by Lollie Barr
‘Debs,’ Evelyn would intone, her thin voice verging on hysteria, ‘is your hand superglued down that Pringles tube?’ Debs would ignore her and take another mouthful and munch loudly with her mouth open.
While Evelyn always thought she was doing the right thing by helping – read criticising – her nagging had driven Debs to becoming everything her mum hated, so her mother had something to actually criticise her about. The war had been going on for years and it felt totally normal in the Dean household to be at someone else’s throat.
Whether this was what had driven Clive Dean to take off interstate with Evelyn’s oldest friend, Annie Suthers, was still debatable. The girls would be packed off during the holidays and then be expected to bond with a man who never took a day off while they were there, so the television, junk-food ritual would continue as usual for Debs, just not under Evelyn’s disapproving gaze.
At least when she was Queen of Year 10 Cat could put the family dramas behind her and actually feel good about herself. Now the brutal reality hit home: she was so damn miserable, she was actually glad that Wanda the boffin, Mand the mouth, Belle the snob and Maggie the dag, were coming to her house today.
She rarely had the Us Crew over because she couldn’t bear the cruel comments she always ended up making about Debs because she felt so embarrassed by her. She hated herself for being so weak. At least she could get away with having a fat sloth of a sister with the Mag Hags because they were all so uncool.
Maggie arrived carrying a big folder with their flat plan and the production notes. Then came Wanda and Mand (who wasn’t last to arrive for a change). They were sitting around the kitchen table chatting when Belle came in looking freaked out, and not contributing much to begin with while they went through what stage the magazine was at.
‘Are you okay, Belle?’ said Maggie after a while. ‘You seem a little quiet today.’
‘Not really,’ Belle said, her chin starting to quiver involuntarily. ‘My dad’s arranged a date for the wedding! They announced it last night. Dad stood there with his arms around Reanne’s shoulders like he was the luckiest man in the world, while she performed her sickening sweet and innocent act, “Oh, Adi-Poo, you complete me.”’
‘Are you sure you can’t talk to your dad?’ asked Maggie sensibly. ‘Tell him how you feel and what the girls overheard at Glitz?’
‘Fat lot of good that would do,’ said Belle. ‘When I tried to tell him how left out I felt because Reanne wouldn’t give us time alone, he just brushed it off with a wave of his hand and said, “Secret women’s business”, like I wanted to discuss my period or something.’
‘When is the wedding?’ said Wanda.
‘Five weeks’ time, the day after the magazine is due, which is a bit suspect as my dad should be doing the deal on The Vultron the very next week and his company will be worth a fortune. They’re having it at the house. My brother, Zeb, is even coming home from boarding school for it and he never comes home.’ Belle looked as though she was trying hard not to cry. ‘I can’t believe it. Reanne Rowles is actually going to be my stepmother.’
‘So, it’s your dad that’s marrying Reanne Rowles?’ said Debs, suddenly appearing in the kitchen. Even though she was a big girl, she had an uncanny, stealth-like ability to sneak up on people like a phantom and dive into a conversation.
‘Debs!’ said Cat, turning to glare at her sister. ‘I don’t remember inviting you to join in our conversation.’
‘Well, you won’t want to know then …’ said Debs, arching her eyebrow.
‘Know what, Debs?’ said Cat. ‘You never leave that sofa. What could you possibly know about Reanne?’
‘Well, I know that Reanne used to date Sol Stevens,’ said Debs. ‘And that they must be very good friends, judging by the time she spends at his place in the daytime.’
‘Who’s Sol Stevens?’ said Belle. ‘I know that name.’
‘I told you about him, remember?’ said Mand. ‘He’s one of Reanne’s old boyfriends.’
‘He runs Out for Kicks, that martial arts studio down in the industrial estate,’ said Cat. ‘He’s a kung-fu expert or something. Built like a brick shithouse and the brains of one too, but he’s kind of nice. He and his mum, Shirl, live across the road from us.’
‘Actually, it’s kickboxing and I think he’s pretty hot in a macho kind of way,’ said Debs, who at nineteen was still a virgin and fancied anyone in trousers. ‘Anyway, I saw Shirl at the post office last week, and she was saying how much she missed having Reanne around, which surprised me as she is always around when Shirl’s at work.’
