Kira Dreaming

by Belinda Murrell

  ‘And the new bookshelves look great,’ added Meg, taking a closer look.

  ‘All my books from London are packed away in boxes in storage,’ I said. ‘It will be really cool to unpack all my things and set them up.’

  On the left side of the window seat were floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, still empty, of course. On the right side was a set of built-in cupboards. This was one of the best things about my room. Inside the cupboard were all the usual things like shelves, drawers and hanging space. But there was also a secret – a narrow ladder that led upstairs to the tower room above.

  Charlie and Cici pulled out their guitars from their cases and began to strum, perching on the edge of the window seat.

  Charlie had brought us all a photocopy of the music and lyrics, so we began to sing.

  Charlie made us sing ‘Kira Dreaming’ over and over again.

  ‘It’s not quite right,’ said Charlie. ‘Maybe if we play and sing along to the real song, we can copy how Ruby does it.’

  I set up the builders’ music player and started playing the recorded version. We sang along to it at least another ten times over the next half an hour. We sang until I was sick of the sound of it.

  ‘Let’s take a little break,’ said Charlie, shaking her stiff hands. ‘My fingers are aching.’

  We all stood up and stretched. Cici put down her guitar and began examining the photos and doodles on my mood board. Meg looked out the window.

  ‘I think I can see the dolphins,’ she said, craning her neck. ‘Shall we go upstairs to see if we can get a better view?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said. I loved watching the Kira Cove dolphins surfing and playing.

  I opened the cupboard door. We scrambled up the ladder one by one, popping out in the round tower room above. Large rectangular windows looked out in all directions. We stood there, searching the waves for a sign of the dolphin pod. But either Meg had been mistaken or they had disappeared underwater.

  Cici turned her attention to the walls of the tower room. They were old timber planks, grey with age. The builders had patched a couple of holes in the walls and floor with pale yellow plaster. The ceiling was low and sloping, coming down to just above the windows, and was spotted with black mould and brown watermarks. It all looked rather shabby.

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ said Cici, with that mischievous look she gets when she’s scheming. I hoped this wasn’t going to be another of Cici’s harebrained ideas – like singing in the talent quest. She looked around at us all. ‘Maybe we should paint the tower room ourselves. Instead of waiting for the builders to finish everything else.’

  Now this was more like it. I grinned at Cici. ‘That’s a brilliant idea. Mum has the paint and brushes all ready to go.’

  Charlie ran her fingertips over the rough, splintery timber.

  ‘The tower room’s not very big, so it shouldn’t take very long,’ she said.

  ‘Then we could clean all the windows,’ said Meg. ‘And furnish it with bits and pieces we get from home.’

  ‘I’m sure Mum has some old cushions we could use,’ said Cici. ‘I’ll ask her.’

  I felt a thrill of excitement as I thought about the four of us working together to make the tower room a beautiful space for us to meet.

  ‘Let’s do it,’ I said. ‘We can start right now. I’ll go and ask Mum if it’s okay.’

  I scrambled down the ladder and went downstairs to the cafe.

  Mum was making up lunch platters for a big group of people who were celebrating a birthday. She looked busy, so I didn’t want to disturb her. Besides, I was secretly worried that if Mum saw me she might start giving me jobs to do! I snuck back upstairs. Perhaps it was better to do it as a surprise. Besides, Papa had shown me how to paint when we were doing the bookcases in the cafe. How hard could it be?

  ‘Let’s get started,’ I said.

  We hadn’t planned to paint, so none of us were wearing old clothes. We’d just need to be extra careful. We lugged the rollers, brushes and trays up the ladder, then a tin of paint, which was rather tricky because it was surprisingly heavy.

  I remembered to stir the paint, then we poured it into one of the trays. A bit too much paint rushed out, splashing on the floor. I used a paint brush to mop it up.

  Charlie started slathering paint on the middle of the wall, using the roller.

  ‘I think we’re meant to do the edges first,’ said Meg, carefully running her brush along the bottom edge of a window.

  Cici chose another window to edge. I started painting the bottom edge where the wall met the floor. I tried to be careful but it was actually quite tricky to stop the brush from streaking the floor as well. We couldn’t reach up very high, so we just painted as far as we could standing on tippy-toes – most of the way up the walls between the windows. We couldn’t quite reach the sloping ceiling.

