The Secret Life of Lola

by Davina Bell

  ‘Oh yeah,’ says Matilda. ‘Nice to see you again, Lola.’ She wanders off to make the call, and it’s just me and Belle.

  ‘What are you doing tomorrow?’ I ask her. ‘We could buy new notebooks from Pig Pen and Paper and write out our hopes and dreams.’ (Literally Belle’s favourite thing to do.) ‘I think what you need is a distraction.’

  Belle groans. ‘Punk Sherman is taking us to an alpaca farm in the hills. Don’t even ask. It’s this whole stupid thing with my mum. She’s sick of painting horses, apparently.’

  I wait for her to invite me along to the hills. I love chatting about art with her mum, Francine, who’s a hero of mine.

  But she doesn’t say anything else.

  I swallow and try not to seem like I care. ‘That’s cool they’re still together, your mum and Punk. Well, Monday, then. Let’s get ice-cream at eleven. And Belle? Time heals all wounds. I saw that on Instagram.’

  She sighs as she walks away to responsibly dispose of our takeaway cups, and then it’s just me and the fairy lights, and a sore feeling in my tummy that’s part rejection and part worry and part hot chocolate. I can’t help but wonder: Was it stupid to give up New York for this? And will our group ever be the same again?

  When people meet me, I’m pretty sure they don’t suspect I worry about that kind of stuff. They just assume I’m all smiley and sparkly and confident and positive. The other girls even have a dumb name for it: The Lola Effect, which is apparently my superpower to make people like me straight away. But between you and me, half the time it just feels like a part I’m playing. Not a part like in the Sprint Musical, but a version of me that’s only half true. Sometimes I wonder if anybody really knows me at all. Maybe nobody really knows anybody. Maybe everyone has a bit of a secret life.

  On Sunday, I should visit Nana Marjorie, but I sleep in till noon. Then I feel guilty, so I take Gwynnie and Pop over to Corner Park to feed Pony Soprano. Brushing him is outrageously cute, and I do a special braid in his mane. Pop sings him her audition song for the Sprint Musical, which is also outrageously cute. I film it and send it to Tally, but she doesn’t reply. Maybe she hasn’t arrived yet.

  But do you know what mucking out a stable means? Basically cleaning up his poop, which for a small horse is pretty big and quite stinky. Pop steps in some and screams, and Gwynnie starts this epic sneezing. Turns out she’s allergic to hay. Then she starts crying because she thinks that means she can’t ever visit Pony Soprano again. I have to take turns carrying them all the way back from Corner Park. Exhausting!

  When we get back, Rishi helps me make a cheer-up playlist for Belle of bands that sound like the Huckle Roses (helpful), but then he borrows my black nail polish and leaves the lid half off, so when I pick it up, it spills on the coffee table (unhelpful). Then Mum turns off the wi-fi because she thinks I’ve spent too much time on Instagram. Everyone gets mad because I ate the marshmallows she’d hidden away for a post-lunch snack. How was I to know?! All term I’d dreamed about being home, but I’d forgotten all the annoying bits. And I didn’t imagine I’d be stuck in the house so long. Usually I’m only ducking in and out between the clubhouse and the main street and Soph’s tree house and Merry Creek. I’ve got a weird feeling in my heart. I think it’s disappointment.

  So on Monday morning, I’m at Judy’s Eye-Scream at exactly eleven. Of all the cute shops and cafes around Handkerchief Place, Judy’s is my favourite and it’s the number-one place for town news. Judy Jones has only just finished uni but she set up the business herself and it’s already SUPER successful. Apart from Tally, she’s the person I’d most like to be when I grow up (don’t tell Tally I said that – she’ll get a big head).

  Now it’s four past eleven and I’m reading the labels of the latest flavours, but I’m distracted because Belle’s not here yet, which is weird. Belle is always forty-five minutes early to everything.

  Just as I’m starting to worry, she and Matilda come up behind me – and get this: they’re wearing exercise clothes and they’re all sweaty, like they’ve been jogging. BELLE JOGGING?! It’s like seeing a seal driving a tractor. I’ve never even seen her run for a bus, though maybe that’s because she’s never late enough to almost miss one. She’s definitely not the sporty one in our group.

