by Lou Kuenzler
“Really?” I asked. The last time Stella had seen me, I had been dressed as a mermaid with green all over my face.
“You’re the girl who was wearing the suit,” she said.
“Mermaid,” I corrected.
“Your name is Vera, isn’t it?
“Violet,” I said.
“Whatever. They filmed us outside the book shop,” said Stella. “It made the local news. I would recognize that fringe anywhere.”
My fingers shot up to my forehead, feeling the gap where Rosie had made such a mess of cutting my hair.
“Sorry. I really do need to phone my gran,” I said.
I wasn’t sure what else I could say.
By the time I had finished my phone call, and convinced Gran that I was full size and safe, the film crew had stopped for lunch.
Stella Lightfoot had set up a little gas camping stove for herself. She was standing beside it, warming butter in a frying pan as the flickered blue and orange.
My stomach I hadn’t eaten anything for hours – not since the pink wafer biscuits with Gran.
I edged closer to the stove.
I was determined to speak to Stella – even if that meant answering some really awkward questions.
This is my last chance, I thought. I have to convince her to help save Mo’s café.
I had ridden a lion … and slid off a towering giraffe. Talking to an angry celebrity couldn’t be any more difficult than that. Could it?
But now I had met her properly, I wasn’t sure that Stella would help us. I wasn’t even sure that she could.
As I gave back her phone, my hands were
Talking to Gran had given me time to think. Stella Lightfoot wanted me to answer questions, but there were a lot of things she needed to explain too.
“I know you were going to film the giraffe,” I said. “I saw you already with the lion.”
“Really?” Stella’s eyelid but she didn’t look up as she cracked an egg into a bowl.
“Yes,” I said. “And I know about your sister.” I glanced round. There was no sign of Anne anywhere. Somebody had probably told her to hide so that I wouldn’t be able to get a good look at her. As soon as I started to speak, I realized I knew exactly what was going on.
“I know she’s your twin,” I said. “I know she does all the scary stunts for you. All the bits, like being attacked by a lion. Although Rory’s tame anyway. He’s been specially trained. I know you are pretending this is Africa – as if you have really gone there on safari.” I could hear my voice going and as I pointed to the sand circle. I hadn’t realized I was so angry. But I loved and now I had found out that none of it was real.
“You just get a man with a flame gun to burn the trees to make them look dry and hot,” I said. Stella was beating the egg with a fork now, round and round and round. It didn’t look as if she was even listening to me.
“You pretend to love animals but you call them stupid,” I said. “You pretend to be wild and daring but you’re not. You told everyone you were going to camp out last night, but you didn’t. You stayed in a hotel with a fancy French chef!” My lip was trembling now.
“Swiss,” sighed Stella, looking up at last. “The chef is Swiss. His speciality is cooking dishes with cheese.”
I couldn’t believe Stella was admitting it.
I quoted. “That’s what you say on . But none of it is true. It’s all fake.”
My finger was shaking as I pointed at Stella Lightfoot.
“You’re a fake,” I said, my voice cracking as I spoke.
“All right! That’s enough.” I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned to see Anne standing right behind me. Twiggy and Rory were with her – like two giant dogs following at heel.
“The truth is, I am the one who’s a fake,” she said, rubbing Rory’s head. Twiggy nodded her long neck as if to agree. “Stella has tried to be truthful and honest. But it’s all my fault. It is me who has tricked everyone.”
Anne’s hands were even worse than mine.
“Be quiet, Anne.” Stella slammed down the bowl of eggs. She shook her head and glared at me. “We don’t have to tell this girl anything.”
“But I’ve worked it out already,” I said. “Anne makes the films, not you.” I couldn’t believe Stella was still going to deny what was happening. “She’s the one. She’s the one who stood there and was attacked by a lion.”
“Stell, we can’t keep on pretending,” said Anne. “Violet here has seen far too much. Perhaps it will be for the best. We can put an end to all this.” She pointed to the sand and the burnt bushes. “Neither of us wants to go on with the lies.”