‘Now listen carefully,’ said Cat very slowly, as though she was talking to a slow stupid person. ‘Have you ever seen them kiss or anything?’
‘Cut the patronising tone, little sister, or I’ll make like a clam and you know, like, clam up,’ said Debs.
‘No, please,’ said Belle clasping her hands together as if she was praying. ‘This is really important.’
‘Well, no, I’ve never seen them exchange any spit or anything, but I always wondered if there was anything going on. If she was so close to Shirl, why she never visited when Shirl was home.’
‘This could be the missing piece in the puzzle,’ said Belle. ‘What if she’s still seeing Sol? Oh my god Debs, you’re a genius!’
Everybody started talking at once. The conspiracy theories were flying around the room. Every statement started with a ‘What if …’ Debs was in the middle of the action, telling the girls everything she had heard from Shirl about Reanne, and the girls filled her in on how Reanne was going to send Belle to boarding school, and her plan to spend all Belle’s Dad’s money.
‘Look, I’ll get the goss from Shirl – that woman loves a good gossip,’ said Debs, suddenly feeling as though she was part of the gang as well.
With all the drama and intrigue, it was incredible that the girls managed to get any work done on their magazine at all, but as Maggie was taking her role as editor seriously she called the meeting to order and got everyone to knuckle down to writing or designing, while Debs went back to the lounge to vegetate in front of the box and kill a few more brain cells.
‘So where do we meet up next?’ asked Wanda at the end of the day. ‘We’ve been to everyone’s house.’
‘We could always go back to my place,’ said Belle, hoping to fill some of the emptiness she felt when she was alone there.
‘Only if you can get your dad’s chauffeur this time,’ said Mand, laughing. ‘I don’t want to hike up your driveway again!’
Belle walked into her father’s study on Monday night to find him sitting at the huge oak table he used as a desk. Adrian often used to work late, but when Reanne came along, he stopped working at night and instead hung out with her watching DVDs in the movie theatre in the basement of the house. There had been a time when Belle used to sit in her father’s study as he worked; she would sprawl on the big cream sofa, drawing pictures in her sketchpad. Sometimes they didn’t talk for hours but it felt great just being in each other’s company.
Tonight Reanne was visiting friends, so Belle and her dad had the house to themselves. Belle went into forewarn him that there would be five teenage girls coming over tomorrow to work on the magazine.
‘Sweetie, that’s fine. Reanne and I will be at the club,’ said her father. ‘Reanne wants me to meet Georgia, the wedding planner. I’m quite happy for her to organise the whole shebang but she wants me to come along so I feel involved. Did she mention that she wanted you to be the flower girl?’
‘Yeah, right, give me a break!’ snapped Belle. ‘Isn’t the flower girl, like, usually five?’
‘Bridesmaid, flower girl, whatever,’ said Adrian impatiently. ‘Look, Reanne wants to include you in our plans, even if you don’t seem happy we’re getting married.’
‘Dad, it’s glaringly obvious that Reanne has no plans to include me in anything. The sooner she is rid of me, the better.’
‘I’m not going to get into another argument a
bout Reanne. She’s the woman I’m going to marry and she only ever says the nicest things about you, Belle.’ Her father’s tone that indicated the conversation was now dead and buried. ‘Look, sweetie, I was going to suggest that you and your girlfriends use my study for your meetings. I rarely use it these days and I know how passionate you are about this magazine. You could have it as your HQ. Come and go as you please. And give the girls a go on The Vultron. I’m coming home to pick up Reanne at around 5.30. Give me a call and I’ll come and set it up for you. I’d be interested in what they think of the games we’ve devised for teenage girls.’
Belle had to soften a little bit. Her dad was very considerate, even if he could be incredibly gullible and was about to marry the bimboest bimbo of them all.
‘Thanks, Dad, the girls will love that,’ she said, giving him a big hug.
‘And darling,’ said Adrian, who hated to ever upset his little princess. ‘Belle, you’re my daughter, you mean more to me than anything. Nothing will ever change that.’
