by Lisa Siberry
‘It’s a fake,’ said Zoe.
‘No, it’s real,’ said Violet. ‘It’s like glue for your hair.’
I froze.
The shampoo video.
‘I’m telling you, it’s a scam.’ Zoe held the phone up to her face, then tossed it back to Violet. ‘Makes sense.’
‘What?’ asked Bella.
‘It’s Faye Green. She’s a total airhead, there’s no way she could have made that. It’s probably a filter or CGI.’
The other girls nodded, and that made my face heat up. Sure, my sister’s annoying, but she’s not an airhead. Or a liar.
‘Actually, I made it.’ I said it quietly, unsure of how the words would come out. Most of the time when I made things, people would get this worried look, like I might ask them to try it. But not this time. Violet, Bella, Saanvi and even Ivy were all staring at me, wide-eyed.
‘You made this?’ asked Violet. ‘Lily, it’s brilliant! See, Zoe? I told you Lil was great at making things.’
She did? I am?
‘Thanks.’ My voice caught in my throat.
‘I want to try it,’ cut in Bella.
‘Me too. How did you do it?’ asked Saanvi.
‘Yeah, Green.’ Zoe fixed her icy grey eyes on me. ‘How did you do it?’
I hesitated.
‘She made it yesterday,’ piped up Ivy next to me. ‘And you’d better watch out, Zoe, because we’re making more for the invention competition. Right?’ Ivy nudged my knee under the table and relief swept through me.
‘Sure,’ I smiled weakly. ‘Making more. Invention competition.’
Everyone giggled – except Zoe. She was staring at me so hard it felt like she was boring a big black hole in my head. Instinctively, I slid my green notebook off the table and Zoe’s eyes followed it. I wondered if she was onto me. If she knew I’d fluked the shampoo and had zero idea what I was doing. But even though Zoe’s evil, I was pretty sure her superpowers didn’t include seeing through paper. My shampoo ingredients were safe. For now.
Luckily the bell buzzed and Zoe stormed out of class, yanking one of my curls as she went. Bella and Saanvi trailed after her, but Violet paused at the doorway and looked back at me.
‘I love your shampoo, Lil,’ she said.
‘Thanks.’ I tried to think of something else to say, something that would keep Violet talking to me. ‘I could make you some if you like,’ I stammered. ‘Your own special batch.’
Beside me, Ivy gave me a funny look, but Violet’s face was shining with happiness.
‘Really?’ she beamed. ‘Oh Lil, I’d love to make a video about it, I –’
‘Violet!’ Zoe’s voice blared from the hallway. ‘Are we filming this Strawberry Sunkiss blush video or what?! Hurry up!’
Violet sighed. ‘I’ve got to run. See you tomorrow.’
I watched my best friend hurry out the door, missing her already.
‘Ahem.’ Ivy let out a cough. ‘So? You and me? Shampoo? The competition’s in six days, so we should probably get started today.’
Six days. I shoved my notebook into my bag and felt my stomach twist. The invention competition was on the exact same day Mum was meeting with the real-estate agent. I had to make the shampoo, now. To help save the salon, and win the competition, and maybe even get my best friend back.
But first, I needed the right ingredients.
‘Let’s go,’ I said, swinging my bag onto my back. ‘I just have one little favour to ask.’
Ivy tilted her head and her parrot earrings jangled. ‘Shoot.’
‘Can we make the shampoo at your house?’
The polka-dot roses?
They were real. I triple-checked them as I walked down Ivy’s front path, and when I picked a petal it smelt like caramel popcorn. But that was only the beginning.
Inside, Ivy led me down a long, dark hallway and started waving at things. ‘Dad’s music room. Mum’s music room. My room.’
I peeked in. Ivy’s room was messier than mine, with scrunched-up papers and pens all over the floor. We kept going.
‘Nan’s room. Bathroom. Nan exploring the world.’ Ivy’s bracelets tinkled as she waved at a huddle of photos on the wall. The same woman was in every one. There she was on a mountain peak. And propped on a tree branch in the jungle. And knee-deep in a swamp.
‘That’s your nan? What’s she doing?’ I squinted at a photo of a young woman in a cave holding a bucket of dripping moss.
‘She was a botanist.’