“But she’s just a nosey kid.” Stella shook her wooden spoon at me. “You can’t ruin this,” she hissed. “Not after Anne has worked so hard. I won’t let you.”
She sloshed the egg mixture into the pan and it spat angrily as it hit the heat.
“Come on,” said Anne, taking me by the arm. “Let’s leave Stella to cook. And I’ll tell you everything. The whole truth. I promise.”
Anne and I sat down under a tree and Mr Arkmann joined us.
Rory lay down behind us and we leant against him like a sofa. Twiggy rested her head lovingly on Anne’s shoulder.
We could still see Stella at the camping stove, crashing around among the pans. It was clear she was in a mood.
“Don’t worry, she’ll calm down,” said Mr Arkmann.
“Always does when she’s cooking,” agreed Anne.
It was funny, sitting here talking to someone who looked exactly like Stella Lightfoot – someone who was the spitting image of a famous celebrity. But the minute Anne started to speak, I could tell she was different. Stella always held her head high. Anne sort of ducked whenever she was talking. Stella’s voice was loud. Anne’s was quiet.
But the main difference was the way Anne was around the animals.
“You really do love them, don’t you?” I said, as she reached up and stroked Twiggy’s neck. Rory was purring like a big tomcat.
“I’m animal-Always have been,” said Anne. “That’s how all this started. I got a job making a television show about them. It was the first series of . The film crew all flew out to the Amazon rainforest.”
“I remember that,” I said. “The one where Stella went down the river in a tree-trunk canoe?”
“Stella? In a canoe?” Mr Arkmann laughed. “You mean the one where Anne went down the river. Stella can barely swim. She hates water.”
“She’d be scared to death that a crocodile would nip her toes,” smiled Anne.
“Truth is,” sighed Mr Arkmann, “Stella’s hopeless at all that wild and daring stuff…”
“And I love it,” said Anne. “But I am hopeless at talking to a camera.” She her nails. “As soon as anyone starts filming, I just sort of clam up. That first time, in the Amazon jungle … they knew I was a disaster on day one.”
“But they had already flown everyone out there,” said Mr Arkmann. “It was so expensive. They had to find a way to make the film.”
“Every time I tried to speak, I practically burst into tears,” said Anne. “I phoned Stella and she said she would help me. She was about to go to cookery college and train to be a chef, but she had done some acting at school. She’s at it. I convinced the film company that nobody would be able to tell the difference between us. Then we filmed all the scary stuff without me saying a word. When we came back from the Amazon, we just added Stella’s voiceover in a studio. We shot a few extra scenes with a friendly crocodile so we could link up with the footage I’d already filmed in the wild.”
“Snapper,” laughed Mr Arkmann. “Lovely old croc he was. I run a small private zoo, rescuing mistreated circus animals and that sort of thing. I can always find any tame ones we need.”
“But most of the filming is real … all the stuff in the wild,” said Anne. “I promise. It’s just me that you see doing it. Not Stella.”
“Like now,” nodded Mr Arkmann. “Anne has already filmed
everything in Africa for the safari series. We’re just shooting some last little bits, so that Stella can add the voiceover and make it look as if she was really with the animals.”
“But I don’t understand. You’re so ,” I said, looking at Anne. “I’ve seen the things you do: running with wolves; deep-sea diving in shark-infested water. I saw you today, when Rory attacked you. I know he’s trained, but it still must have been scary…”
“Oh, that’s easy!” said Anne. “I’d rather put my head inside a lion’s mouth than say lines to a camera or meet the public. Stella is the brave one, really. She does all the talking – she’s the real celebrity who goes to all the book signings and things. She’s the one who has made the show a success.”
Anne was fingernails. “I think it takes far more guts to appear in front of an audience than to swim with a great white shark,” she said quietly.
