The Brilliant Ideas of Lily Green

by Lisa Siberry

  As if reading my mind, Elektra slammed the notepad on the desk and growled, ‘Useless. These are all basic ingredients from a grocery store. And pink lemonade? Hot chocolate powder? What kind of idiot puts that in lip balm? This is all useless.’ Elektra paused. ‘Unless …’

  I froze.

  ‘Rosa’s berries.’ Elektra read my last ingredient out loud.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid. Why did I write that down? I clapped a hand over my mouth to force myself to stay quiet. I heard the cold rattle of Elektra drumming her nails on the table above me.

  ‘Whoever this Rosa is, she must have the secret ingredient we’re after.’ Elektra’s nails stopped tapping. ‘Find her.’

  ‘But I don’t know anybody called Rosa,’ said Zoe, sliding off her chair. ‘Please, Mother, can’t we just forget about the lip balm? I’m working on an idea for a spray-on nail polish –’

  ‘Nail polish?’ Elektra grabbed Zoe’s arm and pulled her back onto the chair. ‘I don’t want nail polish. I want the world’s first colour-changing mood lip balm that some twelve-year-old invented while you were making nail-spray. I have one word for that idea, Zoe – garbage!’

  Garbage? I almost felt bad for Zoe.

  Almost. But when I snuck a look past her legs and saw all the twinkling beauty products on the BeautyGlow shelves, I just felt cold, cruddy envy instead. The shelves were bursting with incredible things like Prickly Pear Golden Butter Body Lotion, and Sesame Seed Squid Ink Shampoo, and BeautyGlow’s very own Power-Puff! Inflatable Hair Mousse, which Zoe hadn’t stopped bragging about.

  They had so much, and we had so little, and part of me wanted to jump out from under that counter and snatch back the one beautiful thing that was mine. But Elektra had started thumping Dad’s notebook against her thigh.

  ‘We can’t let Kitty’s win again, understand?’ she said in a low voice.

  ‘Again? What are you talking about, Mother?’

  ‘That prissy little Kitty Green,’ snapped Elektra. ‘She beat me at a beauty competition twenty years ago.’

  Mum beat Elektra. I strained to hear more, which was hard with Ivy’s violin screeching in the background.

  ‘1998. Fern Hill Beautician of the Year,’ continued Elektra. ‘Kitty won the plaque and beauty scholarship, and all I got were three broken nails and a stupid second-place ribbon. I’ve never lost a single thing since, you understand, Zoe? Losing is for losers.’

  ‘Yes, Mother.’

  I sat there in a daze, trying to imagine Mum beating Elektra all those years ago. No wonder she was so proud of that plaque. My mum was a real-life beautician magician.

  ‘Who are we, Zoe Von Hammer?’ said Elektra, stamping her spiky heel again and narrowly missing my hand.

  ‘We’re BeautyGlow,’ murmured Zoe.

  ‘And?’

  ‘We’re BeautyGlow and we’re a cut above the rest.’

  ‘So what are you going to do for me, darling?’

  ‘Find the berries.’ Zoe’s voice was barely a whisper.

  ‘Precisely,’ purred Elektra. ‘And chop chop. The sooner we put Kitty’s out of business, the better.’

  Put Kitty’s out of business?

  There was the sound of ripping paper and my notebook suddenly fell into the bin next to me. I almost choked with relief. It was covered in fingernail cuttings, but at least I had it back. Silently, I fished it out and dusted off all the muck, but there was a problem: Zoe was holding the ripped lip balm page.

  As I stared at my stolen formula, I felt a dark, sludgy fear bubbling away inside me, like honey that’s been left to burn. The Von Hammers didn’t just want my lip balm, they wanted to wipe out Kitty’s Beauty Parlour for good.

  Which meant one thing.

  This was war.

  Ivy and I walked home from the mall in the dark. I was still fuming over BeautyGlow and the lost formula, but Ivy spent the whole time counting the coins she’d earned busking.

  ‘Fifteen dollars and twenty-five cents!’ she said, dancing on the spot. ‘I’ve got enough to buy a new set of pens and this magic ink-eraser I’ve had my eye on. You wouldn’t believe how many mistakes I make. Do you know it took me five weeks and three pads of paper to figure out how to draw a nose? Nostrils are hard. But practice makes perfect, right?’

