Passion for Fashion

by Coleen McLoughlin

  I zoomed around the corner and raced into the park. Out of nowhere, a small, fluffy black poodle came trotting out of the hedge, straight across my path. I leaped and twisted into the air like something out of Strictly Come Dancing (I wish!), missing the poodle by about a millimetre of fluff.

  “Where did you come from?” I panted, putting my hands on my hips and staring down at the fluffball. “I could’ve squashed you flat.”

  The poodle blinked at me with a pair of very shiny black eyes. It wasn’t wearing a lead, but it had a fancy tartan collar on with a dangly silver name-tag.

  “Gucci?” I said in amazement, peering at the name tag. “Your name is Gucci?”

  Don’t get me wrong: Gucci is an amazing fashion label. But who in their right mind would give that name to a dog?

  A tall blond man came running down the path towards me, an empty lead dangling from his hand. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t remember where I’d seen him before.

  “Gucci!” he called anxiously. “Come here, you bad boy!”

  Gucci panted happily at me as I held his collar, waiting for his owner to reach us.

  “Thank you,” gasped the man, seizing the poodle’s collar and snapping the lead back on. “You bad Gucci poochie,” he said as the dog licked his fingers.

  I was starting to get the giggles. Gucci was bad. But Gucci poochie was worse.

  “Oochie coochie, Gucci,” said the owner, tickling the poodle under the chin.

  When I laugh, I snort. Honest. I sound like a pig. Dad always teases me about it, which of course makes me snort even louder. I clapped a hand over my nose. It’s the only way to stop the snorting once it gets going.

  “Thank you, young lady,” said the man. “My daughter would’ve killed me if Gucci had got out of the park. He’s terrible at escaping. I think we should’ve called him Houdini.”

  It was no good. The snort was about to escape, just like Gucci. But then my urge to laugh vanished, like it had never been there. Summer Collins was slouching along the path towards us, scowling with boredom.

  “Dad,” she whined. “Can we go home now? My feet hurt.”

  Cogs whirred in my brain. Dad? Mr Collins! The blond man was Summer’s father, and the owner of Forever Summer! Suddenly a poodle called Gucci made sense.

  “It was no trouble, Mr Collins,” I said, composing my face.

  Summer recognised me. Her scowl turned as sour as month-old milk.

  “Hello, Summer,” I said cheerfully, like we were best mates.

  “Do you two know each other?” asked Mr Collins in surprise.

  “We’re in the same class,” I said. “I’m Coleen.”

  I held my breath. Would he know who I was?

  “Coleen? Hey, I received your letter this morning,” said Mr Collins, his face clearing. “You’re doing the fashion show with Summer, aren’t you?”

  “Come on, Dad,” Summer mumbled, tugging at Mr Collins’ sleeve.

  I was determined not to let Mr Collins out of my sight until I knew whether there was any chance of getting the top for the show. “Yes, I am,” I said earnestly. “And having some clothes from your store would really make our show special. Like the blue top I mentioned.”

  “I’ll certainly think about including it,” Mr Collins said with a smile. “Nice to meet you, Coleen. And thanks again for catching Gucci.”

  Summer gave me a super-fake smile. Then, as her dad turned away, she dropped the act. “If you think you’re getting that top, you’d better think again,” she hissed.

  I wagged my finger at her. “Now, Summer,” I said, “remember what Miss O’Neill said about working together?”

  I tell you, if lasers could shoot from human eyes, I would’ve been a smoking pile of dust on the path.

  By the time I got to the park, they were well into the first half and Em was already covered in mud. She beamed from ear to ear when she saw me arrive. My little sis can be so cute, even dressed in shorts, footie boots and a liberal spattering of mud.

  I suddenly felt really warm inside. I’d done all I could to get the top. Now I’d just have to wait. But I like to think I was one step closer to persuading Mr Collins – and to seriously annoying stuck-up Summer. Erm…Gucci the dog? As if!