  Charlie sang as we worked.

  ‘Not that song,’ I begged. ‘Can’t you sing something different?’

  ‘We should all be singing it while we paint,’ suggested Charlie, slathering more paint on the round wall. The roller filled in a large area quite quickly. The room was being transformed.

  I stepped back to admire our handiwork – straight into the half-full paint tray. The tray flipped up and flicked paint everywhere.

  ‘Pippa!’ yelled Meg, Cici and Charlie all together. The girls were splattered. I was splattered. And there were specks of paint on the windows, the floor and the walls. I jumped out of the paint tray, smudging white foot prints on the floor.

  ‘Don’t move,’ said Cici. ‘You’ll make it worse.’

  I stared around in dismay. Our great idea of painting the tower room wasn’t going so well. Meg used her brush to transfer some of the spilled paint from the floor to the wall.

  ‘We need some rags,’ said Charlie. ‘I’d better go. You’ll walk paint marks everywhere.’

  ‘Maybe down in the kitchen,’ I suggested.

  Charlie climbed down the ladder. Cici and Meg kept brushing up spilled paint and spreading it on the walls to use it up.

  A few minutes later Charlie returned with a handful of rags and Mum.

  Mum looked around in disbelief. ‘Oh, girls.’

  Cici, Meg and Charlie all smiled hopefully at Mum.

  ‘Hi, Jenna,’ said Meg.

  ‘We thought we’d give Pippa a hand painting,’ explained Cici.

  ‘I can see that,’ said Mum, rubbing her forehead. ‘What a terrible mess.’

  Here we go, I thought. We are going to get into super-huge trouble.

  ‘We’ll clean it all up, Mum,’ I said anxiously, looking around at the chaos. ‘We just wanted to make it look fresh and beautiful. But… it was a bit harder than I thought.’

  ‘Next time, make sure you ask me before you start work on one of your projects, Pipkin. Even if I am busy,’ said Mum.

  ‘Sorry, Mum,’ I said.

  Mum gave me a kiss on the forehead, which may have been the only clean spot on my body.

  ‘I guess it could have been much worse,’ she said. ‘But I think we’re going to have to paint this whole floor white to hide the evidence!’

  Meg fetched some water and the four of us set to work to clean up the spilled paint. We wiped the speckles off our bodies and from our hair. There wasn’t much we could do about the paint on our clothes or the floor.

  When everything was packed away we examined our work. I’d had visions of a gorgeous space, in a glistening fresh, coral-white. Instead the paint looked patchy and sparse. More greyish than white, with huge splodges on the floor, the top half still unpainted and the windows salt-smeared and speckled with paint drops.

  ‘It looks worse,’ I said. All my excitement had evaporated, leaving me feeling totally dejected. Cici gave me a hug.

  ‘Another coat will make it look much better,’ she promised.

  I just hoped she was right!

  Sunday was Mum’s official painting day. We headed to the cafe early, straight after breakfast. This tim
e I was wearing my oldest, grottiest clothes with a cap to cover my hair.

  Mimi and Papa were coming for the day to help us. Papa had packed the station wagon with more paint brushes, more paint tins and some long-handled rollers. But when Harry, Bella and I arrived at the car, Mum had a surprise for us.

  Summer was sitting beside the car, with her red lead clipped on and her pink tongue sticking out. She thumped her plumed tail on the ground in welcome.

  ‘Is Summer coming with us?’ I asked, fondling her ears. Summer hadn’t been out with us except for her trips to visit Caitlin the vet.

  ‘Today is a special day for Summer,’ said Mum. ‘It’s time she ventured out into the big wide world.’

  I skipped with delight. I suddenly realised that it was a few days since Summer had her last injection.

  ‘I thought you and Harry might like to walk her down to the cafe while we drive,’ said Mum.

  ‘Yes,’ said Harry and I together.

  ‘What about me?’ demanded Bella.

  ‘You can come with us,’ said Mum, soothingly. ‘We need to start work on the painting and you’re a great helper.’

  ‘But I want to walk with Summer,’ said Bella crossly. ‘I don’t want to go in the car like a baby. I’m a big kid now.’

