Daizy Star, Ooh La La!

by Cathy Cassidy

  ‘Noooooo!’ I screech. ‘My PAINTING!’

  I watch, helpless, as my accidental masterpiece flutters down through the air and is eventually lost to sight among the Parisian rooftops.

  ‘Oops,’ Ethan says in a small voice. In just a few hours’ time, gallery owner Jacques Genet is coming to collect my red squirrel masterpiece, which is probably even now lying in pieces in a gutter somewhere. My life is over.

  ‘I wouldn’t really have told anyone your red squirrel secret,’ Ethan says.

  ‘I don’t care any more,’ I tell him. ‘Yes, my dad dresses up in a red squirrel suit. Is that a problem? He is my dad, and I love him, no matter what!’

  Ethan tugs the beret down over his forehead. ‘So … I suppose a date would be out of the question?’ he asks.

  ‘Yes, Ethan, it would,’ I huff. ‘No date. Not now, not tomorrow, not EVER. Understand? And yes, my dad has a very weird job, but is that a crime? Is that a joke? No, Ethan, it is NOT!’

  He looks slightly alarmed now, but I am fizzing with anger and I cannot stop.

  ‘MY DAD IS A GIANT RED SQUIRREL,’ I yell at the top of my voice, and tourists turn to stare at me, baffled. ‘SO WHAT? I AM VERY PROUD OF HIM, OK?’

  ‘I know,’ Murphy says, running over to my side. ‘It’s OK, Daizy.’

  Beth and Willow appear, and my heart sinks. Did they see Ethan flirting, chatting me up …? Ethan trying to kiss me? They’ll be furious. I wait, resigned, for the explosion.

  It doesn’t come.

  ‘Your dad is great, Daizy,’ Beth says kindly. ‘Of course you’re proud of him.’

  Willow slides an arm round me. ‘We’ve known about the squirrel thing for ages, y’know. We just didn’t mention it because YOU didn’t. Thought you might want to keep it quiet.’

  ‘Who wouldn’t?’ Ethan Miller muses, and Beth and Willow turn on him.

  ‘Ethan, go AWAY!’ Beth growls, grabbing the beret and sunglasses and handing them back to me. ‘Haven’t you done enough?’

  ‘We saw,’ Willow adds. ‘We saw EVERYTHING, Ethan, and we were not impressed. Push off and leave us alone!’

  ‘Girls, girls, you don’t mean that!’ he grins.

  Beth and Willow just glare, and Ethan wilts, sloping sadly away. My friends have spent a whole year crushing on this boy, only to have their dreams crash and burn, just as mine have. What amazes me is that they are right here at my side, loyal and supportive, even though they must be hurting inside. It is kind of a miracle.

  Maybe our friendship is stronger than I thought?

  ‘You were right about that boy,’ Willow says scornfully.

  ‘He’s a creep,’ Beth sulks. ‘We were in the café and he told us to queue for some Coke and crisps, that he’d save us a seat. We couldn’t find him anywhere, so we came out here to look, and …’

  Her face crumples, and a tear rolls down her cheek.

  ‘I don’t even like him, if it’s any comfort,’ I say.

  ‘We know,’ Willow sighs. ‘We’ve been stupid, Daizy. Getting all mushy about a boy … they’re just not worth it.’

  ‘Some of us are OK,’ Murphy grins.

  ‘Sorry, Murphy,’ Willow agrees. ‘Some of you are the best ever. I’m going to miss you so much at Brightford Academy, y’know.’

  ‘Me too,’ Beth says sadly. ‘It just won’t be the same.’

  ‘Me, three,’ I sigh.

  ‘Well, I haven’t decided yet,’ Murphy tells us. ‘I might still end up at Brightford Academy … they do have a really good art department.’

  ‘No way!’ I gasp. ‘Really? Oh please, Murphy, please, PLEASE come to Brightford!’

  ‘It won’t seem so scary if you’re there,’ Willow chips in, and that’s the first time I’ve ever heard her admit she is nervous about going to secondary school. Maybe my friends aren’t quite as confident as they pretend?

  Murphy winks and I begin to hope that maybe, just maybe, everything will be OK after all.

  ‘Ethan is SO not the boy I thought he was,’ Willow sighs. ‘He was blackmailing you, Daizy. He ripped your picture in half and threw it off the Eiffel Tower!’

