Brilliant Besties

by Chrissie Perry

  When they finished, Iris clapped so hard her hands stung.

  ‘Careful,’ said Caleb. ‘Don’t want you to bruise your fingers until we’ve done our bit.’

  Iris and Jess rolled their eyes at him and went on clapping.

  Iris was standing backstage listening to a trumpet solo when Jess tugged on her sleeve. ‘That was the second to last performance. We’re next!’

  They looked at each other and started jumping up and down, flapping their arms and wobbling their heads.

  ‘What are you crazy girls up to now?’ asked Caleb.

  ‘Shaking out the nerves, of course,’ Iris whispered back at him.

  ‘Well, you can stop it right now. They’re clapping, which means we’ll be on stage in ten seconds.’

  Iris and Jess stopped jumping and picked up their instruments.

  ‘Our last act is a three-piece band, featuring saxophone, African drum and classical guitar,’ they heard Libby announce. ‘May I introduce … The Left-overs!’

  Here goes, thought Iris.

  The moment Iris stepped out from behind the curtain and into the light, her nerves vanished. She could hear the audience shuffling in their seats, but the bright stage lights meant she could only see Jess and Caleb. There were two chairs — one for Jess and one for Caleb. She would stand.

  ‘Ready?’ whispered Jess, setting her drum between her knees. She began tapping out a lolloping beat, like a rabbit hip-hopping across the lawn.

  Iris tapped her foot along with it, and then Caleb started plucking out the melody on his guitar. There was a little pause, and then some laughter as the audience recognised the tune.

  It was Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. But it was nothing like what anyone had heard before.

  Jess hit her drum faster, and Caleb’s delicate picking became a rock and roll strum, and then Iris closed her eyes and let her saxophone sing out over the top. The sax swooped and soared, and as it sang, Iris heard herself telling the audience about how three left-over kids had learned to fit together in a totally new way.

  As they played, Iris wished it could last forever, but all too soon, it was over.

  After the concert, there was a supper before everyone went home.

  Iris’s mum and dad pushed their way through the crowd, beaming and waving. ‘Darling! You were incredible! I never knew you could play like that!’ Iris’s mum had tears in her eyes.

  ‘I didn’t either,’ grinned Iris.

  ‘Well done,’ said her dad, giving her a crushing hug. ‘I’m so proud of you.’

  ‘Where’s Kick?’ Iris asked, looking around.

  ‘Oh, he ran off to find your friend and try her drum.’

  ‘Iris!’

  Iris turned to see who had called her, and saw Amber edging sideways between groups of people. She had both hands high over her head, holding plates above the crowd.

  ‘I brought you some cake,’ she said, before she noticed Iris’s parents. ‘Hey, wasn’t Iris something?’

  ‘She sure was!’

  ‘What sort of thing?’ teased Iris.

  ‘Well, what would the word be?’ her dad teased back.

  ‘Look, here’s Kick. Let’s ask him. Hey, Kick — how was your sister with her sax?’

  Kick gave one of his hugest smiles and two thumbs up.

  ‘Cool!’ he yelled. ‘Iris is totally cool!’

  Iris laughed and laughed.

  So much for worrying they’d look silly at the concert! Maybe music wasn’t about winning or losing, or even being cool or not cool, but right now, Iris felt on top of the world!

  Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  ‘Hold still, Lola! If you keep wriggling around like that, Katya won’t be able to get your proper measurements.’

  Lola giggled. ‘But it tickles, Mum,’ she said. Her mum grinned back as Katya wrapped the tape measure around Lola’s waist. Lola’s eyes scanned the room.

  A big rack in the corner held lots of long dresses. Lola thought they all looked beautiful. She could see a dress with a frill that flicked out, almost touching the ground. If she crouched down from the stool she was standing on, she could see the sequins on the neckline of a powder blue dress on the end of the rack. They glittered like a thousand tiny stars, as though someone had pulled them out of the sky and sewn them on …

  ‘Lola, can you stand straight and tall for Katya?’ Lola’s mum asked.

  ‘If I measure you while you’re bobbing down like that, we’ll end up with a minidress,’ said Katya.