‘A bot-what?’
‘A plant scientist. It’s a fancy way of saying she studied plants. My nan, Rosa, travelled all over the world collecting plants, but she’s old now.’
‘Is that why you moved here?’ I guessed.
Violin music started up in a room nearby and Ivy flinched. ‘That, and Nan needs help with the garden.’
The garden. An excited shiver crept down my back, just as the violin music stopped.
‘Ivy, is that you?’ called a sharp voice. ‘Don’t forget violin practice. No TV or snacks until you’ve practised, understand?’
‘Yeah, Mama.’ Ivy picked up a violin case and dragged it behind her until we got to a big woodpanelled kitchen.
I hovered in the doorway, expecting it to smell like mine (microwave meals and nail polish). But this kitchen was beautiful, with hundreds of bunches of dried flowers hanging from the ceiling and yellow gingham curtains and three saucepans bubbling away on the stove. The floor was covered in muddy footprints that disappeared under the back door and out into the garden.
I stared longingly at the closed door. I have to get out there.
‘Choose a song.’
‘Huh?’ I refocused on Ivy. She’d slipped her violin under her chin and was holding the bow over the strings.
‘Wait, I know, Greensleeves. Ever heard of it?’ Ivy didn’t bother waiting for my reply. The bow came down on the violin and the kitchen filled with a horrendous screech that made my teeth feel like they were shattering.
‘My parents want me to be a musician, just like them,’ yelled Ivy over the racket. ‘I have to practise for two hours a day.’
I tried not to cover my ears. Finally, Ivy stopped and gave a little bow.
‘That was …’ I looked for the word Mum used whenever I made something bad. ‘Interesting? It was interesting.’
Ivy laughed. It sounded like a tinkly windchime. ‘You’re such a liar. I know I’m terrible.’
My cheeks flushed. ‘I didn’t mean it like that.’
‘No biggie. Even I have to wear these to survive my own playing.’ Ivy pulled two earplugs out of her ears and dropped the violin back in its case. ‘I hate violin, but Mum says I have to “practise, practise, practise” if I ever want to get good at something. The only thing I like practising is drawing. I always get As in art, Cs in everything else. You should have seen my last report card. Horror show. Hey, I love your hair today.’
‘What?’ It was hard keeping up with Ivy. Her brain was like a roller-coaster.
‘Your hair. You’ve done something new to it.’
I absentmindedly patted my stiff curls and shuffled closer to the back door, wishing we could quit the hair talk and get out into the garden. ‘My sister did it,’ I mumbled. ‘She’s a makeover witch.’
‘Lucky.’ Ivy prodded at her rumpled hair. ‘I wish I could do something with mine, but it’s so knotty.’
I looked over Ivy’s shoulder at the window. There was a crack in the closed curtains, and a greenish-yellow light seeped through the gap. I imagined a whole orchard of orange trees out there, waiting to be picked.
Ivy waved her hand in my face and giggled.
‘Um, yeah, knotty hair.’ I snapped back to attention. ‘It’s probably because your hair’s straight and fine. That type of hair tangles easily, or at least that’s what my sister says.’
Ivy looked impressed.
‘I grew up in Kitty’s Beauty Parlour,’ I explained. ‘It’s behind your back wall.’
‘I thought I saw you in there!’ exclaimed Ivy. ‘Do you think I could come over one day for a –’
Ding ding ding! A bell tinkled outside.
‘Hang on, Nan needs me.’ Ivy swung the back door open and the bright afternoon sun smacked me in the face.
‘Come along if you want,’ I heard Ivy say. ‘Just don’t touch the plants.’
Plants! This was my chance. I stumbled nervously after her, down the back steps and into the sunshine, blinking wildly. The garden smelt of honey and mud, and when the dots cleared from my eyes, I realised I wasn’t standing in an orange orchard, but rather a tangled green wilderness that seemed to stretch on forever.
Huge sprays of ferns towered over me, as tall as the house, and the ground was covered in a thick layer of spongy moss. Ahead, a dainty stone path led further into the garden, winding through clumps of hot-pink lilies and masses of silver, star-shaped flowers. It was beautiful, but my shoulders sagged with disappointment. I couldn’t see a single orange tree. I stood there, listening to bees humming and insects crackling, and then heard a familiar squawk.
