Rebecca's Rules by Anna Carey

pulled downsome glittering covers over the wheels so it looked like a fancy table. Lots of camera flashes started going off as people tried to take photos. The pony looked crosser and crosser and then, when Vanessa flung her arms around its neck so the camera crew could get a close up, it just lost its temper (who could blame it?) and sort of reared up. Vanessa shrieked and fell back, but unfortunately (for her, not for us – we found this all very entertaining) she fell right back into the cart/table. Which meant she fell right back into the giant pile of cupcakes, which tumbled to the ground along with Vanessa herself.
    It was madness. Vanessa was lying there on a pile of squashed cakes, covered in more of the cakes, shrieking all the while and kicking her legs about. Meanwhile, the pony had made a bid for freedom and was trotting across the room at a scarily fast pace.
    ‘Oh my God,’ said Cass. ‘It’s heading our way! Come on!’
    She jumped off her chair, and so did I, but it was like Alice was frozen. She just stood there, petrified, staring at the pony.
    ‘Come on, Alice!’ I shouted. And then she jumped. But she was in such a panic she didn’t land properly. Instead, she sort of fell off the chair and crashed onto the ground.
    Everyone screamed, including me, but Alice herself didn’t. She just lay there looking very white and scared.
    ‘Oh my God,’ I said in horror. ‘She’s dead!’
    ‘No I’m not,’ said Alice, feebly. ‘But … ow! OW! I think … ow … I think something’s happened to my wrist.’ She tried to sit up as Sarah the producer pushed her way through the crowd (the pony, by the way, had been captured and taken out by its keepers. It looked very pleased with itself.). The cameras, I noticed, were still focused on Vanessa, who was trying to stand up but kept slipping on the cupcakes.
    ‘Oh God, this is all we need,’ muttered Sarah. ‘No, don’t move!’ she said to Alice. ‘We’ll have to get an ambulance.’
    ‘I don’t think I need an ambulance,’ said Alice. ‘I mean, it’s just my wrist.’
    ‘Better safe than sorry,’ said Sarah. ‘I’ll get the first-aid team anyway.’ She helped Alice get up and sit in the chair she’d just fallen off.
    By this stage, Vanessa was upright. She didn’t seem to have hurt herself (probably because the cakes broke her fall). But she was, of course, in a rage. Sarah’s assistant stayed with us as Sarah moved back to the camera crew. ‘Keep shooting!’ she cried. ‘Vanessa, can you tell us how you’re feeling?’
    ‘How do you think I’m feeling!’ screamed Vanessa, stamping a sparkly foot. She went on roaring at the camera whileher minion Caroline nervously tried to tell her that everything wasn’t that bad. I’m glad that she now knows the awfulness of falling over embarrassingly in public, after the fuss she made when I did it.
    But I wasn’t thinking about that at the time. I was just thinking about poor Alice. The first aider had checked her out and agreed that there didn’t seem to be anything seriously wrong but that she should go to hospital straight away. So she was taken off in one of the crew’s fancy jeep things to hospital while the rest of us just sat there.
    ‘Do you think she’ll be okay?’ asked Cass, nervously.
    ‘Well, they did say it was just her wrist,’ I said. But still, that’s bad enough. She did look very pale and stunned.
    The party didn’t last long after that. I think the TV people just wanted to get lots of footage of Vanessa going mad. The band didn’t bother playing. The caterers brought out more trays of food so we all just hung around for an hour or so eating it and talking. Jane had found us after Alice was taken away and apologised for what she’d just taken part in.
    ‘I had no choice,’ she said. ‘But you should know that I did want to get sick throughout.’
    ‘So did we,’ said Cass.
    ‘I nearly did,’ I said.
    We exchanged numbers with Jane and promised to text