  ‘Sure, Ivy.’

  ‘Hey,’ she nudged my shoulder. ‘Don’t worry about your formula. You said you were working on something even better. Let’s just make that for the competition.’

  I dragged my feet along the footpath and wished Ivy would quit being so perky. How was I going to come up with something new? Sure, I had my notebook back, but it was full of all my old bad ideas. No-one would want my oatmeal and mint body cream.

  We’re the Green Girls, and we make the world a beautiful place.

  That’s what Mum says. All the time. But so far, the only beautiful things I’d made were the shampoo and the lip balm – and that was only because of Rosa’s plants.

  Which Elektra and Zoe know about, I reminded myself. Nice one, genius.

  What would happen if Zoe figured out who Rosa was? Would she ransack her garden? Make something better than Glue Goo or Lip Switch? Take the one good thing that had happened to Kitty’s and steal it for herself?

  My best day ever had turned so bad I could practically see the mould growing on it.

  ‘I’ll have to skip the salon visit,’ sighed Ivy, interrupting my thoughts. ‘My violin lesson started ten minutes ago.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ We stopped at the turn-off to my street, and I noticed Ivy’s usual bubbliness had worn off. She was chewing on the knots in her hair and frowning at her violin case. I had to ask. ‘Why do you play that thing if you’re so …’

  ‘What?’ Ivy pulled the hair out of her mouth. ‘Bad?’

  ‘Sorry,’ I shook my head. ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘Hey, you should have seen the looks on people’s faces when I played “Sugar Plum Fairy”.’ Ivy did her wind-chime laugh. ‘Classic. But at least my violin-playing got your notebook back.’

  ‘Thanks. I owe you one.’

  Ivy gave me a sly smile. ‘How about you make me some of that hair detangler spray like you promised, and we call it even?’

  ‘Trust me, you don’t want that.’

  ‘Um, I’ve tried everything on this hair. Trust me, I do.’ Ivy turned to go, but stopped. ‘And you asked why I keep playing this stupid thing?’ She held up the violin case. ‘It’s not for me, it’s for my mama and papa.’

  There was a beat of silence as I thought about this. ‘But if it’s not you, shouldn’t you just tell them? Be true to yourself, and that kind of thing?’

  Ivy thought about that. ‘My family has always expected me to be a musician. I guess I don’t want to disappoint them. You know what I mean?’

  ‘Yeah.’ I hugged my notebook closer. ‘I know exactly what you mean.’ I waved at Ivy as she disappeared down the street. I felt bad for her, playing that violin for two hours a day just to please her family. Her drawings were much more beautiful than the “Sugar Plum Fairy”. I should have told her that.

  I headed towards home, feeling cold and empty. Even the lights glowing in the salon window didn’t cheer me up that night, because I had one more problem to add to my list: I couldn’t tell Mum and Faye that BeautyGlow had stolen the lip balm formula. If I did, I’d have to spill about the berries.

  And then, bye-bye lip balm. And bye-bye Kitty’s.

  The lies were getting all mixed up in my head, like a bottle with too many colours in it, turning into sludgy brown, just like Ivy said.

  I pushed hard on the salon door. A handwritten sign was stuck to the glass.

  Lip Switch lip balm! Coming soon!!!

  I felt a bubble of hope, but it popped as soon as the door swung open. The man from the other day was in the salon, handing my mum a stack of papers.

  Sylvester Sebold. Turning Bricks into Gold.

  They must have just finished a serious conversation, because the wrin
kle between Mum’s eyebrows was a deep gash of worry and her normally neat bun hung in strands around her face.

  ‘I take it this means I’ll be seeing you Monday, Mrs Green?’ asked Mr Sebold, straightening his already perfect tie.

  ‘It looks that way,’ nodded Mum.

  Behind them, the beaded curtain twitched and I saw Faye moving behind it.

  ‘My client will be extremely pleased,’ said Mr Sebold, heading towards the door in a cloud of musk cologne. ‘You’re doing the right thing, Mrs Green. As soon as you sign those papers, we can start turning these bricks into gold and your worries into wishes. Good evening, all.’

  He gave me a horrible wink, like he had something stuck in his eye, then swept out into the night. I coughed, because, eww, musk.

  ‘Um, Mum?’ I looked desperately at the papers in her hands. ‘What’s going on?’