Ivy’s blue budgie appeared out of nowhere and landed on my head.
‘That’s Bertie,’ laughed Ivy. ‘I think he likes you.’
‘Is he going to peck my eyes out?’
‘Not if you give him a snack.’
Ivy dug some seeds out of her pocket and sprinkled them in my hair. Bertie pecked at my scalp. It felt creepy at first, then relaxing.
‘I’ve never had a bird eat off my head before,’ I said, stroking Bertie’s tail. ‘Is this normal?’
‘Normal?’ Ivy laughed again. ‘Trust me, nothing about Nan’s garden is normal.’
She stepped away down the stone path and I followed, hoping I might find more oranges deeper in the garden. But as we walked, strange things kept catching my attention. With every step I took, tiny yellow flowers sprang out of the moss around each stone, as though they were greeting me. And overhead, giant fern fronds slowly unfurled and snatched at my hair. And when I reached out to touch a hot-pink lily, a long black tongue slithered out of the flower and wrapped itself around my wrist.
‘Told you not to touch anything,’ said Ivy without turning around. ‘Nan’s vampire lilies are carnivorous.’
‘Urgh.’ I flicked away the black flower-tongue and hurried to catch up with Ivy, my heart beating hard. ‘Did your nan plant all of these?’
‘She didn’t just plant them, she made them.’ Ivy waved her hand through the scented air and a clump of white daisies began whirring to life, rotating their petals like little plastic pinwheels. ‘Nan does this thing where she can take a few plants and combine them into her own sort of super-plant.’
A super-plant? I glanced nervously over my shoulder at the spinning daisies. ‘It looks like magic.’
‘Nah, just my nan’s crazy plant inventions.’
We crossed a little wooden bridge over a murky pond. A giant lily pad edged with razor-sharp spikes twitched and sank into the dark water as though it didn’t want to be seen. We kept going, past a crop of three-metre-high cactuses with spikes as long as my hand, and through a thicket of giant purple bell-shaped flowers bobbing in the spring breeze. A bee hovered over one. The flower lazily opened its mouth-like petals and devoured it in one snap.
I shivered. Bertie gently pecked at my cheek.
This was not a normal garden. And no matter how carefully I scanned the strange sea of plants, there wasn’t a single flash of orange. My nerves turned to fear.
I can’t make the shampoo without Rosa’s oranges.
Faye’s going to KILL me.
She’s literally going to put me in the wax pot and boil me alive.
I leaned on my knees, my pulse racing. Ahead, Ivy had stopped next to a moss-covered fountain shaped like a pineapple and was talking in Spanish to an old woman in a stripy lawn chair. They both turned to look at me.
‘This is my nan, Rosa,’ smiled Ivy. ‘Nan, Lily lives behind the wall, in Kitty’s Beauty Parlour.’
‘Hola,’ Rosa nodded.
I forced a bright smile on my face, just like Mum had always taught me to do in the salon. But inside I felt a prick of guilt, as quick and sharp as a rose thorn. I recognised the old woman from the previous night. She had the same hunched back and long grey braid coiled around her head. And her piercing stare made me wonder if she’d seen me in the darkness, spying on her garden.
A bead of sweat popped out on my forehead and I swiped it away.
‘Lily’s here to work on our school invention,’ Ivy explained to Rosa. ‘She makes shampoo, Nan. She’s really good at making things.’
Me? Good at making things? I scuffed my sneaker into the moss. ‘Not really.’
Rosa’s eyebrows wiggled. ‘Do you like my garden, Green Lily?’
‘Oh, my name’s Lily Green, Mrs Rodríguez. And yes, it’s very beautiful.’ I peered past her, towards the back of the garden. The stone path ended at a tall cherry blossom tree draped in a curtain of Spanish moss. Behind the lacy moss, the garden seemed to fall into shadows, like it was a different place altogether.
I squinted in the sunlight, trying to search the back of the garden for more oranges. But there was just the faint outline of the orange tree growing near the back wall – and it was fruitless.
