.

So far, it seemed to be going as planned. But just then one of the ‘men’ turned completely the wrong way and bumped into another couple, who staggered back and completely lost the rhythm of the dance.

At that, there were gasps from the audience, followed by a few chuckles.

The partner of the boy who’d gone wrong then pulled him very firmly back into position, at which point a ripple of laughter went round the audience.

Well done, Maisie! Get that ratbag into line!

I was still smiling to myself as the scene ended and the dancers were departing.

From what Maisie had told me, Reuben hated being laughed at. Even though his slip-up in the dance was nothing to do with Maisie, it still qualified as sweet revenge in my opinion! His mates would no doubt have great fun teasing him about it...

I was sad, though, that Ellie hadn’t been there to see Maisie dance. I glanced back at the door to check once again – and this time, to my delight, there she was! She was standing just inside the door, looking around the audience.

When I waved at her, she smiled and came hurrying down the aisle in the middle. She had to squeeze past people’s knees and say ‘sorry’ a lot before she finally got to her seat. Zak moved along one and she slipped into the seat between us.

She had a quick word with Zak, then she turned to me and whispered, ‘Jaz is looking after Isla overnight, so we’ll be able to take Maisie out for pizza after the show.’

‘Really? Oh, she’ll love that.’

‘Has she been on already?’

I nodded. ‘But she’ll be on again later.’

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