by Chloe Taylor
Zoey laughed. “No! What did she say?”
“Apparently, the instructor said they weren’t allowed to look down at their feet; they had to look into each other’s eyes,” Marcus explained. “Well, the guy was so mesmerized by Aunt Lulu’s eyes—or at least that’s what she said—that he kept stepping on her feet. She had to ice her toes after class!”
Zoey knew how Aunt Lulu felt. She’d spent ages daydreaming about dancing with Lorenzo Romy, but when she finally did, he was a toe stepper too. And he didn’t even say anything about being mesmerized with her eyes. He was just a bad dancer.
Walking through the doors of A Stitch in Time always gave Zoey a thrill. It was an Aladdin’s cave of treasures for a creative girl with designer ambitions.
“Hi, Zoey!” called Jan, A Stitch in Time’s friendly and knowledgeable owner, who’d popped her head out from the expensive fabrics aisle, where she was helping another customer. “I’ll be with you soon if you need help. You just hang tight, okay?”
“Thanks, Jan,” Zoey said, taking a shopping basket for her purchases and heading for the notions aisle. She wanted to get some cute buttons for her Doggie Duds designs. But after her dad’s talk about sales and costs and making profits, she knew she had to be careful to pick cute but not-too-expensive buttons or else she wouldn’t make enough money on the outfits.
A set of blue buttons with gold anchors gave her an idea for a nautical-themed version of the doggie outfit, and she found several sets of plastic buttons in bright colors to play around with. Zoey also found some cool wooden buttons for a more rustic, outdoorsy look she thought would be perfect for bigger, sporting dogs, like Lucky, the Labrador who lived down the street—assuming his owners decided to support Doggie Duds. She’d just have to make the outfits so cute that everyone would want them.
“So, what can I do for you, Miss Zoey?” Jan asked, interrupting her designing musings.
Zoey told Jan the sad news about Draper and showed her the sketch of the skirt she wanted to make for Aunt Lulu to cheer her up.
“I was really hoping to make it out of silk chiffon, but I’m not sure I’m going to have enough money to buy that, and the lining and the zipper and these buttons. Plus, I have to buy some fabric for the Doggie Duds business I’m launching.”
“Yes, I read about that on Sew Zoey,” Jan exclaimed. “So exciting!” She took off her glasses and led the way to the expensive fabrics aisle, walking straight up to a beautiful silk chiffon that shimmered in the light. “This is sparkle chiffon, and it’s one of my favorite fabrics! It’s not cheap, but because you and your aunt Lulu are good customers, and I’m so sad to hear about Draper, I’ll give you a deal. Do you think this is the one for your aunt’s skirt?”
“I do!” Zoey exclaimed, letting the soft fabric float over her fingers. “It’s absolutely perfect!”
Jan took down the bolt of fabric and went to put it on the counter. She helped Zoey pick out a solid, more economical chiffon for the lining, since it would be the side that wouldn’t be seen.
“Now, about the fabrics for your dog business,” Jan said. “I know your budget’s tight. I’ve got a fifty-percent-off sale on the remnants. Look through to see if there’s anything that would work.”
“Great,” Zoey said.
Jan spotted someone walking in the door. “See what you can find while I help this customer.”
Zoey took the shopping basket over to the remnants bin, where Jan threw the tail ends of fabric bolts that weren’t big enough to sell, or fabric that had accidentally been cut to the wrong length. She found some great bits of fabric that were too small to make much for a human but were perfect for dogs’ clothes. Zoey’s basket was full by the time she walked back to the counter.
“You’ve done well,” Jan said, smiling.
“Can you add it up for me?” Zoey said. “I have to make sure I have enough credit left first.”
“You should be okay,” Jan said. “Let’s cut the fabric for your aunt’s skirt first.”
After Jan measured and cut the chiffon with her sharp shears, Zoey watched anxiously as she rang up the purchases, hoping that there was enough credit left to cover everything. It was getting very close.
“Now for your special customer discount . . . ,” Jan said, taking off another 10 percent.
When she saw the total, Zoey breathed a sigh of relief. She had just enough to buy everything, and even had two dollars credit left over.