‘Yeah Dad, I know,’ she lied, knowing that if she didn’t get some proof on Reanne, everything would change, and fast. ‘Night.’
Belle went up to her bedroom and lay down on her bed. After she was expelled from King Xavier’s, her father had given her the option to move into any of the eight vacant bedrooms in the mansion and make it her own, but Corabelle settled on a smallish guestroom on the third level. After three years of sharing with other girls at boarding school, she felt exposed in the huge grand bedrooms of the Askew Mansion.
Unlike most teenagers’ rooms, there were no posters on the wall, no stereo, no piles of junk piled high. Just a very neat, very minimalist room with a desk. The only part of Belle’s personality on display was a solitary framed photograph sitting by her bedside of a six-year old Belle, sitting on her mother’s lap.
The sun had caught the golden hues of both mother and daughter’s auburn hair and the brightness of their blue-green eyes, as Lisette had wrapped her arms tightly around her daughter, who was looking up at her and smiling. When Belle felt sad and alone, she would mentally put herself into that photo. She would climb inside the frame and crawl into her mother’s lap where she would feel safe and secure.
Her arms became her mother’s arms as she wrapped them tightly around herself and she would mimic the smile just like the one she had in a photograph, when she was like every other girl who had a mother.
Just before Lisette died, she had asked Belle to make a promise. ‘You’ve just got to promise me that you’ll be happy’ she had said, and Belle had promised with all of her heart. But Belle didn’t feel happy, she felt like she had been seriously ripped off. Seeing other girls with their mothers shopping in Glitz, drinking coffee in cafés, sitting together on the bus, made her feel lonely. Which is what she felt right now. Horribly, terribly alone and not even crawling into the photograph could help.
No matter how much Belle had tried to protect her feelings by not feeling, they ended up getting hurt anyway.
The following afternoon the girls were picked up by Pierson from the designated spot that Belle used about five hundred metres from the school gate, so they could get back to the house pronto. Belle sat in the front seat (she wouldn’t give that up for anybody), while the rest of the girls sat in the back feeling like little Lady Mucks on their way to the castle.
Belle had gotten up really early to sort out Adrian’s study. She had printed out The Mag Hag logo in pink on her dad’s fancy printer and stuck it on the door, as if claiming the study as her own office. She had emptied a filing cabinet and brought the speakers down from her bedroom, so that the girls could plug in their MP3s and have music playing while they worked.
When the girls arrived they had no idea that they were about to get their very own Mag Hag nerve centre. So when Belle led them upstairs to the office, they nearly died of shock when they saw the logo on the door.
‘What’s going on?’ asked Mand as they walked into the very professional-looking office and saw a big wooden table with five chairs around it.
‘My dad said we could have his office as our headquarters,’ said Belle, slightly worried that the girls would think she was showing off. ‘That’s if you want to …’
‘Far out!’ said Wanda, grinning. ‘That’s so cool. Mag Hag Central, I love it!’
‘Our very own office,’ said Mand feeling very grownup all of a sudden. ‘That, like, rocks the big one.’
Belle tuned into some obscure internet station that played chill-out music and blasted out some beats as the girls got down to work. Belle and Wanda began laying up the features that had already been submitted; Maggie and Mand got stuck into the writing, while Cat researched her Celebrity Love Map page on Belle’s dad’s computer. After two hours of working hard on their magazine, Belle told the girls she had a special treat for them. ‘My dad said it would be okay if you girls had a go on The Vultron.’
‘You’re kidding me,’ said Cat, whose mind instinctively turned to Nate – at least they’d have something to talk about if she got a turn. ‘I’m definitely into that.’
The other girls were just as excited, even Maggie who usually condemned computer games as mindless rubbish designed to keep the dull and stupid, well, dull and stupid and away from books.
‘Okay, I’ll just call Dad, he should be home by now. He’ll get us sorted with all the technical details,’ said Belle, picking up her mobile and calling Adrian. She talked on the phone as she led the girls downstairs and into a mini movie theatre. There was a proper movie screen and six fat, red, leather seats, which even had a container for your soft drink and popcorn. The girls looked around, amazed that anybody could have a movie theatre in their own home.