  ‘Sorry we’re late. Somebody didn’t sleep because they were looking at their ex-boyfriend’s Instagram account late into the night,’ Matilda explains. ‘But we had to go jogging because it was on the daily schedule.’

  I have to try really hard not to smile. Staying with Belle would be so intense! Of course there’s a daily schedule. ‘No probs,’ I say.

  ‘He’s got a new girlfriend,’ Belle says, puffing. ‘I can feel it.’

  ‘You have zero evidence of that,’ says Matilda soothingly.

  ‘Not true,’ Belle says. ‘What about the post where he wrote cray-zee about you?’ Her voice has a hysterical tone to it. ‘That means he’s crazy about another girl!’

  ‘Eek,’ I say.

  ‘That was a photo of him on his uncle’s crayfishing boat,’ Matilda points out. ‘With a crayfish in his hands. It wasn’t about anyone specifically.’

  ‘Love problems?’ Judy asks Belle as she replaces the container of Turkish Delight-ed To See You with Honey, Comb Your Hair (the only flavour Belle ever orders).

  ‘There are no problems, only solutions,’ Belle quotes. ‘Your dad would like that one, Loles – it’s from John Lennon, that guy from the Beatles. But, um, yes,’ she says to Judy. ‘I got dumped.’

  ‘Bad luck, kid,’ says Judy. ‘First time’s the worst time. Have a free ice-cream – my shout. Nice lob, BTW.’

  ‘Thanks,’ says Belle. ‘It won’t ease the excruciating pain of unrequited love, but I’ll have Honey, Comb Your Hair, please.’

  (See?!)

  ‘So, Judy,’ says Belle, ‘is there any pressing town news I’ve missed out on this term? I’m already across the pavement weed plague,’ she adds. ‘I subscribe to the Friends of the Sunnystream Sidewalk’s newsletter.’

  ‘Well, news just in! Sunnystream’s not entering the Sprint Musical this year.’

  ‘WHAT?’ I cry. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘The Biennial Sprint-Musical Triangular Trophy Competition?’ Belle asks. ‘But Sunnystream has to enter. We need to get revenge for what happened last time!’

  ‘What’s the, um … the triangle trophy?’ Matilda asks.

  ‘It’s a competition to put on a musical. It only happens every two years, and the town that wins gets a giant gold cup,’ I explain. ‘The triangular part is because it’s between three towns – get it? Sunnystream, Willowbank and Cloud Town. That’s who won last time. Booo!’

  Matilda laughs and Belle frowns. She thinks booing Cloud Town is bad sportsmanship, even though we all do it because Cloud Town is undoubtedly, undeniably Le Worst. Do you know how they won the last Sprint Musical? They paid for a professional singer to rent an apartment there so he’d be eligible to sing in the musical, even though he wasn’t technically a true resident of Cloud Town. Dodgy, am I right? The actor played the main role of Joseph in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Hairspray. That guy was beyond. Cloud Town got found out and had to give back the trophy, and now they’re dark at us for complaining! Rude.

  Every act is the combination of two musicals or musical movies – like the musicals Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Hairspray. Or Phantom of the Opera Music, which is The Sound of Music crossed with Phantom of the Opera. The director from each town puts the names of two musical shows in a hat. They get drawn at a big meeting, and you have to make a musical out of the two names you pull out.

  You can do the songs from one and the costumes from the other, or you can rewrite the whole thing so it has bits of both stories. You get points for things like originality and innovative set design. You also have to choose one song that’s not in either musical but reflects the broader themes of your show. The best one I’ve ever seen was when Sunnystream did Mary Mia, w
hich was Mary Poppins crossed with Mamma Mia! The extra song we chose was Somewhere Over the Rainbow and it was a HIT. Do you know who had the starring role that year? Tally Powell. Afterwards, she couldn’t walk three steps down the street without people coming up and fan-girling about it. It got super annoying, TBH.

  ‘What does the sprint part mean?’ asks Matilda, when we’ve explained about the two-musical mash-up.

  ‘You have less than two weeks to do it,’ says Belle. ‘And the performance can’t be longer than an hour including interval, which is extremely challenging. And there’s only five minutes to set up before, so you have to be super speedy with the props. It’s pretty serious.’

