Threads by Sophia Bennett Page A

and Yvette quickly bond like old school-friends and get busy making plans to see each other again and go to a bistro Yvette knows where they make proper café crème .
    ‘What about Rebecca?’ I whisper to Crow in the taxi on the way back from the Ritz. ‘Aren't you due to deliver another batch of dresses? You know she just sold out of the last lot.’
    Crow shrugs nonchalantly and looks out of the window. I'm shocked. She can be quite ruthless when she knows what she wants. Rebecca's clients will have to wait.
    If I were Crow, I'd be worried sick about letting people down, but everything seems to be remarkably simple inher world. It occurs to me that she probably won't even bother to mention that she's going away. Dogsbody over here had better do it.
    I spend the rest of the journey working out the best way of breaking the bad news. Crow puts her head against the taxi window and within two minutes is asleep, clearly dreaming of Dior and smiling quietly to herself in anticipation.

B efore we go to Granny's, Crow and Jenny come up with a design for a dress to wear at the National Film Awards that, for once, won't make her look like some sort of hunchback mutant. Yvette comes over and, with Granny in attendance, shows Crow how to pad out her tailor's dummy to Jenny's precise measurements and start fitting the pieces of calico that will form the pattern of the dress.
    It's not going to be quite as loose and dreamy as the things Crow's been designing so far. It's going to have a very fitted bodice and a skirt with lots of petticoats. (‘Very New Look,’ in Granny's happy opinion. Dior, not High Street.) Skye and Crow go on an extended shopping trip to find the perfect silk to make it with and Jenny writes an ENORMOUS cheque for the fabric.
    By the time we come back, Crow will only have two weeks to make the dress. But she seems, as ever, relaxed about managing it. I still can't quite believe we're relyingon a twelve-year-old to rescue Jenny from her fashion nightmares. But the worst that can happen is that she'll look incredibly stupid on the red carpet and the boy she fancies won't talk to her and thousands of people will write nasty things about her in magazines and on the internet. And that's already happened.
    I had all sorts of plans for the rest of the holidays – loads of friends to see, a festival to go to and a couple of very promising parties. But this was before Crow took over my life. Granny's house is in the depths of the country and there isn't a café or a cinema for miles. The nearest villagers probably wouldn't know a smoothie if it was piped through the tap. I predict being so thoroughly bored that I'm reduced to packing next term's Eng. Lit. syllabus so I can start on my reading.
    Crow's satchel is even heavier than my bag and once I've carried it in from the car to her new room, I simply have to peek inside. It turns out she's brought her Singer sewing machine. I think it's her version of a teddy bear. And the history of the House of Dior. She's on chapter two.
    Granny's home is enormous, old and crumbly. There are, for example, nine rooms that could be bedrooms, although only five of those have beds in and only three have beds in that you might ever want to sleep in. It was great for riding our bikes in when Harry and I were small, but once you've done things like wash your granny's oldtights in the sink in the laundry room, it tends to lose its charm. It's also freezing, even in August. I'm glad I've brought a couple of Crow's magic Arctic-cobweb jumpers. They're super-warm and make the stay possible. I think she owes me this at least.
    Most of the downstairs rooms are grand, but when we visit we tend to live in the kitchen, which was last decorated in 1972, when Granny had some spare cash that wasn't required for ‘basics’ like Roger Vivier evening slippers. I last visited the attics when I was about five and had no idea that two of the rooms (there are several) are floor-to-ceiling cotton bags,