  But before she could answer, the beaded curtain exploded and Faye stormed into the salon wearing an off-the-shoulder jumper that was almost as red as her face.

  ‘Seriously? You’re selling the salon and you never even thought to tell me?’ Faye pointed at the papers. ‘Kitty’s isn’t a pile of bricks! And that guy’s a creep!’

  ‘He also smells bad,’ I added.

  Mum unscrewed her high heels, plonked them on the desk and took a deep meditation breath. She looked tired and faded, like that real-estate agent had walked away with all her sparkle. ‘I should have told you sooner. I’m sorry, girls.’ Mum rubbed her temples. ‘Mr Sebold came here on Monday with an offer to buy the salon and apartment. He said he’d drop off some papers to sign, but they never arrived, so I thought the offer was withdrawn.’

  Faye and I swapped guilty looks. I could still see the flames glowing against my sister’s face as she scorched those sale papers. Not that it did much. Musk-man just came back like a fly feeding on honey.

  ‘Now here he is again,’ sighed Mum, slipping the new papers under the register. ‘And this time his client’s offering twice what the salon’s worth. Someone certainly wants our salon, and they’re being very persuasive about it.’

  ‘Well, tell them it’s not for sale,’ ordered Faye. ‘Tell Mr-I-wear-too-much-hair-gel that the Green Girls are busy making Kitty’s beautiful again.’

  ‘Or at least we’re trying to,’ I said quietly.

  Mum wiped some dust off the cash register. ‘Look, girls, Glue Goo was a wonderful idea. But just because we had twelve customers yesterday, it doesn’t change the fact that we have no more appointments for the rest of the month.’

  ‘We have the lip balm.’ Faye’s voice trembled. I wasn’t sure if she was angry or afraid. ‘Everyone I know is coming on Friday to buy it. We talked about this the other night, Mum – we’re going to pack this place out and it’ll be just like old times.’

  Mum blinked a few times. Her eyes glistened. ‘Faye.’ She said it slowly, and I imagined her conjuring up all the positive quotes on our fridge. ‘When it rains, we need to look for rainbows, and the salon’s been struggling for months. Mr Sebold’s offer is a very generous one. If we took it, we could make a fresh start. You could get a new makeup set. And Lily, you could get that phone I’ve been promising you.’

  ‘I don’t want a phone,’ I said.

  ‘And I don’t want a makeup set.’ Faye looked unimpressed. ‘I want to run a business. Our business. The one you started with Dad twenty years ago, remember?’

  No-one said anything, but I knew what we were all thinking.

  Dad.

  He was nowhere, and he was everywhere – his scribbles on the walls and his inventions dangling from our bedroom ceiling and set into the kitchen bench. What would Mr Sebold turn those into?

  I shook my head furiously. ‘There has to be another way.’

  ‘Yeah, my way,’ said Faye. ‘Like I keep saying, we just have to give this place a makeover and launch a website –’

  ‘No, no websites,’ Mum looked flustered. ‘No makeovers.’ She gazed around the sagging old salon and I had a sudden realisation: my sister could see a future for Kitty’s, but Mum was stuck in the past.

  I slipped my hand in Mum’s. It felt cold. ‘Can’t we try selling the lip balm?’

  Mum bit her lip like she was thinking.

  ‘Come on, one more shot,’ pleaded Faye. ‘With a brand-new range of natural beauty products, I just know we can make things better.’

  ‘Range of products?’ I thought I was hearing things.

  ‘Yes, Lily, products. Plural,’ said Faye. ‘According to Be the Boss, customers value novelty and choice, which means you need to make one more thing for the product launch on Friday. Or are you still having problems with your’ – she cocked her head – ‘ingredients?’

  Mum gave me a funny look.

  I panicked. ‘Nope, all good.’

  ‘Excellent,’ Faye patted at her stiff, Glue-Gooed hair and … urgh … a shower of brown dust floated off the ends and settled on her shoulders. I never paid attention when Mum tried to teach me hairdressing, but hair turning into dust? That did not look natural.

  ‘Lily, time to get working.’ Faye snapped her orange nails. ‘Operation Beauty Miracle is about to enter phase two.’

  ‘Operation … what?’ asked Mum.