  ‘He didn’t mean it,’ I shrug. ‘It was sort of an accident. But there’s an important gallery owner coming to collect it for an exhibition later. He said it was a masterpiece of modern art – and now it’s gone!’

  Beth and Willow frown. ‘A masterpiece? That red squirrel thing? Are you sure?’

  ‘Very sure,’ I say, a little huffily.

  ‘We thought you were joking,’ Willow blinks.

  ‘Nope,’ I sigh. ‘But it’s all ruined now. I’ve lost the picture!’

  ‘At least you’ve got another one,’ Murphy points out, nodding at the drawing on my clipboard. ‘It’s not modern art, exactly, but I think I like it better …’

  I look at the drawing. I like it too, but I know it’s not what Jacques Genet is looking for.

  ‘Jacques won’t like it,’ I worry. ‘There are no splashes of mud, no stuck-on grass, no cat or tyre prints, no spilt paint …’

  ‘So, we’ll do some like that,’ Willow says. ‘We’ll help you, Daizy. How hard can it be?’

  ‘We can use Pierre’s studio,’ Beth grins. ‘It’ll be fun!’

  A wave of happiness swamps me. Just when I thought all was lost, my friends have come to the rescue … instead of losing them, I’ve discovered how loyal they really are. They may not understand my new star quality; they may worry that it will end in tears; but still, they are helping me to give it my very best shot.

  ‘Teamwork,’ Murphy shrugs. ‘That’s what friends are for!’

  Miss Moon appears with a camera and we grin and wave and pose together for a photo, halfway up the Eiffel Tower, just like I always imagined we would. Perhaps it’s not the end of the world after all that I lost that stupid painting?

  We spend the afternoon in Pierre’s studio shed, trying to re-create the red squirrel painting. The little white cat watches from the paint table as we splash and splatter the paint.

  ‘I really thought you were imagining that cat,’ Beth grins, planting a blue handprint in the centre of one of the paintings. ‘Did you say Pierre calls her Picasso?’

  ‘Well, she loves playing with paint,’ I say. ‘She’s the real reason my red squirrel picture was so … well, weird.’

  ‘Cool,’ Willow says, wheeling Madame Le Chapeau’s bicycle across the wet paintings to re-create the tyre-print effect. ‘Who knew modern art could be so much fun?’

  The studio looks like the scene of a small massacre, but I’m still not sure the pictures are working. ‘Something’s missing,’ I sigh.

  ‘Cat prints!’ Murphy says, eyeing Picasso, who is pawing at a dish of red paint.

  I frown. ‘It was an accident, last time. I don’t think it’d be fair to make her do it. She might be scared!’

  Willow narrows her eyes. ‘What if we just … encourage her to stand in the paint and see what happens?’

  Warily, I lift Picasso up and stand her in the tray of thick red paint. She unleashes a bloodcurdling howl and ricochets across the studio like a firecracker. A paint palette falls down on top of her, streaking her with blue, orange and pink.

  ‘Quick!’ I yell. ‘Catch her! She’ll wreck Pierre’s paintings!’

  Beth dives towards the cat, misses and lands face down on the floor, while Willow’s rugby tackle sends yet more paint flying. Murphy and I skid about the studio trying to grab Picasso, but every time we get close she zigzags away again, her tail puffed up like a giant paintbrush, leaving smears of colour everywhere.

  ‘Nooooo!’ I wail, the first time I see her smudge paint across one of Pierre’s pictures. ‘Stop, Picasso!’ But she doesn’t stop – she can’t. She rubs herself against the finished canvasses stacked against the walls and climbs the easels, leaving ghostly streaks in rainbow colours. The more we chase, the more she runs.

  ‘Leave her,’ I say finally. ‘We’re scaring her. Let her calm down.’

  The l
ittle cat slinks away beneath the chair in the corner, and Beth, Willow, Murphy and I exchange horrified glances. Every one of Pierre’s carefully painted pictures is smeared with paint and cat fur. I have destroyed them, with a little help from Picasso.

  At that moment, the studio door swings open and Jacques Genet strides into the room, Pierre and Miss Moon at his heels.

  ‘Zut alors!’ Jacques exclaims. ‘What is going on?’

  I am in the middle of the studio, with paint streaked across my face and dripping down my arms. I see Pierre’s shocked face as he takes in the carnage of his ruined pictures, and I feel more ashamed than I ever have in my life.