  Mum looked closely at Harry, Bella and me. The walk down to the cafe was really easy. There was only one quiet street to cross before you were on the esplanade – the wide pathway and parkland that runs all the way along the beach down to Kira Cove.

  Mum gave Bella a tight squeeze. ‘All right, Bella-boo. But Pipkin’s the eldest, so she has to hold Summer’s lead all the way. And I want you to walk straight down to the cafe. Don’t get distracted.’

  ‘Sure, Mum. We’ll be fine,’ I said, keen to get away. How hard could it be?

  Just then Mum’s phone rang. She checked the caller name on the screen. Mum frowned, looking upset.

  ‘I won’t take this now,’ she said, putting the phone back in her pocket. ‘We have far too much to do today. Let’s go.’

  Mum helped us make sure Summer crossed the street safely.

  ‘I nearly forgot,’ said Mum, waving a black plastic bag at us. ‘Here’s a bag in case she does a poo along the way. Make sure you pick it up and put it in the bin.’

  ‘Yuck,’ said Bella. ‘Not me. That can be Pippa’s job. She’s the eldest!’

  I rolled my eyes at Bella and took the poo bag, knotting it to the end of the lead.

  Mum jumped in the car with Mimi and Papa. They tooted the horn and waved us off. We crossed the park and then we were on the beachfront. As always, the esplanade was busy with kids riding bikes, couples strolling and surfers carrying their boards. A family on scooters raced past, dodging around us. On the sand, two teams of teenagers were playing a rowdy game of beach volleyball.

  Summer bounded along with excitement, her nose to the ground snuffling all the delightful new smells. She zigzagged back and forth, sniffing light poles, tree trunks and tussocks of grass. Her tail wagged madly. I had to run to keep up with her. Harry and Bella ran along beside us.

  ‘Slow down, girl,’ cried Bella, clutching her side. ‘I’m puffed.’

  Suddenly Summer came to a dead stop. A palm frond had fallen on the path. Summer eyed it cautiously. She sniffed it. When it didn’t bite, she pounced. She grabbed the frond with her teeth and dragged it along the esplanade. The palm frond was over a metre long – nearly four times the length of our chubby puppy!

  ‘Leave it, Summer,’ I suggested, but Summer was having too much fun. She insisted on dragging her new toy behind her, super-proud of her special treasure. At last she abandoned the palm frond, but only because she had spotted something far more exciting. On the side of the path was a flowerbed of bright orange marigolds, their heads nodding in the breeze.

  In a single bound, Summer had her nose buried among the flowers, sniffing and nipping. She stole the heads off several flowers and flopped down to chomp them.

  ‘She’s eating the flowers,’ shrieked Bella.

  ‘Naughty girl,’ I scolded, pulling the mangled petals from her mouth. ‘Stop chewing everything in sight.’

  ‘Come on, girl,’ coaxed Harry.

  For a moment, I thought Summer would never be persuaded to leave her delicious snack. Then she caught sight of something really amazing. In a split second she was off and racing. In the distance was… another dog! Summer bounded forward, dragging me along behind her. Who’d have thought a puppy could be so strong!

  Suddenly I recognised her target. The dog was wrinkly-faced with brown fur, darker ears and a black nose. It was Cici’s puggle, Muffin. Holding onto Muffin’s lead was Cici, gliding along on her skateboard. She was looking gorgeous in aqua shorts covered in roses, a white singlet top and white runners.

  ‘Hi, Cici,’ I called, tugging on Summer’s lead as we slid to a stop beside her. Summer dropped down on all fours, with her bottom stuck up in the air, while she waited to see what Muffin would do. Muffin ignored her.

  ‘Summer’s out walking at last,’ said Cici, giving her a pat. But Summer wasn’t interested in Cici. She had eyes only for Muffin.

  Muffin glanced at Summer and our pup went crazy. She licked Muffin all over her face, jumping around like a pogo stick. She rolled on her back and stuck her paws in the air submissively. Then she bounded up and did her demented ballerina routine, pirouetting at top speed.

  Muffin looked away and yawned, appearing to be extremely bored by the antics of a playful puppy. Summer tilted her head to the side, her ears cocked, then she pawed Muffin, begging for attention. We all giggled.