“Thank you so much for the special customer discount,” she said. “I couldn’t have afforded it all without it.”
Jan smiled. “When you’re a hot fashion designer, I’ll expect a special customer discount on my original Zoey Webber couture dress.”
“Absolutely,” Zoey said. “You’re the best, Jan.”
She took her bags of fabric and notions and went to find Marcus, who was waiting for her at the coffee shop. He’d brought his laptop with him, and when Zoey walked up, he had on his headphones and was working very intently on what she thought was his homework. But as soon as he saw her, he gestured her to come over and pulled off the headphones.
“Hey, Zo,” he said. “Check this out.”
Zoey put down her bags and pulled up the chair next to him.
“Here, put these on,” he said, giving her the headphones and pressing play on the video.
On the screen, Draper rambled across the grass in the backyard, his tail wagging from side to side. Soft music played in the background, and then a voice Zoey recognized as belonging to Ralph, the lead singer in Marcus’s band, began to sing: “He doesn’t pretend, he’s just my best friend, wherever I ride, my dog’s by my side. . . .”
Draper stopped and sniffed the air and then began trotting toward the camera, his tongue lolling out of the side of his mouth, looking as if he were smiling. The music faded out, and the video cut to Zoey sitting at her sewing table, talking about how Draper was her inspiration for starting Doggie Duds. And then the music faded back in, quieter now, while Draper and Zoey were walking down the sidewalk. When Ralph stopped singing, you could hear other the other dog owner telling Zoey “Nice outfit” and “Love your dog’s outfit. Where did you get it?” and finally “You should start a business!” At the end, the name Doggie Duds popped up on the screen, along with the URLs for the Sew Zoey blog and the Myfundmaker page.
“That’s amazing,” Zoey said, taking off the headphones. “How did you . . . When did you do the song?”
“I had written the lyrics before”—Marcus swallowed—“Draper . . . you know. Dan wrote the music and recorded it with Ralph while I was working on editing the video. I just finished up laying the sound track into the video while you were getting your stuff at A Stitch in Time.”
“It must have taken you an eternity,” Zoey said. “You’re the best brother EVER!”
“Can I have that in writing?” Marcus asked.
“As soon as I find my invisible ink pen,” Zoey quipped.
She pushed play again. She couldn’t hear the sound because the headphones were plugged in, but she could watch Draper, as if he’d come to life again. “We have to send this to Aunt Lulu!” Zoey exclaimed. “She’ll love it.”
“Let’s upload it to the project page first so we don’t forget,” Marcus said. “Then we can just send her the video file.”
Zoey agreed, and she waited impatiently while the video uploaded, which seemed to take forever.
Marcus dashed off a quick e-mail with the video and a note to Aunt Lulu before heading home.
Two minutes after Zoey and Marcus walked in the front door, the phone rang. It was Aunt Lulu. Marcus put her on speakerphone, so Zoey could hear too.
“Oh, you guys, I just got off of a conference call, and opening that e-mail and finding that video was such a wonderful surprise,” Aunt Lulu said. “I’m smiling and crying at the same time. Seeing Draper again, just being so . . . Draper! That look on his face when he was sniffing the air like he’d caught wind of a treat . . .”
“
That’s because he had,” Zoey said. “It was the only way we could get him to frolic.”
“Or what passes for frolicking when you’re a fourteen-year-old dog,” Marcus said.
“Well, I love that you captured Draper being himself. I’ll treasure this, always,” Aunt Lulu said. She sounded like she was starting to cry again. “You kids are the best.”
As soon as they hung up, Zoey took her bags of fabric and went up to her room. Aunt Lulu definitely needed something to cheer her up, and it was time to get working on her ballroom dance skirt. Having the soft silk chiffon swirling around her ankles while she danced wouldn’t make up for missing Draper, but it might make her feel a little better. Zoey laid the material on the table carefully, took out her scissors, and got to work.
Chapter 7
Belle of the Ballroom Dance!
You know if you’re really miserable, sometimes getting to work on a project, doing something you love for someone you love, makes you feel better. At least it’s helped do that for me, kind of. I’m making this for a special someone who might also be feeling a little down right now. She takes ballroom dancing lessons, so I thought I’d make her a skirt that will float when she twirls and swish around her ankles, like on one of those ballroom-dance reality shows.