  Six

  It was the following Monday, and we were back in our drama class. We’d all been having this long discussion about what music to choose for the show, and things had got really heated. It had already been decided that the show would feature a mixture of recorded tracks and live songs from the band, but it was nearly impossible to decide on anything more than that. So after some really fierce arguing – Justin Timberlake v. Razorlight…The Killers v. Rhianna – we ended up with a mixture of old and new tracks covering stuff like Lily Allen, Pink, the Beach Boys and the Beatles. Some of them were a bit obvious maybe, and totally ancient, but the oldies were easy and perfect for the band to perform. The trickier stuff was saved for the recorded tracks, which would play off the computer that Mr Ratnasinghe the IT teacher (known as Mr Rat for short) was going to set up especially for the show.

  But even though we’d taken votes, at least one person in the room still wasn’t happy.

  “What’s up, Lu?” I said. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  Lucy had been in a huddle with the other band members ever since the list of music had been fixed, and had just come back to our table. She swallowed and pointed at a song in the middle of her list. “The band wants me to sing solo on that one,” she said, showing us.

  “Brilliant!” Mel squealed. “You’ll be fantastic, Lucy.”

  Lucy hung her head so her hair fell over her face. When she does that, it means she wishes she could disappear for real. “I don’t want to be lead singer,” she mumbled. “I just want to sing backing vocals.”

  “Have you told the others?” I asked.

  Lucy shook her head. “They were all dead keen for me to do it.”

  “There you go, then,” I said. “They think you can do it. We think you can do it. What’s the problem?”

  “What if I sing it really badly?” Lucy asked unhappily.

  I snorted. “You? Sing badly? That’s like saying Wayne Rooney can’t kick a ball.”

  Miss O’Neill clapped her hands for silence, and we all turned to face the front.

  “We’ve heard back from two stores this week,” Miss O’Neill said, holding up two letters. “And it’s good news from both.” She glanced over at me. “Your letter to Tuckers worked a treat, Coleen. They’re offering us five men’s outfits.”

  A big cheer went up. I gave my best royal wave.

  “The only problem,” Miss O’Neill continued, “is that we don’t have any boys among our models. Would someone please offer to change roles and help us to model these clothes? Or I’ll be faced with the embarrassment of writing to Tuckers and having to turn down their kind offer.”

  The boys muttered among themselves and stared at the floor. You could tell there was no way any of them was going to do modelling. One lad got up and minced about the room, to howls of laughter from his mates. Miss O’Neill watched with her arms folded, looking unimpressed.

  I don’t get boys sometimes. They think everything’s sad, apart from football and guitars. They won’t get involved with anything.

  “Andrew?” said Miss O’Neill hopefully. “What about you?”

  Andrew was a beanpole of a lad, all ears and ginger hair. He wasn’t exactly model material, apart from being tall. But he usually did what he was told.

  Not this time. Instead, he went so red that he almost turned purple, folded his arms and shook his head. The other lads yelled with laughter, like the thought of Andrew Donovan modelling anything but Airfix aeroplanes was the craziest idea in the world.

  “Andrew!” they chanted. “Andrew! Andrew! Andrew!”

  Through the din, the bell started to ring. Miss O’Neill couldn’t make herself heard above the cheering, and the class collapsed around us like a house of cards.

&
nbsp; “Poor Miss O’Neill,” said Mel, hurrying down the corridor with me and Lucy as the whole of Hartley High flowed from one classroom to the next like a big blue and grey river. “She’ll never get the boys to join in.”

  “We’ve got to get some lads to model those clothes, or our show’s going to end up looking really sad,” I said, shaking my head in frustration.

  As we were passing the dining hall, a group of older boys came down the corridor towards us. It was Lucy’s brother Ben and his mates Dave and Ali. My hand flew up to pat my hair into place. Then I started grinning. I couldn’t help it. It was like my mouth was a torch, and I had to beam my teeth in Ben Hanratty’s direction.

  “All right, Luce?” Ben said to his sister as he passed us.

  Lucy was still deep in her worried-lead-singer thoughts, and didn’t notice. But I noticed something all right.

  “Ben just nodded hello at me,” I said breathlessly to Mel, watching Ben’s back disappearing in the crowd.

  “I think he was agreeing with something Dave Sheekey had just whispered in his ear,” Mel said, ever practical.

