Читать книгу Cupcakes and Glitter Shakes - Lisa Clark - Страница 5

“No way!” I say, grabbing at a fist full of pink tresses. “I can’t believe I went and got so excited about working at Missy magazine that I forgot Sadie’s soiree!”

Now I feel bad.

In fact, I feel beyond bad. On a scale of one to ten, with ten being badness personified, I’m feeling a whopping eighty-four, because Pink Lady, Sadie is the official organiser of fun.

This is factuality.

There’s not a holiday break that goes by without a themed party of some sort at Chez Sadie. It’s like the law or something.

“Chill, chica!” Bella says, removing my clenched, knot-making fists from my hair and placing them safely back down by my side. “It’s cool, this is a huge opportunity for you, Sadie’ll underst…”

“But…” I interrupt, “being a Pink Lady is all about putting your gal-pals first. Nope, it’s okay, I’ll just ask Tori if I can intern at Missy another time, I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

Except that it really didn’t feel fine.

Not one little bit.

What if this was my only chance? My one shot? What if they were booked up for the next four years? What if they were booked up for the rest of my life and I NEVER got the chance to intern at Missy? That would be just sucky × 100. But I couldn’t let Sadie down either. She really was one of the best friends a girl could ever ask for and she’d never let me down, not ever.

“That’s it, I’m gonna call Sadie, let’s get this sorted out!” Bella says reaching past me and picking up the receiver of the lip-shaped phone on my bedside table.

“No!” I shout putting my hand on the receiver to stop her calling, I then jump back in insta-fright as the phone starts to ring.

It stops after one ring and I hear the parental greet whoever was on the other end with a cheery ‘Hi!’ a ‘Hi’ which is usually only reserved for the likes of Yoga Dad and it wasn’t him, because he was here, so I could only assume it was Aunt Lullah.

Now I felt bad again.

Aunt Lullah was going to have to work some of her serious Lullah magic to persuade the Mothership to let me go be a real-life writer girl in the Londinium, and now it would all be for nothing because I had friendship commitments and wouldn’t be able to go.

Undeterred, Bella reaches for my mobile instead and starts searching for Sadie’s number.

“Where’s your mobile?” I ask, realising that there was no point in arguing with Bella, once she had her mind set on something, there really was no stopping her.

“Err, Lola, does this outfit look like it could accommodate a mobile?” she tuts. I scan Bella up and down. She really was just wearing an oversized tee, boots and an excessive amount of pearls, so no, apparently not.

Having found Sadie’s number, Bella presses the green button and puts it on loudspeaker.

After three rings, Sadie’s voice fills my room.

“Hey Lola, how you doing?” she asks, not realising my phone has been hijacked by Bella.

“So, Sadie,” Bella pipes up, “Lo has something she wants to tell you.”

I wave my hands at Bella, mouthing the word ‘no’ to make her stop, but it’s too late.

“Oh? What’s that? Sadie asks.

“Look, Sades,” Bella jumps in, not letting me even try to make this sitch sweeter, seriously, that girl really has no patience sometimes.

“Lo, has been offered an internship at Missy magazine…”

“No way!” screams Sadie. “That’s AMAZING!”

Okay, it was now or never, I took a big gulp of air and swallowed hard.

“Well, it would be,” I begin, “except it’s in the school holidays, like, next week, which means it’ll clash with the Sadie Soiree.”

I chew hard on my lip, Bella has found her nail varnish incredibly fascinating all of a sudden and Cat struts past with her nose in the air and a defiant look on her face.

The line goes silent and stays that way for what seems like a whole lot of forever.

“Look Sades, it’s no biggie,” I say breaking the silence. “I’ll email the ed-girl back and ask if I can intern another time.” Sadie is the official organiser of fun and I really, really don’t want to rain on her fun-time-Frankie parade.

“C’mon, she doesn’t have to do that, does she Sadie?” Bella asks. “Take MeSuki for example…”

As well as our band, The Rainbow Hearts, Bella is in another band called MeSuki. They formed when Suki came into J’adore, the shop Bella works in wearing a badge that said ‘wanna be in my band?’ Bella asked her who her band was exactly, and the girl replied, ‘Me, Suki!’ Ever since then Bella and Suki meet every month and make experimental electro-noise. Suki on keyboard and Bella on guitar. They’ve never played an actual gig or anything, but that’s okay. It’s just something Bella likes to do.

“It’s not that I didn’t want to be in The Rainbow Hearts,” continues Bella. “It’s just that MeSuki was a chance for me to try something new, to experiment with my passion for music. Just like this internship will give Lo-Lo the opportunity to explore her passion for writing, you’re cool with that aren’t you, Sades?”

“Of course,” Sadie says finally, “Look, I’m not going to pretend we won’t miss you Lola, because we will, but this is huge, of course you’ve got to do it. Carpe Diem!”

“Carp de what?” Bella exclaims.

“It means seize the day, Bella!” Sadie tuts. “Jeez Louise, do they teach you nothing at that school of yours?” We all laugh because Bella doesn’t go to a real school, she’s home-schooled by Yoga Dad.

I know. We’re super-jealous too. No uniform. No long division. More importantly, no Evil Eva Satine to heckle you in the playground.

Bella says that home-schooling is much harder than going to real school, but seriously, Sadie and I are still not entirely convinced.

“Are you absolutely sure you’re cool about this Sadie?” I ask hoping and wishing really hard that she meant what she had just said.

“Of course I am, Lola” Sadie confirms. “This is big stuff in Lola’s land of pink fabulousness, it would be rude and wrong of you NOT to go!”

I thank each and every one of my lucky pink-tinted stars that I’ve got such incredibly amazing friends.

“And to show you how totally cool I am about it, why don’t we have a cupcake bake here at mine on Sunday?”

“Sounds great, Sadie. Thank you so much, love you!” I say, feeling my insides fill up with the total loveliness that comes with having caring, sharing gal-pals who know what’s important to you.

“Love you too, see you Sunday—mwooah!”

I press the red button on my mobile, sit down next to Bella and rest my head on her shoulder.

Happy days.

This moment of girlkind bliss is rudely interrupted by a parental that appears to have lost the ability to knock, standing, hands-on-hip in my doorway.