Sing For Me

Chapter Seventeen: Is This the Real Life?

Abbey has magical hearing - the kind that would make even an Orc-tracking Elf jealous. You know how I can tell? Because, I swear, the sewing machine in her room stops the second there's a knock at the door.

I'm all for ignoring it - the knock, I mean. Well... that, and literally everything else that has happened in my life in the past 24 hours. In fact, I'm about two shakes of a lamb's tail away from throwing myself back in bed as fast as humanly possible. But of course, before I grasp the chance to scoot back to the warmth of my bed, Abbey bounds to the door with her usual puppy-at-Christmas levels of excitement.

"Uhh, delivery for Meg?"

I peek around the kitchen door, eyes narrowed suspiciously.

I never get deliveries, and for a moment I'm half-expecting Abbey to be kidnapped by rogue vigilante pirates or something. But sure enough, framed in the doorway stands an ordinary delivery man. Or, rather – stands a massive garment bag. Behind which I can barely make out the buzzcut on what I assume is an ordinary delivery man's head.

"Delivery for Meg, yes, th-thats us," Abbey respond, right before I'm about to open my mouth to tell him that he obviously has the wrong address because I never get packages – let alone packages so big you could probably cram a full-sized human into them..

I narrow my eyes. This whole thing is getting hella suspicious.

Abbey's hand shakes as she signs for the package and the delivery man drapes the garment bag over our sofa, before placing a couple of smaller boxes just inside the door.

When Abbey closes the front door, she turns and looks at me, her eyes as round as beach balls.

My eyes narrow even further.

Wait... what exactly am I missing here?

"L-look!" she says, her voice all shaky.

"There's no way this is for me, Abbey. It's probably for someone else."

Abby shakes her head. "Nuh-uh. Look at the label."

I creep into the lounge for a closer look at the package.

I mean, it's clear just from the packaging that whatever is inside is something I couldn't afford in a million years.

But when I finally get close enough to read the label on the bag, my mouth just about drops to the floor.

Even if you were me, and you had legit never read an edition of The Goss in your whole damn life, there would be no way in the world you wouldn't recognise the name on that bag.

"Is that..." My mouth is suddenly dry - too dry to finish my sentence, it seems.

Abbey starts to jump from foot to foot – she even lets out a little excited whimper - and my brain is yet to recover enough to actually process what the heck is going on - but despite everything, Trix is still standing in the hallway, watching us from a distance, leaning against the wall like she's an ice-cold supermodel.

She's the epitome of Ice Queen, that is - until the moment she notices the label on one of the smaller boxes the delivery man placed by the door.

She makes a beeline for it.

"Holy sh–" Trix is just about to finish her curse when Abbey finally blows her top and screams, jumping around like a maniac.

"OH MY GOD, MEG – do you have any idea how much I've wanted to see one of these in person?"

I'm still... kind of confused as to how this is all happening right now. Maybe it's my lack of caffeine. Maybe it's just hard for me to rub two brain cells together when my whole world's just been turned upside down.