“I suppose so,” I agreed. I could sort of understand what she meant. I thought about all the daring things I have done when I’ve shrunk – things that people would say were brave – rolling down the stairs in a Russian doll, riding a lion, sliding down a giraffe’s neck. I didn’t really think of them as scary I the excitement too much.
“Different things seem brave to different people,” said Mr Arkmann. “With me it’s heights. I can’t even climb a ladder.”
“But that’s the problem,” said Anne. “Stella saved the show. was a huge hit. We thought it would just be for that first episode. But I had signed a contract – they wouldn’t let us stop. Stella has to appear on chat shows. Meet fans. It never ends.”
“We’ve made five series now,” explained Mr Arkmann.
“And Stella never got to go to cookery school,” said Anne. “Even though it’s the thing she really loves.”
I looked over towards Stella again. She did seem calmer now that she was cooking. She had served all the film crew with hot omelettes and was beating more eggs in a bowl.
“She’s a good person,” nodded Mr Arkmann. “She’s done all this for her twin sister.”
“And she’s not really and like you’ve seen her,” said Anne. “That’s just the stress of all the lies we have to tell. Imagine always having to pretend to be someone else. Never being able to be yourself.”
“Violet!” Stella’s voice boomed across the film set. “Come here.”
“She is very bossy though,” laughed Anne. “That’s sisters for you.”
“What does she want me for?” I gulped, clambering to my feet.
“She won’t bite,” smiled Anne.
“And if she does, punch her on the nose,” grinned Mr Arkmann. “That’s a trick I learnt from fighting crocodiles.”
As I walked across the sand, Stella was shaking her at me again.
“I suppose you don’t want an omelette,” she said.
Omelettes really aren’t my favourite food – especially the spinach ones Mum makes – but I didn’t dare say no.
“An omelette would be I lied.
“Really?” Stella raised her eyebrows. “I thought you’d rather have pancakes. I’ve whipped up some cream. And I’ve got some toppings here somewhere.” She unzipped her bag and pulled out the three little pots of
“Chocolate chips shaped and thousands, or would you prefer crunchy stars?” she grinned. Her smile was a totally proper one – even bigger than when she was speaking on , or posing for the news camera the day before.
“ course,” I said. “I love pancakes.”
Stella showed me how to make batter and we
I dropped one on the ground – it had that same look I had when I fell out of Nisha’s pocket in the King’s Park sandpit.
“Don’t worry. Rory will eat that,” said Stella. “But you have to hold the pan flatter. No! Not like that. Like this!”
Anne was right – Stella was bossy … but she wasn’t horrible. Not like the person I had seen on the film set or in the limo. As soon as she was cooking, she was different.
We made pancakes for Anne and Mr Arkmann too, and we all ate them leaning against Rory, with Twiggy resting her neck on our heads.
“Yum. This is I said, taking a huge mouthful of pancake, fresh cream and chocolatey shark-shaped sprinkles.
“Everything Stella makes is always scrumdiddilyumptious,” smiled Anne.
“That’s because cooking makes me happy,” said Stella. But she didn’t look happy. As I glanced over, I saw that her eyes were full of
I couldn’t bear to think of her so sad. I’d always imagined Stella Lightfoot fearlessly fighting sharks and smiling as she escaped from a charging bull. But this was the real Stella – not someone I imagined I knew just because I’d seen her on TV. I thought how awful it must be to spend so much time never being able to do what you want.
“Why don’t you do a show about cooking instead of all this?” I said, waving towards the burnt bushes and the pretend anthills in the sand.
“I wish I could,” sighed Stella.
“But you can,” I said. Everything seemed so simple to me, I couldn’t understand why Stella and Anne couldn’t see it. “It’s like you say on – whichever one of you it is
Stella laughed.
“That’s just a silly line we say in the show,” said Anne. “Stella can’t follow her dreams – not really. She’s forced to go on pretending to jump off waterfalls and fight wild animals. She’s forced to go on pretending that she is me.”
“And so neither of us is happy,” sighed Stella. “We all the lies. I am always so grumpy and cross. Anne bites her nails and hardly sleeps a wink at night.”