It’s weird, though, to be sewing without Draper resting his head on my foot or thumping his tail when he hears the sound of Marcus or Dad walking down the hallway. If I miss Draper this much, I can’t imagine how my aunt feels. She loved the video Marcus made for my Doggie Duds Myfundmaker page (which I hope to be launching very, very soon—stay tuned!). I can’t wait for you all to see it!
TTFN,
Zoey
“How was your dentist appointment?” Zoey asked Kate when she sat next to her on the bus the next morning. “Any cavities?”
“What dentist appointment?” Kate said, her face a blank.
“The one you had yesterday after school,” Zoey prompted, “so you weren’t on the bus going home?”
“Oh! That one!” Kate said. “Uh . . . yeah, good. No cavities. I got a sticker.”
But she shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Kate was a really bad liar, and Zoey could see she wasn’t telling the truth. It made her wonder what Kate had really been doing yesterday afternoon. Had she and Priti done something without her, just the way the three of them had a sleepover without Libby?
“That’s good,” Zoey said, but she spent the rest of the ride to school drawing in her sketchbook instead of talking with her friend.
When Zoey got to her locker, she found it adorned with a really cute picture of Draper surrounded by a pretty fabric heart, decorated with sequins and decorative buttons. It was attached to her locker door with a set of dog-shape magnets. One of them even looked a little like Draper. Underneath the picture heart was a note on pink paper:
We miss you, Draper, our doggie friend! Feel better, Zoey! Hugs, Priti and Kate xoxo
That’s when Zoey realized what Kate must have been doing after school yesterday and why she’d seemed so evasive about going to the dentist. She’d been trying to keep this a surprise.
The knowledge that her friends weren’t excluding her and the sight of Draper’s beloved face when she wasn’t expecting to see it combined to hit Zoey with a powerful wave of emotion. She grabbed the picture of Draper off her locker and ran to the nearest bathroom, making it past the door just as her tears overflowed.
To her dismay, who should be in the bathroom but Shannon Chang and Bree Sharpe, Ivy’s sidekicks. The last thing she wanted was for them to see her crying, especially since they’d joined Ivy in writing mean comments on her blog under different screen names during Spirit Week. She tried to run into a bathroom stall, but Shannon stopped her.
“Are you okay, Zoey?” Shannon asked. “What’s the matter?”
She looked genuinely concerned, like the friend Zoey remembered from back in elementary school. So Zoey told her the truth and didn’t hide the tears that were tumbling down her cheeks.
“My aunt’s d-dog . . . He d-died this w-weekend,” she said with a sniff.
“Oh no! Not Draper!” Shannon exclaimed.
Zoey nodded sadly, surprised Shannon remembered Draper’s name. She showed Shannon and Bree the picture.
“What a . . . what a cute dog,” Bree said tentatively, looking to Shannon for approval. Shannon smiled, and Bree continued, “Our dog, Bailey, died last year. It was so hard. I still get so sad every time I think about him.”
“Really?” Zoey asked, almost waiting for the punch line. But Bree seemed sincere too.
“Yeah, but we got a new dog, Cocoa. See?”
Bree took out her phone and showed Zoey a picture of a small, brown, curly-haired dog on her screen saver.
“Cocoa’s so sweet,” Shannon said. “Is your aunt going to get another dog? I bet it would make you both feel better.”
“I don’t know,” Zoey said. “I hope so!”
“Hang in there,” Bree said as she and Shannon left the bathroom.
“Thanks,” Zoey said.
As Zoey washed the tears from her face, she thought about how losing Draper had brought back the sweet Shannon she remembered and had given her something in common with Bree. Maybe it was true what they said about every cloud having a silver lining—even if it was a very big, sad cloud.
Zoey was glad to see Priti and Kate in the hallway before they got to the cafeteria for lunch. She rushed up to them and gave each of them a huge hug.
“Thanks for decorating my locker, you guys. It was soooo thoughtful, even if I did end up crying in the bathroom!” she said.
“Oh no!” Kate exclaimed.