  Sometimes, I think my only star quality is to bring doom and disaster to everyone I meet.

  ‘Daizy is a very hands-on kind of artist,’ Murphy says, stepping forward bravely. ‘She likes to get her hands in the paint. And her hair. And … er … her cat.’

  Jacques Genet grins. ‘You’ve been creating more masterpieces for me?’

  ‘That’s right,’ I say. ‘Here they are. On the … er … floor.’

  The gallery owner peers at the pictures, now all but hidden beneath a thick crust of paint and a scrum of foot and paw prints. ‘Interesting,’ he shrugs. ‘But … there is no spark of genius here. I am sorry, Daizy, but I think perhaps I will just take your masterpiece from yesterday …’

  ‘Right,’ I whisper. ‘About that. I seem to have … um … lost it.’

  ‘Lost it?’ he repeats. ‘LOST it? But … this was a work of groundbreaking genius! You cannot just … LOSE it!’

  ‘I dropped it off the Eiffel Tower,’ I sigh. ‘It was in two halves by then, anyway. I think most of it ended up in the river.’

  Jacques Genet hides his face in his hands.

  ‘Hey,’ Murphy says. ‘Daizy has one more drawing you might like …’ He picks up the clipboard, peeling off the paint-spattered top sheet to reveal my intricate Eiffel Tower drawing, but the gallery owner barely glances at it.

  ‘No, no, no!’ he snaps. ‘Don’t waste my time with this worthless nonsense!’

  Tears blur my vision, but I am aware of Miss Moon stepping forward, hands on hips. ‘You are a rude and foolish man,’ she tells him sternly. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself, raising a little girl’s hopes like this and then dashing them again!’

  Jacques Genet wilts under her gaze like a naughty schoolboy.

  ‘The red squirrel picture was an accident,’ I tell him. ‘I tried to explain, but you wouldn’t listen!’

  ‘I needed something special for my exhibition,’ he sighs. ‘I thought I’d found it, but I was wrong. If I have raised your hopes for nothing, I am sorry.’ He turns away sadly, then stops short, staring at one of Pierre’s ruined paintings.

  Please don’t let him say anything mean about it … that would be the last straw.

  ‘At last!’ he exclaims, his eyes scanning the artwork. ‘You tried to fool me with childish jokes, but all the time your real work was waiting! You really ARE a genius, Daizy Star!’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘This!’ Jacques Genet says, peering at one of Pierre’s canvasses. ‘Your REAL work. Simple, ordinary paintings hidden beneath a random blurring of paint … and is that cat fur? Incredible! Amazing!’

  Pierre looks at me, eyes wide. He nods towards the spoiled pictures, giving me permission to take credit for them, but I know I can’t do that. I’m sick of pretending to be something I am not.

  ‘No,’ I say clearly. ‘These paintings are Pierre’s! Pierre is the real genius here …’

  There is a miaow from the corner, and Picasso slinks out from her hiding place beneath the chair, her fur a riot of colour. She glares at me, then stalks over to Pierre and presses herself against his ankles, purring.

  ‘Well,’ I say, smiling. ‘Pierre and his cat.’

  I press my cheek against the cool glass of the ferry window, watching the French coastline fade into a blur of grey. ‘Au revoir, France,’ I sigh, turning back to my friends.

  I will never forget Paris. I didn’t find my star quality after all, but I learnt lots of other things – and they are way more important. I’ve learnt that when your picture gets wrecked by a stray cat it’s best to just say so, and not to pretend that it is a work of genius. Otherwise, things can get complicated. Very complicated.

  From now on, I’ll leave art to the proper artists. Last night, Jacques Genet took Pierre’s ruined paintings for his exhibition – according to Jacques, they are not ruined at all but touched by magic. Pierre said that we had brought him luck, and that Picasso the cat was going to be his ‘muse’ and live in the little studio forever.

  ‘You’ve changed my life, Daizy Star,’ he said as we waved goodbye. ‘My dream has come true, thanks to you … and Picasso!’

  And who knew that Ethan Miller could actually teach me something useful? I’ve learnt never to let anybody blackmail me, especially not halfway up the Eiffel Tower. It will almost certainly end in tears, or lost paintings, or sloppy kisses on the ear. Not good.