  ‘But Sunnystream’s not entering this year because Coach Sanders is in hospital,’ says Judy as she scoops me up some Cookie Dough Ray Me. ‘He had a heart attack. But he’s OK,’ she adds, seeing our shocked faces.

  ‘Poor Coach Sanders!’ says Belle. ‘He’s the guy who runs Maisie’s gym,’ she explains to Matilda, ‘and he used to be a football star with the Sunnystream Beamers. He always runs the musical – he writes the script and does the music and everything.’

  ‘And Mrs Green, one of the owners of Sookie La La – that’s the diner over there,’ I say, pointing beyond the gazebo, ‘always does the costumes and the sets. Can’t she take over?’ I ask Judy.

  ‘Mrs Green says she’s too old now,’ says Judy. ‘She thinks the musical needs someone who knows how to work the Google. Her words,’ she adds.

  ‘So it’s over?’ I say. ‘Just like that? No musical?’ Are these already the worst holidays ever?!

  Judy sighs. ‘I’d do it myself, but there’s so much to organise, and who’d help out here? And I’m not artistic at all – costumes, sets, dancing. I wouldn’t have a clue about any of that stuff. Besides, the first official meeting is tonight in Cloud Town. There’s just no time for Sunnystream to enter.’ Judy shrugs. ‘I guess it’s gonna be Cloud Town versus Willowbank this year.’

  ‘NO!’ Belle and I practically shout, thinking about how Cloud Town will stomp all over dear hopeless Willowbank, and then gloat about it for another two years. I think about Pepper Peters’s face, so sneery and superior. She’s the captain of our rival netball team, the Cloud Town Cougars, and truly, she’s like a villain from a movie about mean girls. I play centre against her and once she elbowed me so hard in the face that I got a black eye. Actually, it looked really cool in my year five school picture, but still. Cloud Town a hundred per cent cannot win this. There has to be a way Sunnystream can still enter – and hang on …

  Maybe there is!

  ‘What if … What if we did it?’ I say slowly, thinking it through. ‘Maisie and Belle and Sophia and me. And you too, Matilda,’ I add. I stop licking my ice-cream for a sec, that’s how serious I am. This could totally work!

  Judy frowns.

  ‘Look how we saved Corner Park Clubhouse from being knocked down last holidays,’ I remind her. ‘If you did the writing and directing, Judy, we could take care of the rest.’

  ‘Of course we could!’ says Belle. ‘Why didn’t I think of that? I could take on the logistics and planning. And Lola could do all the creative stuff. Loles is the most incredible artist,’ she says to Matilda. ‘Look at some of her stuff.’ She pulls up my mum’s Instagram account, which is full of pics of those giant black-and-white murals I used to do last year. Blurgh.

  ‘Don’t look at those,’ I say, trying to grab Belle’s phone and almost dropping my ice-cream. ‘That stuff ’s really old. It’s embarrassing.’ It feels like those murals were done by a stranger, rushing around town, full of excitement and ideas. Those days were the polar opposite of this term, when I felt about as creative as a teaspoon. But maybe the musical will help with that – a fresh creative challenge, as Miss Ellershaw would say. And maybe doing something nice for the town would also make me feel better about what I did at the end of term. ARGH – sick feeling! Quick, think about something else!

  Belle ignores me and keeps scrolling through Mum’s feed because she doesn’t like us talking ourselves down, which she believes women do too often. ‘Soph’s a dancer so she can do the choreography,’ she goes on. ‘Maisie can help out if there are any scenes where the actors need to jump off high things. This is the perfect post-break-up distraction project. Not that it’s all about me,’ she adds.

  I roll my eyes. I love Belle, but it kind of always is about her. As well as being heaps of fun, this could really be about us – all of us, doing a giant group project. The musical would need brainstorming and rehearsals and all hands on deck – aka maximum hanging-out time.

  ‘I know you girls are awesome – duh,’ says Judy, wiping down the counter. ‘But do we have any clue about putting together a whole production – scripts, rehearsals, lighting?’

  ‘Well, have you officially met my best friend, Matilda?’ Belle asks. ‘Her mum’s a professional actress, as in a movie star, so she knows all about movie sets and this kind of thing.’

  Judy looks closely at Matilda, like she’s realising who she is but doesn’t want to make a big deal. At the same time, I feel myself go all trembly, and my face gets hot – sweaty hot. My stomach is suddenly thinking about ejecting my breakfast.