Nothing. I was going to go home with nothing, and Operation Beauty Miracle would be over before it even began. I felt myself collapsing inside like a scrunched-up piece of paper, but then something caught my eye. A vine was clinging to the back wall, covered in shiny dark berries, and below it were pinpricks of glowing purple light, just like I’d seen the night before.
I stepped forward, but Rosa held out her walking stick.
‘Watch your step, Green Lily,’ she said in a singsong voice, pushing the cane against my knees. ‘Don’t get too close to my little monsters.’
‘Little monsters?’ I winced as Bertie gnawed on my right ear.
‘I think she means experiments,’ said Ivy.
‘Ever heard of the thousand-year-old Biddlewood tree?’ asked Rosa. ‘It lives on a small island in the Pacific Ocean and grows upside down, with its roots in the air and its purple flowers buried deep in the soil.’
I shook my head.
‘How about Corpus Crophilius? The deadly blue algae that creeps along the banks of the Corkscrew Swamp in Florida and can burn right through a plastic bucket. They teach you about that one at school?’
I nervously shifted my backpack to the other shoulder. ‘I don’t think so, Mrs Rodríguez.’
Rosa grunted. ‘The most beautiful was the GloggenWeed. A glowing moss from the fjords of Norway that was hairy as a bear and bright as a lantern.’ She blinked a few times, like she was lost in a memory. ‘I spent months collecting samples of that glowing green miracle, but I was so blinded by its beauty, I foolishly used it in my early plant experiments. Messed everything up, you see. Got my GloggenWeed crossed with my Biddlewood, and my Corpus Crophilius mixed with my moss molecules. The resulting plants were a little … unexpected.’ Rosa jerked her chin at the back garden.
‘Are they dangerous?’ I stared into the shadowy grove.
‘They’re different. But no-one makes things perfectly the first time, do they?’ Rosa jabbed the cane into my knees. ‘Mistakes are proof that you’re trying, that’s what I like to say.’
Mistakes are proof that you’re trying. The Lab Girls said that too.
The cane poked my knees again. ‘There’s only one rule out here. Stay away from the back of the garden, comprendes?’
‘Of course, abuela.’ Ivy sighed like she’d heard it a thousand times before.
‘Good. Now get me inside before I fall asleep out here.’ Rosa held onto Ivy and slowly pulled herself up. They began heading towards the house, but I could feel the curiosity bubbling inside me, wondering what else was hidden back there in the shadows. It did look a bit magical. I could almost imagine fairies hiding under the moss at the foot of the orange tree.
‘Lily, are you coming?’ shouted Ivy. She was disappearing over the bridge with Rosa, but as I turned to go, Bertie took off from my head in a burst of feathers and darted into the shadows at the back of the garden. He hovered over the dark vines on the back wall, then fluttered up into the cherry blossom tree.
‘Bertie,’ I called. ‘Time to go.’
The budgie ignored me and nibbled on something in his claws. It was a small vine covered in black berries, and as he pecked at them his feathers began to change colour. I sucked in my breath. Bertie was changing from blue to purple to green to yellow, then back to blue.
‘Lily!’ Ivy’s voice floated across the garden.
I stepped closer and a twig snapped under my foot. The sound ripped through the air, Bertie took off in an explosion of multi-coloured feathers, and the berries fell from his claws, landing with a soft plop in the moss right next to my green sneaker. The berries were small and black and so shiny they seemed to reflect the entire sky.
I could have left them.
I should have left them.
But there were no oranges left, and my fingers were tingling, and all I could hear was a voice hissing inside my head: Mum’s selling Kitty’s in six days. You have to make something. TODAY.
Something beautiful.
I grabbed the berries, jammed them in my pocket, and ran. Past the purple flowers that snapped at my back, over the little wooden bridge, around the pink lilies with their long black tongues lolling out to grab me, and up the back steps.
I only took a breath when I stumbled into Ivy’s kitchen and slammed the door shut behind me.
‘What took you so long?’ Ivy was standing in the kitchen wearing an apron that said I’M BERRY BERRY SWEET!
I leaned against the door, panting. Did I just do that? Rosa said to stay away from the back of the garden, but now I had a pocket full of berries and all I could think about was Bertie changing colour like a feathery rainbow. I felt horrible and guilty, with a splash of excitement. Like three terrible ingredients mixed together.