  You should never, ever feel ashamed of the people you love, even if one of them does have a tendency to dress up as a giant red squirrel in his spare time. I wasted a lot of energy trying to keep Dad’s job secret when it turns out that my friends knew anyway … and they really didn’t care.

  ‘Parents are embarrassing,’ Murphy points out. ‘That’s the whole point of them. Learning to handle it is a part of growing up.’

  ‘You think so?’ I check. ‘Really?’

  ‘Really,’ Willow nods. ‘They’re all the same, Daizy. Remember the time my mum came to Parents’ Evening wearing a sequinned bikini top and lemon-yellow flares, on her way to a seventies party?’

  ‘I remember,’ I say.

  ‘Well then,’ Willow sighs. ‘That had to be right up there with the red squirrel suit, but I survived it, and you will survive this.’

  I guess she’s right. The most important thing I have learnt this trip is that nothing can ever come between me and my friends. All year I have been worried that Beth and Willow were growing up too fast, drifting away from me … and yesterday, when Ethan kissed my ear and dropped my painting off the Eiffel Tower, I thought I’d lose them forever. Instead, they rescued me and they’ve been by my side ever since.

  Maybe my mad search for a star quality has bugged them at times, just as their crush on Ethan bugged me, but none of that matters now. I am not scared that secondary school will break us apart. We’ll have our ups and downs, but I know we can come through just about anything as long as we stick together. Whichever school Murphy decides on, we’ll be OK. We are unbreakable.

  I glance at Ethan, sitting a few tables over. He is showing off to a group of French schoolkids nearby, throwing peanuts up into the air to catch in his mouth. He looks my way, and the smile slides off his face. He manages to look sorry, for a split second at least, and then his mates distract him and he is clowning about again, shaking up a can of Coke and spraying everyone within a twenty-metre radius.

  ‘What did I ever see in that boy?’ Beth huffs. ‘He’s so immature!’

  ‘I never really liked him,’ Willow remarks. ‘Not seriously. I just pretended I did, for your sake …’

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ Beth snorts.

  I bite back a grin, but I’m glad the crush is finally over. Maybe now Beth and Willow will get back to normal? Or maybe not.

  Two cool French boys walk past, shooting a sly glance in our direction, and Beth and Willow blush scarlet.

  ‘Ooh la la,’ I grin, and they collapse into giggles.

  When we get home, life gets back to normal, or as normal as it can be when your dad wears a red squirrel suit for a living. The class lists come in for Brightford Academy and, amazingly, Beth, Willow, Murphy and I are all in the same form.

  ‘Are you definitely coming to Brightford Academy?’ I ask Murphy.

  ‘Definitely,’ he says. ‘Mum said it was up to me in the end, and how could I choose anywhere else? Dad wasn’t keen on the a
rts school anyhow, and Mum didn’t like the idea of all that train travel …’

  ‘So, we’re stuck with you,’ Willow grins.

  ‘Looks like,’ he says. ‘Friends forever, right?’

  ‘Forever,’ Beth agrees.

  ‘And ever,’ I add, hauling them in for a group hug.

  Back at the start of the year, I had high hopes of Year Six – I thought I’d find my star quality and change the world. Somehow, now, friendship seems more important, and secondary school doesn’t scare me any more, not now I know we’ll be together.

  ‘Not everyone finds their talent right away, Daizy,’ Mum tells me, the evening before my last ever day at Stella Street Primary. ‘I didn’t know I wanted to be a nurse until I was seventeen, and your dad didn’t decide to be a teacher until he was in his twenties …’

  I decide not to mention that when Dad reached his forties he changed his mind and decided that his real talent was dressing up as a giant red squirrel. Sometimes, a star quality can go horribly wrong.

  Mum puts an arm round me. ‘You can do anything you set your mind to,’ she tells me. ‘Dream big, Daizy, and work hard to make the dreams happen. That’s what your dad has been doing this year, and although I haven’t always approved of the dreams, I know it’s been important for him to follow them.’

  ‘I guess,’ I say.

  ‘Secondary school will open up a whole new bunch of possibilities,’ Mum grins. ‘You’ll love it, Daizy, I promise!’

  My last day ever at Stella Street Primary is actually the happiest and saddest day ever, all rolled into one. There’s an assembly and lots of talk about reaching for the stars, and I try very hard to smile, even though I think my heart might be breaking. I have been reaching for the stars all year, and where has it got me? Nowhere. Not even one single measly Star of the Week award.