  Ignoring her, I floated away on one of my little dream clouds. First, that smile on the bus the other day. Now this! Maybe at last Ben Hanratty was starting to see me as someone other than just his little sister’s mate…

  And then an almost-more-glorious thought struck me. I grabbed Mel’s arm.

  “Ben and his mates could model for our show!” I gasped.

  Mel burst out laughing. Then she stopped, because I had my totally serious face on.

  “No way,” Mel said. “Coleen! Are you mad? Year Ten lads helping a bunch of Year Eight kids by dressing up and waltzing down a catwalk?”

  “Well, it’s worth a try, isn’t it?” I shrugged.

  I glanced at Lucy, ready to run my idea past her. But it was clear from her face that she was still worrying about her singing. Now wasn’t a good time to bring this up. Deep in thought, I moved on down the corridor. How could I persuade Lucy’s brother to help us when just the sight of him made me blush? I could feel my cheeks starting to glow at the thought of asking him. This could be tricky…

  Two lads from our class – the beanpole red-haired Andrew Donovan and his best mate Daniel Thorburn agreed to model a couple of outfits the following week, but only after some hardcore persuasion (and probably threats) from Miss O’Neill. The plan was that the lads would get changed a couple of times and model all the outfits that way. I still thought getting Ben and his mates in on the act was a better idea, but we had to start somewhere. After all, there were just two weeks left until the show.

  All the clothes that had come in were now hanging on a rail in the drama room supplies cupboard. Unlike Andrew and Daniel, who were scowling so hard you could’ve cleaned a draining board with their faces, the girls kept going into the cupboard to see the clothes and whispering amongst themselves about who was going to wear what. There was no sign of anything from Forever Summer yet. Although I was starting to get worried, I was determined not to lose hope.

  I hadn’t seen much of Lucy lately because she’d been rehearsing with the rest of the show’s band during lunch breaks. She spent most of our drama classes with the other musicians as well.

  “In about two minutes,” Lucy mumbled, “Suzanne – she’s playing guitar – wants us to do Here Comes The Sun for the class.”

  “Brilliant!” I said enthusiastically. “Isn’t that the one where you do your solo?”

  Lucy looked close to tears. She nodded. Then she went even paler as Miss O’Neill clapped her hands for our attention.

  “I’m delighted to say that our show band will now perform…” she began. But before she had finished, Lucy bolted out of the room.

  “I’ll go, Miss!” I said, jumping up and racing after my friend as Miss O’Neill stopped mid-sentence with a look of shock on her face.

  Lucy was slumped against the corridor wall as I ran outside.

  “I can’t do it, Col,” she said. “Everyone will laugh at me.”

  Lucy’s nerves were worse than I thought. I put my arm around her. “What’s the song again?” I asked.

  Lucy gave a tearful sniff. “Here Comes The Sun.”

  “Looks more like Here Comes the Snot to me,” I said, pulling a hankie from my pocket and giving it to Lucy to wipe her nose. “I love that one. My dad always sings it when he’s watering the garden.”

  Lucy noticed that I was trying to guide her back into the drama room. She dug her heels in. “I’m not doing it,” she said. “I’ve made up my mind.”

  Miss O’Neill put her head out of the door. “Everything OK?” she asked.

  “Sorry, Miss,” said Lucy, looking at Miss O’Neill with watery eyes. “Please don’t make me sing today.”

  “Don’t worry, Lucy,” said Miss O’Neill kindly, holding open the door so me and Lucy could go back in. “There’s still plenty of time. We’ll hear one of the other songs instead.”

  Two weeks isn’t plenty of time, I thought anxiously. Now, on top of the whole how-can-I-get-Ben-to-model thing and the maybe/maybe-not Forever Summer top, there was another problem. If Lucy couldn’t perform her song in front of the class, how was she going to do it in front of the whole school in just a fortnight’s time?

  Me and Mel were extra gentle with Lucy at break. I knew there was no point mentioning the singing just then. But as she kept on crying and hiding behind her hair, I decided that a bit of shock therapy might be just what she needed. It was time to mention my Big Plan.