  Because Belle is my best friend. At least, she was up until three seconds ago.

  She’s been my best friend ever since my first day of school, halfway through year one, when we moved here and Sebastian Weekes made fun of my hair, which was a full afro at the time. Even at age six Belle was into standing up against injustice. Nowadays she gives really passionate speeches, but back then she just tried to throw a basketball at Sebastian’s head. It missed and hit Maisie, who was hanging upside down on the monkey bars behind him, and got her right in the face, which made her fall off. She landed on Sophia, who was looking at a ladybug under the bars. We all ended up crying – Belle and Maisie and Soph and I – and because of that random recess accident, we became the closest friends you can imagine.

  I’m secretly grateful to Sebastian Weekes for bringing Belle into my life because, since then, she’s always been by my side, sticking up for me, supporting me, bossing me around and driving me up the wall. People think we’re a weird match because I’m into fashion and art and creative stuff, and I hate rules and love things like memes and practical jokes. And Belle’s so serious, always thinking about the future and maximising opportunities (her words) and following rules – and making her own – and saving the world and getting things done.

  But, secretly, I think she likes that I find her things on the internet that she wouldn’t otherwise know about – like the scholarship to Hollyoakes and the FOCR channel on YouTube (Friends of the Climate Rally). I think somehow being friends with me helps her believe she’s good enough to do all the things she’s trying to achieve. I stand up to her when she clicks over from being bossy to being a total monster. And I need Belle in my life to remind me to be a good person, because you know what? I can be a bit selfish. Belle makes me focus my energy – put down my phone, stop changing my outfit for the zillionth time and actually do things. She makes me want to choose a bigger life. I love that she doesn’t care about how she looks or what people think of her. She understands how I feel about Tally. She knows just how much maple syrup I like on my pancakes. With Belle, I’m totally, completely myself. Not to get all emo about it, but her heart is my home.

  Now, though, it seems like that special place isn’t mine anymore. I don’t want anyone to see that my eyes are full of tears, so I rustle around in my bag for my money. Then I take a deep breath and clear my throat. ‘So, what do you say?’ I ask Judy as I hand over the cash. ‘Are you in? Are we doing this? Does the Sprint Musical live to fight another day?’

  We’re squished into a corner booth at Just Say Cheeseburger (that new Cloud Town burger joint), having dinner before the meeting with all three towns to decide who is going to perform which musical. Since Judy said yes (YES!!!) she and Belle have already had a planning session. I got Rishi to c
onvince the RexRoy boys to help out at her ice-cream shop. And this afternoon Maisie met up with me and Belle and Matilda to design posters advertising the auditions on Wednesday. Soph was dropping her dad off at the airport so she couldn’t make it, but she’s going to ask her mum to print them out at work tomorrow morning. We’ll get the Eco Worriers (Belle’s environmental action group of year threes) to hang them up around town. Maisie’s going to put it on her Instagram, too.

  If only Maisie were here, it would feel like last holidays all over again. But she’s at her sister June’s harpsichord recital, and if you’re thinking (a) who the heck would learn the harpsichord? and (b) who even has a harpsichord, well, the answers are (a) you haven’t met June Zhang, who is, umm, quite ambitious (and one of Belle’s Top Ten Living Inspirational Women), and (b) the harpsichord is actually an antique in their family’s shop, but luckily nobody ever wants to buy it.

  Still, it’s nice being snug in a booth with Belle beside me, and also? I don’t want to admit it, but these Cloud Town burgers are good.

  ‘Is it true that you know how to do calligraphy?’ Sophia asks Matilda as I eat the pickles Sophia’s pulled out of her bun.

  ‘Yeah,’ says Matilda. ‘When you grow up on a farm miles from anywhere, you’ve got to make your own fun.’

  ‘Could you write a fancy get-well card for Coach Sanders?’ Belle asks. ‘Sending warm regards on behalf of us all?’

  ‘Totally,’ says Matilda.

  Huh. I’ve always made cards for people on behalf of our group, but whatever. All afternoon I’ve been trying to squish down my sore heart feelings, and Belle was right – the musical is a great distraction.

  ‘You could do the program design for the musical, too,’ says Soph to Matilda. ‘That would look cool.’