us had to do was arrange our feet and stand still, and people naturally assumed we could all do the same. ‘So we hang on to the walls and leave the flashy stuff to the real skaters?’
Poppy’s grinning. ‘That’s it.’
Except the next ten minutes prove me wrong. The skater dresses turn out to be skimpy stretchy cheerleader dresses rather than 50s-style knee-length ones in unflattering shades of dayglow, which probably wasn’t even invented back then. As for me thinking I’d get the biggest because I’m the tallest by half an inch and the most curvy – wrong! In the end, Immie claims the longest due to having the widest waist, and I’m left with a skirt that’s marginally shorter than my pyjama top and jaw-droppingly pink in the worst way.
Immie’s waving her arms about, wildly shaking the silver foil pompoms on elastic bands on her wrists. ‘These are going to play havoc when I’m sinking my pints, they’ll dangle in the beer.’
Poppy’s biting her lip the way she does when she’s trying not to laugh. ‘All ready to skate into the party then?’
I’m staring down at boots two sizes too small. ‘I might do better if I could feel my feet.’ Then I flick my frown to a beam. ‘But – yay! Let’s go for it!’
As we start to inch our way along, hanging off the changing room hooks, Poppy lets out a moan. ‘This isn’t anything like when we messed around in the village as kids.’
A nanosecond later, my feet whoosh from under me and my bottom thuds onto the lino. ‘It’s the wheels – these pro skates are extra whizzy!’ That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.
Another thud, and Immie lands beside me. ‘With floors this smooth we’re buggered.’
Put it this way – without one of the Falmouth skaters to open the door for us we’d never have made it out into the gym.
She grins at us as we pass. ‘We’re so grateful. Just leave the fast work to us! Have fun, don’t over stretch!’
‘We won’t!’ We’re crawling past her on our hands and knees, exchanging WTF? glances.
Poppy hisses. ‘Stay like this, and skirt around the edge?’
Immie’s nodding. ‘Head straight for the bar. It’s down the front, by the wedding cake and the drive-in cars.’
No idea how she’s so good at her directions when all we can see are a forest of legs, pumps, and sneakers, but I add my bit. ‘Anywhere near the cherry muffins is good.’
As wedding parties go, it’s a bit back-to-front. During the hot dogs and mass dancing, we sit at a group of tables with black-and-white-checked table cloths, and pretty floral decorations made from pink carnations in sundae glasses. We stick out our skates so people can see them, waggle our pompoms and say ‘howdy’ to the guys, who all seem to be in white T-shirts and tight jeans, making their way for beers and bottles of coke. This also gives Immie a chance to get well ahead on her beer-drinking while I make a dent in the muffin stack and the ice-cream sundaes.
The bride and groom are the spitting image of the stars from Grease and halfway through the evening, Betty/Sandy nips out and swaps her white knee-length lace and tulle wedding dress for some slinky black satin capri-pants that are so tight and shiny they could have been sprayed on. And then, even though they’ve already been rocking all night, they have their first dance, to You’re the One That I Want, wooohooohoo which couldn’t have been any more fabulously choreographed. And it’s so amazing, they do five encores.
By which time, someone’s reminded us there are brake pads on the toes of the skates, so we finally attempt to move. Immie goes closer to the bar, and Poppy and I manage to tiptoe across enough open floor to admire the pastel-coloured buttercream rosette piping and the jiving bride and groom on top of the gorgeous four-tier cake she made, which will take centre stage in the cake cutting ceremony very shortly.
Then we find ourselves a very shiny turquoise blue convertible car, drape ourselves over it, and try to look obvious.
I grin at Poppy as I watch the real skaters swirling between bodies at top speed, skating backwards, spinning to a halt with their trays of drinks and ice creams. ‘This is great.’ My arm’s wedged over the car window so it’s like I’m superglued. ‘If we jiggle our pompoms in time to the music, we look like we’re pros taking