  “I think we should ask Ben and his mates to model for our show,” I declared.

  The effect on Lucy was incredible. She went from being all red-eyed and quivery to gawping and laughing in two seconds flat.

  “That’s what I did too,” Mel said, shaking her head. “But Coleen’s determined.”

  “Totally,” I said. I put my extra-determined face on, the one Dad always describes as my constipated look.

  “There’s no way he’ll agree to it, Col,” said Lucy, putting her hands in the air, “but there’s no harm in asking, I guess. Why don’t you both come round to ours this weekend? Ben’s having his mates over for a game of footie in the garden. You can try and ask him then. But if you end up looking stupid, Coleen, it will so be your own fault.”

  Seven

  I got up so early on Saturday morning that Mum thought I was ill. “Are you sure you’re OK, Coleen?” she asked, dishcloth in hand, as I bounced into the kitchen at seven-thirty, my hair freshly washed and already done up in my plastic curlers.

  “Couldn’t be better,” I said, pushing Rascal off my chair (his favourite) and helping myself to toast.

  “It’s a bit cold for shorts today,” Mum said, eyeing my outfit. “Don’t you think?”

  I glanced down at my new shorts. I’d cut them down from an old pair of jeans that morning, and I was planning on edging the frayed leg bits with some purple glittery ribbon I had in my sewing box.

  “Chill, Mum,” I said. “I’m going to put tights on underneath. I was just checking they were the right length. You can’t tell till you put them on, see.”

  Dad appeared at the kitchen door. He did this comedy stagger thing and leaned against the doorframe. “I’m seeing things,” he said. “Water. I need water…” And he passed his hand over his forehead like he’d been tramping through the desert for days.

  Em peered around from behind Dad, her eyes all round and surprised. They were both in their tracksuits, ready for their usual Saturday morning footie training.

  “I don’t see what all the fuss is about,” I objected, pouring some juice into a glass. “I’m up just a bit earlier than normal. That’s all.”

  “A bit?” Dad echoed. “Your mum usually has to pull the covers off you at ten.”

  I tapped my nose at him. “Stuff to do,” I said. “Me and Mel are supposed to be round at Lucy’s by eleven, and I want to get ready.”

  “Three and a half hours should do it,” Dad agreed.

  And f
or some reason, everyone laughed.

  My stomach was fluttering when me and Mel got off the bus near Lucy’s house at eleven. I was pleased with my shorts, and had spent ages deciding whether to put them with black or purple tights. Purple won in the end, because they looked brilliant with my black pumps. A white T-shirt and a black hoodie with a purple drawstring completed the look. My hair had been a disaster when I took the curlers out: I’d looked like Gucci the poodle. So I’d washed it again and dried it straight. Mel meanwhile had done something totally flamboyant with her hair, fluffing it into a crazy Afro with a red scarf keeping it off her face. She looked great in her red jeans and stripy tee. If we couldn’t persuade Ben and his mates to model for us when we looked this good, then there was no hope!

  As we got nearer Lucy’s house I could hear all this yelling and laughing coming from the back garden. My confidence started oozing away.

  “Sounds like the lads are already here,” Mel said nervously.

  “No problem,” I said, trying to sound more confident than I felt as I knocked on the Hanrattys’ door. “Let’s go and find Lucy first.”

  “She’s in her room.” Mrs Hanratty smiled as she nodded her head in the direction of the stairs. We slipped past and hot-footed it up to the landing.

  Lucy grinned as we pushed back her door. “All set?” she asked.

  “Well, it’s now or never,” I said, swallowing.

  We hurried back downstairs and into the garden. I spotted Ben immediately. He was in goal, laughing and with a huge stripe of mud down his jeans. My stomach did its beach-ball thing. Then I groaned when I saw Dave Sheekey playing keepie-uppies by the patio, while Ali Grover – usually the quietest of Ben’s mates – cheered him on.

  “I guess we can’t have everything,” Mel muttered in my ear.

  I decided that a confident approach was necessary, took a deep breath and marched down to the grass.

  “Hi, Ben!” I said. It came out a bit squeaky, but I figured I was the only one who noticed.