“It was supposed to cheer you up, not make you cry,” Priti said.
“It’s okay. It was really sweet of you to do it,” Zoey said. “And believe it or not, Shannon and Bree were in the bathroom, and they were really nice when they saw me crying. Shannon remembered Draper, and Bree lost her dog last year, so she knows how I feel.”
“No way! Wow,” Priti said. “Who’d have thunk?”
Zoey linked her arms through her friends’ arms as they walked down the hall.
“I’m so lucky to have you as my best friends,” she said. “And . . . that’s why I have to ask you guys about something important before we go to lunch.”
“What’s that?” Kate asked.
“Would you mind if we . . . made another BFF bracelet for Libby?” Zoey asked. “I felt so bad yesterday at lunch when we all had them and she didn’t.”
“I know!” Kate exclaimed. “I felt terrible that I didn’t think to make a bracelet for her. I guess I was so used to it being you, Priti, and me before Libby got here. I hope she doesn’t think it’s because we don’t like her or something.”
“So you don’t mind her being one of the BFFs, officially?” Zoey asked. “It’s okay for us to be four peas in a pod instead of three?”
“Of course,” Priti said. “Libby’s great. And the more BFFs the merrier!”
Zoey was relieved her friends felt the same way she did about Libby and that they could all be BFFs together.
“Why don’t you guys give me your bracelets?” Kate offered. “I’ll take them home tonight and remake them with an extra color for Libby and then make a bracelet for Libby, too.”
“That’s a lot of work,” Priti said.
“I don’t mind,” Kate said. “I feel so bad Libby felt left out. What color bead do you think would be good?”
“Remember those shiny copper-colored ones?” Zoey said. “Those would go well with ours, and they look like Libby’s hair.”
“Perfect!” Kate said. “I’ll start working on the new ones tonight.”
That evening, Aunt Lulu came over for dinner, bringing takeout from Zoey and Marcus’s favorite Chinese restaurant.
“Fortune cookie time!” Aunt Lulu said, handing each of them a wrapped cookie when they’d finished their main course.
Marcus opened his first.
“ ‘A
ship in the harbor is safe, but that’s not what ships are built for,’ ” he read. “I guess I’d better start taking the yacht I don’t have out for a sail more often.”
“My turn,” Mr. Webber said. “ ‘A pleasant surprise is in store for you.’ I guess that means you kids are doing the dishes so I can put my feet up and relax.”
“Sorry, Dad,” Marcus said. “I have to go study so I can get a good job and earn enough money to buy my yacht.”
Zoey opened her fortune cookie. “ ‘A good time to start something new.’ Oooh! Maybe that means Doggie Duds will be a success!”
“That reminds me—we need to look at the numbers for your project after dinner, don’t we?” Lulu asked.
“That would be awesome,” Zoey said. “The project page is pretty much done, except for the prices. I need your help with that.”
“Okay. But first let’s see what the fortune cookie has in store for me,” Lulu said, taking hers out of the wrapper and breaking it in half. She stared at the little rectangular slip of paper. “Oh my.”
“What is it?” Marcus asked.
“I think it’s an omen,” Lulu said. “ ‘A new friend will arrive and brighten your day.’ ” She looked at Marcus and then Zoey. “Speaking of new friends, I’ve been meaning to ask you two if you’d be willing to come with me to the shelter this weekend to help me find a new canine companion,” she said, her eyes glistening. “It’s just too quiet at home without Draper. I need some puppy love.”
“YES!” Zoey exclaimed. “I’ve been hoping you’d get a new dog!”
“Really? No dog could replace Draper,” Marcus said. “He was one of a kind.”
“I know, honey,” Aunt Lulu said. “I’m not trying to replace him. Draper will always have a special place in my heart. We’ll fall in love with the new dog in a different way. That’s the best thing about love—it’s not finite. It expands and grows to be however big you need it to be.”
“That’s right,” Mr. Webber said. “I remember when Melissa was pregnant with Zo, I was scared, because I couldn’t imagine loving another baby as much as I loved Marcus.” He smiled at Zoey. “But then my little girl came along, and the minute I saw her, I thought my heart was going to explode with all that extra love.”
