Max tripped as his foot caught in the hem of his dress and fell headlong down the narrow staircase, yelping as the garment billowed out behind him in a mushroom of pink taffeta, ribbon and several metres of lace.

He thudded painfully down the last few steps and landed in a rumpled heap in the corridor, groaning. Stupid high heels, he thought, straightening up and wincing as his body discovered all of its lovely new bruises. How on earth do girls manage this all the time?

Clutching a throbbing left arm  to his seed-pearl embroidered bodice, he stumbled towards the door, other hand reaching out for the doorknob...Only to be barred by the forbidding figure of a tall, extraordinarily furious-looking girl. It took Max a moment to realise that this girl was, in fact, his older sister. It took him another moment to realise why she was practically foaming at the mouth with anger.

Unfortunately by the time this realisation had  been processed by Max's currently scrambled higher cognitive functions, his sister had already pinned him to the floor. She pushed a knee into his back  and twisted his silk- shawled arms behind his shoulder blades with the lightning-fast reflexes of a master-ninja. This was what came of ten years of karate lessons, Max thought ruefully. Maybe I should have done martial arts instead of photography.  

"Maxmillian Cooper" Max's sister hissed vengefully in his ear, (It was his left ear, if you wanted to know.) "Why, may I ask," she bent his arms a fraction further back than they were designed to go, "are you wearing MY BRIDESMAID'S DRESS?!" Max mumbled something indistinct. Well, his face was pressed into the floorboards, and his windpipe was being dangerously constricted.  

The pressure on his spine eased slightly as his sister allowed him a couple of centimetres of room and Max forced his head up to gasp for air. "Well," he choked, "It's a bit- of a long story." 

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