A Wild Rose

8 - Party Planning

Chapter 8

Party Planning

I was on my way to the palace yet again, to help Suzanna. The ball in celebration of her and Alexander's marriage was soon to be held, and she was insisting that I come and help her. I had always wanted to help set up a party, though, of course, this was something a lot more important than that.

When I got there, there was no one to greet me except the butler, who showed me in, exlaining that Suzanna was lost in thoughts already, and that he would take me to her. I couldn't help but smile as I thought of Suzanna whizzing around, burbling out her plans for her dress to the dressmaker, then dashing off to tell the cooks exactly what needed to be done, and running to anyone else she could find to tell them what to do.

Suzanna liked telling people what do to. So did I. But whilst Suzanna made no attempt to hide her bossyness and authorititive personality, I had my more ... subtle ways of going about it. Unless someone really did wind me up, in which case they'd recieve a punch in the face. Or if I was just having a laugh, which both George and Suzanna seemed to have gotten their fair share of it.

When I went in, the main hall was decorated with bronze and golden banners, and everything seemed to sparkle just that little bit more. There were ornaments and objects huddled in the corners, ready to be put out on the night of the ball. As the butler led me through,  saw that no corner had been overlooked in the job. The palace was decorated perfectly for the summertime event it was hosting.

"And that goes there ... or ... wait ... no. Argh!" I almost snorted with laughter hearing Suzanna's furstrated voice. A quickly glance up at the butler told me that he was holding in laughter too. Though, of course, he was trained to do so, whilst I was not.

"Someone's getting stressy."

Suzanna looked up, and the butler bowed before leaving us. Without even smiling, Suzanna stormed over to me, and dragged me into the room, pointing at all of the pieces of paper and post-it notes she had used, scattered all over the tables and chairs.

"Paper and post-it notes, yes. Lots of them." I said, still trying not to laugh, putting on a mocking bewilderment face. She groaned, and flapped her hands about. "Writing, ok, notes for the ball." She groaned again, and I couldn't help but giggle a little. "A little bit of actual verbal communication would be nice. It's called English."

"Ah! I'msostressed! Ican'tthinkofanythingright! Adathisballisgoingtopots! Andandandand ..."

"Hello?" I suggested.

"Yes, hello. Hello, hello, hello. I need your help."

"I can see that."

We stood there staring at each other for a moment, Suzanna looking at me with desperate pleading, me looking at he incredulously. And then we both burst out laughing, even though Suzanna's faded quickly as she went back to frenzied panicking. She really was into this.

"What have and haven't you got sorted, then?"

"Well, I've got catering and food under control. I think, decoration are going well." I raised my eyebrows. From what I'd seen they were more than going well. "Ok, they're going amazingly. But I still need to get the invitations list, and get them printed, and sort out the music. Ooh, and want us to sort out our dresses together."

"Wow, you're keen."

"I'm being a perfectionist, I know. But this needs perfecting. Now, seeing as you've arrived, we can start doing a fun job. How about listening to music to choose what goes on the list? I mean, should be have a certain period of music, or should we just have mix and match? I know we'll need a lot of waltzes, but -"