‘What’s that?’ Cat pointed at a metallic silver suit, covered completely in wires and circuitry, hanging on a reinforced-steel coathanger.
‘When you’re wearing it,’ explained Belle, ‘you sense and feel everything that is happening in the game. It’s like you’re experiencing it for real.’
‘Welcome, ladies,’ said Adrian, walking into the room five minutes later. ‘This is my other little baby – apart from Corabelle – The Vultron, which you may have seen on the Channel 19 news. Now, who wants to be first to have a go?’
Mand and Cat’s hands shot up like two five-year-olds being asked who knew the answer to two plus two.
‘How about you?’ said Adrian to Wanda as he had a dislike for pushy people, although he could definitely be counted as one himself.
‘I’d love a go,’ said Wanda shyly.
‘Okay, the first thing you’ve got to do is slip into the virtual reality suit.’ Adrian took the silver suit off the hanger and handed it to Wanda.
‘What game would you like to play – At the Oscars, Mermaid, Passion Fashion, Fairy World or Rock Chick Rox?’ asked Belle, who’d obviously played all of them.
‘At the Oscars sounds fun,’ replied Wanda. ‘Is this the one you were talking about on the news, Mr Askew, where you get to walk up the red carpet with Cassius O’Delay?’
‘Yes, the one and only,’ said Adrian, lifting what looked like a giant black motorbike helmet, with a plethora of higgledy-piggledy-squiggledy wires onto Wanda’s head. ‘You’ll be manipulating the female lead, Tara Stone, so feel free to move about.’
Adrian fiddled with some knobs and switches on the control panel, which sat alongside a computer. Then, on the big screen appeared Cassius, his set of Hollywood pearly-white teeth blinding all with their otherworldly glow.
‘That dress is so becoming on you,’ said the virtual Cassius, turning to Tara Stone, who sat beside him in the limousine. ‘You’re one of the most beautiful women on earth. I’m so glad you agreed to be my date.’
‘Thank you, the pleasure is all mine,’ responded a giggling Wanda from beneath the mask.
‘Ready for the paparazzi?’ asked Cassius, stepping out of the limo. He reached out and took the hand of the beautiful starlet dressed in a clinging white dress and enough bli
ng to outshine a rapper with too many gold records.
Wanda then took small steps so the starlet walked up the red carpet. The camera cut to paparazzi calling out for Tara and Cassius. Wanda then started posing for the cameras as a hundred flashes lit up the screen. ‘Enough now, boys,’ said Wanda and continued up the carpet.
‘Do you think you’ll win Best Actress for A Moment In Time?’ said Cassius. ‘The critics are already calling it a legendary performance.’
‘Oh, I feel pretty confident,’ said Wanda in a seductively low voice.
The next scene was inside the theatre as Wanda made her way through the giant auditorium filled with stars. The girls were cracking up at the facial expressions that came on the screen. Wanda was obviously enjoying herself, waving and smiling and calling out to her favourite screen heroes like they were old friends. Then came the award for best actress – cut to famous actress Salem Green reading out the nominations as the four famous actresses, including Wanda, fidgeted nervously.
‘And the winner is …’ said the virtual Salem Green. ‘… Tara Stone.’
‘Oh my god! Oh my god!’ Wanda was ecstatic. ‘I haven’t got a speech prepared. But I like to thank my mum, my dad, my cat Snuggles, my therapist … Jeez, Wanda Hong who made my dress and the Mag Hags for making me famous.’
Wanda grabbed her trophy and walked back to her table to snog Cassius (seeing Wanda’s tongue come poking out of her mouth had the girls in hysterics), and then the game ended. Wanda emerged with a megawatt smile that any star would be proud of.
‘That. Was. Un-freaking-believable,’ said Wanda. ‘It really felt like I was there. It was freaky, man, freaky!’
The rest of the afternoon was spent exploring different worlds on The Vultron. Each of the girls played a different game. Maggie became a mermaid and swam to the depths of the deep blue ocean, dodging sharks and swimming with dolphins. Mand was a rock chick playing to 50,000 screaming fans (her air guitar was actually very impressive); while Cat loved being a supermodel posing on the catwalks of Paris.