“I’m sorry, Violet.” Anne leant over and touched my hand as I was about to lift my fork for another bite of pancake. “You must be very disappointed in us. But at least now you know the truth.”
“I suppose you’ll go to the newspapers and tell them everything,” said Stella, staring down at her plate.
“No.” I shook my head gently so as not to wake the animals. Rory was loudly behind me. Twiggy had drifted off to sleep with her chin on my shoulder. “I’m not going to tell the papers anything,” I said. “But, if you’ll let me help you, I do have a plan. Do you think the television company might let you make two programmes instead of one?”
“Two programmes?” groaned Anne. “Why on earth would we want to do that?”
Twiggy’s head in the air. Rory in his sleep.
“Even more lies,” sighed Stella.
“No. It’s not about telling lies,” I said. “I think I know a way that both your dreams can come true. But you have to help me too … and my friend Mo, the one I tried to tell you about.
Anne and Stella both came to Swanchester in the limo when Pete brought me back that afternoon. I phoned Gran and told her to meet us at the hairdresser so that I could get my fringe cut before Mum saw that it was still wonky.
Anne came into the salon with me.
“I’d like a haircut just like hers,” she said, pointing at me. “A short fringe and neat round the back.”
She leant over and whispered in my ear, “It’ll be much easier to keep tidy when I’m camping in the jungle… And I won’t look like Stella any more.”
In the end, it was the haircut that helped convince the television company to scrap . Stella refused to cut her hair short and Anne refused to ever grow hers again. Now they could no longer pretend to be the same person.
“I want to make a series about ,” Stella told the company.
“And I’ll happily make a brand-new programme about animals and adventure,” said Anne. “But I am not going to speak a single word. I will be in disguise. A presenter. No one will even know who I am.”
So that is what they did, and I was there to help them. Rather than filming any more episodes of the television company made two completely new shows instead.
We started work on the first one almost immediately. After all, there was no time to lose – not if I wanted to help Mo.
The series was called and it was all about food. The idea was simp
le. Stella Lightfoot went to visit great cafes and restaurants. She talked live to the chefs about their favourite recipes, and then she had a go at making them herself – right there in their kitchens.
“This is a real adventure,” Stella laughed, talking straight to the camera.
I was sitting on a stool watching her film. Instead of her familiar , she was wearing an apron covered in bunches of bright black and purple grapes.
“I always dreamed of going to cookery school,” she said as the camera followed her. “But this is even better. I get to learn how to make brilliant food with true professionals.”
“I don’t know about professionals,” replied Mo, coming into shot. Of course, we had chosen as the very first place to film. “I taught myself how to cook,” she said. “But I do know that if you want to make that milkshake taste really and , you’re going to need to add another big handful of fresh strawberries and some banana too.”
*
While Stella was filming at she signed our petition and recorded interviews with local people saying the café was part of the community – much more important than a multi-storey car park.
When the council heard this, they agreed to give the café a second chance and inspect it again. They said that the accident with the milkshake could have happened anywhere. Mr Zeal was sent away to retrain.
On the day he came back to visit again, we were just finishing filming. The director spotted him at once.
“Would you talk to the camera?” he said.
“This café is exceptionally and safe,” droned Mr Zeal, in a flat voice. “No bacteria or germs have been identified. I can find no reason that fresh food and beverages should not be served here. Providing, of course, that all spillages are mopped up with due care.”
Nisha was with me and we both collapsed with . We were sure Mr Zeal was being funny. But he didn’t even smile.
“Perfect!” said the director, jumping up from his chair. “You’re a real star, Mr Zeal. A natural.”
Sure enough, the public Mr Zeal, with his straight face and serious voice. You can even buy mugs and aprons saying MR ZEAL HAS INSPECTED MY KITCHEN – IT IS CLEAN AND SAFE. He has become Health and Safety Advisor for the whole series now, visiting every restaurant and café where goes.