  ‘Summer can’t understand why Muffin’s not as crazy about her as she is about Muffin,’ I said.

  ‘They’ll be good friends once they get to know each other,’ said Cici, stroking Summer’s silky back.

  We began walking together towards the cafe, Cici carrying her skateboard. Or at least we walked and Summer bounded, her golden ears flapping up and down like bird’s wings. She was far too excited to walk to heel despite my constant reminders. She kept licking Muffin on the nose as if checking she was still there.

  There were lots of dogs out walking that morning. Summer went through the same wild welcome for each one. And every dog walker wanted to fondle and fuss over our adorable pup. It took forever!

  Then, halfway along the beach, Summer completely ran out of battery. All that exercise was far too much for her and she collapsed in the middle of the path.

  ‘Poor puppy,’ cooed Harry. ‘She’s tired.’

  ‘Come on, Summer,’ I begged, tugging on the lead. She closed her eyes and sprawled in the sunshine, like a puddle of coral sand. No cajoling would get her to move. There was nothing for me to do but pick her up and carry her in my arms.

  ‘She’s so heavy,’ I complained with a huff.

  ‘She must weigh ten kilos by now,’ said Harry. That didn’t sound like very much, but when you have to lug a puppy along the beach in the hot Kira sunshine it felt like way more than that.

  ‘Muffin looks much happier now she doesn’t have her face being licked every ten seconds,’ joked Cici. Muffin looked up at Cici and me as if to say ‘You bet I am!’.

  Cici peeled off to go home, promising to pop by the cafe later that afternoon. Summer opened one eye when Muffin left, then closed it again, too exhausted to move.

  Harry and I took turns carrying Summer all the way down the beach. By the time we arrived at the cafe our arms were stiff and sore.

  Zoe and her friend Lisa were serving egg-and-bacon rolls to a noisy family of customers at the long table. Mimi was making mugs of tea in the cafe kitchen. ‘How was Summer’s first walk?’ she asked as we trudged through the front door. ‘It took a while.’

  ‘She didn’t walk at all,’ I complained. ‘She bounced around like crazy then she was totally unconscious.’

  ‘We had to carry her half the way,’ said Harry, as he stroked her nose. Summer snuggled down deeper in Harry’s arms. He held her close. />
  Mimi laughed. ‘Your mum put her basket upstairs in the living room. Why don’t you take her up?’

  Mimi followed us, carrying the tray of tea mugs.

  Upstairs Mimi, Papa and Mum had made a great start on painting the living room and kitchen. Papa had a long-handled roller and was filling in the last of the ceiling in flat white. Mum was up a ladder cutting in the edges of the wall colour just below the ceiling.

  Harry and I put Summer in her basket out of the way. She woke up for a moment, yawned, showing her pink tongue, then went promptly back to sleep.

  Mum and Papa stopped work to sip their tea, while we told them all about Summer’s adventures on her first walk. Mimi, Papa and Mum chuckled as we took it in turns to describe Summer’s rambunctious activities. Then it was time to get to work. If I thought my arms were tired after carrying Summer up the beach, well, that was nothing compared to how they felt after a few hours of painting!

  It took all day to paint the living area. Mum and Papa had stuck masking tape along all the edges so we could get a nice clean line. They had also spread drop sheets all over the floor. I wished I’d remembered to do this when we were painting the tower room. It might have saved a lot of mess.

  Harry and I painted along the bottom edge of the wall, while Papa and Mum painted the top edges from the ladder. Bella helped by loading the roller with paint. Mimi used the roller to fill in the wall in between the two lines.

  We were so involved in our work that none of us noticed when Summer finally woke up, fresh and full of beans. That is, until she stuck her nose in the paint tin and ended up with a coral-white nose instead of a black one. As much as I tried I couldn’t get it all off, so Bella decided to give Summer a total makeover and paint her claws white as well.

  At lunchtime we went downstairs to eat. We took Summer down too with her lead on. Mum made us all ham-cheese-and-tomato toasties with basil. Mimi cut up a platter of icy-cold watermelon. Summer had a small cup of her puppy kibble in a bowl. We ate outside at a shady table on the jetty, enjoying the view. Summer was tied up under the table.