  ‘Oops, sorry,’ Lola said, straightening up so that Katya could measure the length from her waist to her knees.

  ‘So, let’s see,’ Katya said with a smile, glancing down at the picture that Lola and her mum had drawn together. ‘I think I may have the perfect fabric for this dress. Wait here for a minute.’

  As Katya ducked into the back room, Lola jumped down from the little stool and bumped, smack, into something.

  The something she’d bumped into was a dressmaker’s dummy.

  ‘Oh, hello Headless,’ she joked.

  There were three dressmaker’s dummies scattered around the room. They had no heads, and where their legs should have been was a pole on a stand.

  Two of the dummies wore half-finished dresses, but the one Lola bumped into was completely undressed, except for a thousand pins with pearl tips sticking into her.

  ‘Ouch, you poor thing,’ Lola laughed, nodding at Headless. ‘But don’t you think you should put some clothes on?’

  ‘Headless is going to help me with a wedding gown this afternoon,’ explained Katya. She stood at the door with her hands behind her back. ‘So, ladies,’ said Katya. ‘Are you ready to see what I found? It’s pretty special.’

  Lola clasped both hands together when she saw what Katya was holding.

  ‘Oh, it’s … it’s …’ Lola searched for the right word. Beautiful? Lovely? No word seemed quite good enough to describe the fabric Katya was holding out.

  It was Lola’s favourite colour in the whole world. Purple! The exact type of purple Lola had dreamt her dress would be. Not a mushy mauve, but something deeper and stronger … like a violet. As Katya pulled the material from the giant roll, Lola reached out to touch it. It was soft and smooth.

  ‘So, do you think this is OK?’ Katya asked.

  Lola sighed dreamily.‘It’s perfect,’ she said.

  ‘Good,’ Katya replied, picking up the drawing Lola and her mum had drawn. ‘When you come back in two weeks, I’ll have your dress ready for a fitting. Then, you can pick it up the week after that.’

  Lola screwed up her nose. Three weeks seemed a very long time to wait for her dress. She’d imagined herself walking out of the dressmaker’s with a beautiful gown, just like the one they had drawn.

  It seemed a little bit magic that you could draw a dress on a piece of paper, and someone could make it real for you. Almost like having a fairy godmother. Even if this fairy godmother was a little bit slow!

  ‘That might feel like a long time,’ Katya said, as though reading Lola’s mind, ‘but to make a special dress like this, I have to first create a pattern, then cut it out, then sew it all together.’

  As she spoke, Katya pointed past Headless to a large work table with scissors and brown cardboard and a sewing machine. That type of magic looked like a lot of hard work.

  ‘But I promise you, Lola,’ Katya said kindly, ‘the next time you come in you’ll be able to get an idea of how pretty you’re going to look. Now, I’m just going to pop out the back again to get my notebook.’

  As Katya left the room, Lola lifted the fabric and watched how it sort of floated down to the work table.

  ‘I can’t believe it’s actuall
y going to happen, Mum,’ she squealed.

  ‘Me neither,’ her mum laughed back, giving Lola a huge squeeze. ‘It’s like a dream come true!’

  As Lola hugged her mum, she thought back to the moment she’d first found out.

  Lola and Will had just come back from their karate class. She had been starving and the smell of a roast dinner in the oven was almost too much to bear. Lola’s mum, Helen, was humming a tune in the kitchen while Rex chopped up some beans.

  As soon as her mum walked into the lounge room, Lola knew something was up. Her mum was smiling, and the way she kept looking at Rex was different, somehow.

  ‘Guys. Sit down. We’ve got some news,’ she said.

  Lola sneaked a look at Will. He was doing his eyebrow thing. Will always raised his eyebrows when he was wondering about something. When he and Rex had first moved in, it used to annoy Lola. Now she was used to it and even kind of liked it.

  Lola sat next to Will and his raised eyebrows.

  ‘Well,’ Rex began in a very serious voice, ‘you know that Helen and I love each other very much.’

  ‘Daaad,’ Will groaned.

  Rex chuckled.‘Sorry, mate,’ he said, ruffling Will’s hair. ‘The thing is …’ He smiled at Lola’s mum and his voice trailed off.