  ‘Just a business term,’ said Faye quickly. ‘We’re all over this, Mum. Tell Mr Sebold he’ll have to wait until Monday for his answer, because the Green Girls have a few more tricks in their aprons. Isn’t that right, Lily?’ Faye grinned at me and her Lip Switch lips turned a shade of mud-brown. There was also some dark guck stuck to her gums, like she’d eaten a mouthful of berries.

  I shivered. ‘I guess so.’

  Mum squeezed my hand. ‘I suppose we should at least try to sell your inventions, Lily. You’ve worked so hard on them. But …’ Her voice trailed off, and then she added, ‘let’s not get our hopes up.’

  Faye narrowed her eyes at me. We both knew hope was all we had now.

  Hope, lip balm, and one more thing.

  If only it was that easy.

  I lay awake in bed for hours that night, trying to figure out what I could make that would be beautiful enough to save the salon. I tried closing my eyes to think, but every time I did, all my fears started dripping down the sides of my brain and pooling into a panicky, guilty mess.

  If we fail Operation Beauty Miracle, Mum’s going to sell the salon on Monday.

  I told Violet and everyone at school that I’m working on something new.

  I can’t make anything without Rosa’s plants.

  I sat up in the dark, breathing hard. Crunch stirred near my feet and his white tail curled into a furry question mark. We both looked at the glowing green flowers whirring overhead and I wished Dad was there. ‘Help me, Dad,’ I whispered. ‘I don’t know how to make things better.’

  The night felt deep and lonely. And as the green flowers spun round and round, something started to sparkle deep inside my head like an answer to all of my problems.

  I snapped on my slipper lights. My feet started moving out into the kitchen, past the cupboards and towards the thing I really needed. I went down the fire escape, with Crunch bouncing down the railings after me, through the weeds, and up the mulberry tree. It was only as I crawled onto the top of the stone wall that I wondered if I was doing the right thing.

  Of course you are, I told myself. You’re a Green Girl.

  You have to save the salon.

  And one more plant will make everything better.

  Guilt seeped through me like black ink spreading through water, but I promised myself this would be the last time. Just one more plant and this would all be over.

  Beside me, Crunch peered into the darkness on the other side of the wall.

  Then I jumped.

  I landed with a thump on the moss-covered ground and crouched there, blinking in the dark. It smelt wild and muddy, like the bottom of a well. It felt different, too – cold and still, as though the garden was holding its breath. I looked back up at the wall, whe
re Crunch was sitting against a backdrop of stars, snapping his tail and sniffing the air. A second later, he skittered away.

  Scaredy-cat.

  I was alone. But not really, because the garden was moving around me. I heard a faint rustling sound as the berry vine crept its tendrils along the stone wall. And a whispering in the silvery Spanish moss that swung from the dark trees. Below, there was a faint clicking sound as a meadow of tiny glowing purple flowers unfolded around my slippers, like little fireflies that had been disturbed by a giant.

  I’d never listened to plants before. I wondered if this was the sound of them growing.

  Or if you’re just a crazy thief crouching in someone’s backyard listening to plants, I told myself.

  I peeked through the veil of Spanish moss towards Rosa’s house. The rest of her garden stirred restlessly in the night. The bell-shaped flowers snapped at mosquitoes, and the lily pads in the pond plopped and splashed. Even the tiny glowing flowers at my feet were spitting faint clouds of sparkly pollen into the night air.

  Behind me, something rustled in the darkness. It sounded like paper unfolding, and was coming from the darkest corner of the garden, against the back wall – but before I could investigate, a light snapped on in the kitchen and the back door swung open. Rosa was standing in the doorway, squinting out into the dark.

  I jumped to my feet, crushing some of the purple flowers under my slippers. I had to get out of there, but not without the one thing I’d come for. I snatched a handful of the glowing flowers and scrambled back over the wall.

  The flowers glowed inside my cupped hands, shining brighter than my slipper lights as I sprinted across the yard, up the fire escape and back to bed. I slipped the five delicate flowers into an empty jar and hid it under my bed.

  I didn’t know what was worse: the creeping shame that I’d stolen from Rosa and Ivy, or the desperate need to make something beautiful for my family. Only one thing was certain: I’d found my next secret ingredient.

  The next day started like any other.

  I scrubbed the mould out of the foot spa, Faye styled my curls into something called a ‘French twist updo’, and Mum said it was going to be a beautiful day. But as soon as I stepped outside the salon, everything else was different.