  ‘The thing is,’ Lola’s mum picked up, ‘we’ve decided, well, as long as you kids are OK with it …’

  Lola threw her hands up in the air.‘What have you decided?’ she asked. Really, for grown-ups, the two of them were acting kind of silly.

  ‘We’ve decided …’ Rex said.

  ‘To get married!’ Lola’s mum exclaimed.

  ‘OK, Helen,’ Katya said, sitting at the work table with her notebook ready. ‘Did you get the measurements of the other flower girl? The one who lives interstate?’

  ‘Yes,’ Lola’s mum said, fishing around in her handbag for a piece of paper. ‘These are Tess’s measurements.’

  Lola scratched her head as Katya jotted the figures into her notebook. She had been so excited when her mum asked her to be a flower girl that she’d almost forgotten to breathe. She’d only ever been to one wedding before. It had been pretty cool. But this wedding was going to be the absolute coolest day of her entire life!

  In fact, she’d been so excited about it that she’d almost forgotten there was going to be a second flower girl.

  Tess was Will’s cousin, and she was going to fly down with her family the week before the big wedding.

  It was kind of weird to think that Will had cousins Lola hadn’t even met. All Lola knew was that Tess was a few years younger than her, and that she had a brother who was going to be a paige boy with Will.

  Lola grinned to herself. She knew lots of girls from school who were about Tess’s age. Her favourite was a little girl who was blonde and cute and a bit shy. Sometimes, Lola and her friends let her join in their games at lunchtime.

  Maybe Tess would be just like that?

  ‘Thanks, Katya,’ Lola’s mum interrupted her thoughts. ‘Hot chocolate time, Lola?’

  Lola nodded, and thoughts about Tess flew out of her mind.

  For the moment, anyway.

  Later that afternoon, Lola sat with her mum and her best friend Abbey in the lounge room. About a thousand magazines were strewn all over the coffee table. Will concentrated on tapping the buttons of his Game Boy. The tapping sound ran around the room.

  Abbey pushed her hair back and let out a massive sigh.

  ‘You are the luckiest duck in the universe, Loles!’ she said. ‘I wish my mum and dad would get married.’

  ‘But they’re already married,’ Lola’s mum reminded her.

  ‘Then I wish they’d get married again,’ Abbey giggled.

  Lola’s mum laughed. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘the wedding will be fun. But there’s a lot to organise. I definitely need a cup of tea before I continue.’

  ‘Yes please,’ Lola and Abbey said together.

  ‘Waiter, can I have a glass of milk?’Will added cheekily, continuing his Game Boy tap, tap, tap.

  Lola’s mum rolled her eyes. ‘OK Loles, while I’m gone, maybe you can have a look at some flowers for you and Tess. Perhaps you could come up with some ideas of what might go with your purple dresses.’ As soon as Lola’s mum had left the room, Abbey started acting crazy. ‘Look what I found,’ she whispered.

  Lola stared as Abbey pulled out a brochure that was tucked away in the back of a bridal magazine. She noticed the title first. ‘Hawaiian Honeymoon Bliss’ was written in big, bold letters across the top of the brochure. Underneath the words, there was a picture of a lovely beach with golden sands and bright blue water.

  Abbey pointed to it about a hundred times. Then she flipped the brochure over to the back page.

  Written in black texta in her mum’s handwriting were two dates. Lola noticed that the first date was the day after the wedding.

  Lola could already imagine swimming in the clear water with Will, building huge sandcastles, eating cold ice-creams …

  ‘Awesome!’ she exclaimed loudly. ‘We’re going to Hawaii!’

  Will paused from tapping his Game Boy and leant over to look at the brochure.

  ‘Loles,’ he said slowly, ‘it’s a honeymoon. Dad and your mum are going. Not us. That’s why Aunty Kay is coming with Beau and Tess. So she can look after us.’

  Lola watched as her mum came back into the lounge room with the tray of drinks. She kept watching her mum as she sneaked two spoonfuls of sugar in her tea.

  ‘So, what do you think of these flowers, Loles?’ her mum asked, pointing at a picture.

  Lola breathed in. The flowers were perfect. Some of them were light pink, and others were purple. They were tied with a green bow that looked great with the green leaves.

  But, right now, she couldn’t stop thinking about what Will had said.

  ‘Mum,’ she said slowly, ‘is it true? Are you and Rex going on a honeymoon without us?’ Lola reached for a third spoonful of sugar as she spoke. Normally her mum wouldn’t let her have three whole spoonfuls in her tea. But she didn’t say anything about it this time.

  ‘Oh, sweetie,’ Lola’s mum said. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just been so crazy lately. I thought I told you that Will’s Aunty Kay was coming with Beau and Tess to look after you while Rex and I go on our honeymoon.’

  Lola reached for a fourth spoonful of sugar, but this time her mum pushed the bowl away.

  ‘Loles, Rex and I are going away together. We haven’t had much time to be on our own, and it’s only for a week …’

  ‘I’ll be here,’ Abbey said brightly. ‘And you’re going to have a brand new girl cousin in the house. Which is pretty lucky, because I’ll just be stuck with Dumb and Dumber, as usual!’

  Lola felt a little smile twitching around her lips. Dumb and Dumber were Abbey’s not-so-nice pet names for her brothers.

  Lola drew a circle around the perfect flowers in the brochure. Then she let the twitch turn into a smile. Lola had the wedding to look forward to. And she was going to have a little girl in her house for once.

  Abbey was right. She was the luckiest duck in the entire universe!

  Lola counted down the days until Will’s cousins arrived. Five sleeps seemed like a very long time. But finally, she stood with her family in the Arrivals section of the airport. It was fascinating watching everyone come through the sliding doors. Some people waved and laughed as they were met by friends and family. Some cried and hugged.

  ‘Is that them, Rex?’ Lola asked for the hundredth time, jiggling her hand impatiently in his.

  ‘No. No … yes!’ Rex said finally. ‘That’s them now! Just coming out of the door.’

  ‘Beau!’ Will yelled. ‘Over here!’

  Lola stayed close to her mum and Rex. It was a bit strange to see Aunty Kay. She looked a lot like Rex but with long hair.

  Lola felt herself staring as Beau waved at Will. She’d thought that Beau would be younger than Will, since Tess was younger than her. But he actually
looked about Will’s age. He was wearing really baggy pants and a baseball cap that sat backwards on his head.

  Then Lola looked down.

  The little girl who sort of bounced towards them was nothing like Lola had imagined. Tess was small and thin. Her hair was jet black, and cut into a jagged bob that bounced up and down as she jogged over to them.

  ‘Hi, Uncle Rex!’ she squealed, leaping into Rex’s arms so that he had to let go of Lola’s hand to catch her. ‘I got a colouring book on the plane! And a box of pencils! And two biscuits in little packets, but I saved one of them!’

  ‘Did you, sweetheart?’ Rex said, putting Tess on his hip while he kissed Aunty Kay and gave Beau a handshake. ‘Kay, this is Helen, and this is Lola,’ he introduced. ‘My girls,’ he added proudly.

  ‘It’s lovely to meet you,’ Aunty Kay said, giving Lola’s mum a hug and then turning to Lola. ‘And you too, Lola,’ she said. As soon as Aunty Kay smiled, Lola liked her. Her smile was just like Rex’s.

  Lola watched as Tess grabbed Rex’s cheeks, pulling his attention back to her.

  ‘You know why I saved one of the biscuits, Uncle Rex?’ she asked, squishing his cheeks together. Rex’s smile was square between her small hands.

  Lola watched as Tess jumped out of Rex’s arms and landed beside her. In two seconds, there was a crumbling biscuit being pressed into her hand.

  ‘I saved it for my new cousin!’ Tess announced loudly, making sure that everyone was watching her. ‘Lola!’

  At bedtime, Lola stepped over Tess’s suitcase and around the edges of the trundle bed where Tess lay. Lola’s bedroom had never seemed quite so small before. Of course, she’d had people stay over. But somehow, even though Tess was tiny, she seemed to take up a lot of space.

  She could hear Beau and Will talking and laughing in Will’s room next door. The boys had been playing together all day. Which had left Lola with Tess …