by Lisa Siberry
Anyway, I thought it would be like that forever. But then Mr Lee messed it all up with his team list. Here’s what went down. Violet and I walked into science class that morning, and Mr Lee was standing at the lab whiteboard writing:
FERN HILL PRIMARY INVENTION COMPETITION WHAT ’S YOUR BIG IDEA?!
A giddy-pukey feeling ran through me and I went to grab Violet’s hand, but she was waving at someone at the back of the lab.
Zoe Von Hammer.
Zoe was sitting in a patch of sun like she’d ordered it to shine only on her. Sunlight bounced off her long white-blonde hair and sparkled across the web of chokers around her neck. She practically glowed. Even her silver-framed glasses twinkled in perfect harmony with her metallic ankle boots.
She wiggled her silver nails at Violet and gave me an evil smirk, and I decided right there that if Zoe were a product in our salon, she’d be the nail polish remover. Silver, slippery and super poisonous.
Violet headed towards her like a magnet, and I knew what was coming next.
‘Violet, you have to sit with me!’ Zoe patted the lab stool next to her. ‘I have this new face-glitter that will go perfectly with your eyes.’
Face-glitter fact: it’s made from millions of pieces of plastic that get washed down the drain and make turtles sad. That’s why I never use glitter in my beauty products. But I didn’t say that. Instead, I watched Violet drift away.
There were two spare seats left.
One was next to Ivy. She didn’t have a blue budgie on her head anymore, but she did have a green pen in her mouth. Ivy had started at our school a few weeks earlier. I’d never talked to her because she mostly kept to herself, either doodling in her books during class, or spending lunchtimes alone in the art room. Her dark brown hair was always a tangly mess, and every day she wore a different pair of earrings. That day, they were spiky green cactuses.
I checked the lab table next to Ivy. It was scattered with glittery pens and scrunched-up balls of paper, so I kept moving and reluctantly slumped into the only other spare seat, at the back of the lab – next to Zoe. She was blabbing to Violet about ‘lip balm’ and ‘likes’ and it made my brain hurt.
‘Listen up, budding brainiacs!’ shouted Mr Lee at the front of class. ‘I have a challenge for you!’
Someone in the back row groaned, but my fingers started to tingle.
‘In seven days you’ll be competing for the What’s Your Big Idea invention trophy,’ continued Mr Lee, ‘and this year, you must work in pairs to make something better!’
‘Like a rocket belt?’ shouted Ewan, a few desks over.
‘Not exactly, Ewan. More like a dog collar that lights up at night, or a better way to bake cookies. Find a problem, then think of a way to make it better –’
‘Sir?’ interrupted Zoe. ‘Is first prize just that old silver trophy again? Because I’ve already won it twice.’
Zoe reached behind me and tugged painfully on my curls. Here’s the thing about Zoe: she isn’t just pretty, she’s super smart. Last year, her makeup-eraser stick beat my foot-odour spray. The year before that, her glow-in-the-dark hair-glitter got top honours – not my cherry-chocolate bad-breath drops.
I was pretty sure she had a lab at her mother’s salon, BeautyGlow. That was the beauty clinic at the mall that was taking all our customers. Mum and I scouted it out when it opened and, just like Zoe, it was all shiny surfaces … glistening white tiles, tinkly chandeliers and leather chairs full of people getting primped and plucked. It made our place look like a hole in the wall.
I yanked my hair away from Zoe and kept my eyes on Mr Lee.
‘I’m glad you mentioned the prize, Zoe,’ he was saying, ‘because this year Mina and Mai from The Lab Girls will be helping me judge the competition.’
What?
I forgot about Zoe and sat up rod-straight. Everyone else was freaking out too and Mr Lee had to clap his hands to get us all quiet again.
‘As you probably know, Mina and Mai started out making science videos online, which led to their very own TV show,’ he explained. ‘But what you probably don’t know is that they were students here a long time ago.’
‘No way,’ I whispered.
‘That’s right, people – the Lab Girls sat in this very classroom, and now they want to find the next young inventor to follow in their footsteps.’
I gazed around the lab, trying to imagine the TV stars sitting on our wobbly old stools. But Zoe was more interested in the prize, because she shouted, ‘Does this mean we get on TV, sir?’
Mr Lee nodded. ‘A logical deduction, Zoe. The team that makes the most useful invention will win the trophy and a guest appearance on The Lab Girls TV show. So make your inventions big, bold and brilliant!’ With each word, Mr Lee banged his fist on the desk, and with each bang, my heart leapt.
This was big. Really big.
The Lab Girls has this segment called DO IT YOURSELF!! where Mina and Mai show you how to invent things from bits and pieces around your house. I used to watch it with my dad in the salon when I was little, before he got sick. That’s one of the few things I remember about Dad – sitting at the salon desk, watching his big hands turning castor oil into bug spray, or toilet paper rolls into bird feeders.
I think he loved The Lab Girls as much as I do.
I had to get on that show.
‘What are the teams, sir?’ demanded Zoe.
My throat tensed up.
Lily and Violet. Violet and Lily.
Mr Lee checked the team list. ‘Violet Tanaka …’
I crossed my fingers under the desk.
‘… and Zoe Von Hammer. You’re the first team.’
Nooooooo! Not Zoe!
Beside me, Zoe let out an annoying high-pitched squeal and Violet gave me a sympathetic ‘I’m sorry’ face. This was bad, bad, bad. Now the two of them would be spending even more time together, and Zoe would sink her perfectly manicured nails into my best friend for good.
I panicked, wondering if I could ask Mr Lee for a redraw, but now he was calling out my name.
‘Lily Green.’ He peered over his glasses at me. ‘Lily, your partner is Ivy Rodríguez.’
Ivy?
As Mr Lee read out the rest of the teams, Ivy turned and smiled at me. Her teeth were stained green from her leaky pen and her cactus earrings swung back and forth, jabbing their green spikes through her dark hair.
Ivy.
All I knew about her was that she liked drawing and walking around the neighbourhood with a budgie on her head. She was a bit different. And definitely not Violet. Not even close.
As if reading my thoughts, Zoe elbowed me in the ribs. ‘Hey Green, good luck with New Girl,’ she said with a voice full of poison. ‘You inventing another bad-breath cure this year? Because, just a hint, you might want to work on a miracle body spray instead. You smell like a rotten pineapple.’ She sniffed and I instantly regretted wearing my homemade deodorant. Maybe I had to work on my formula.
‘Zoe, leave her alone, you don’t mean that.’ Violet pulled Zoe away from me. ‘Lily, she didn’t mean that. You’ll be brilliant.’
But Zoe’s grey eyes said it all. She meant it, all right.
I sank lower in my chair, and as the class exploded into excited chatter, I read the words on the whiteboard over and over until they became a blur.
WHAT ’S YOUR BIG IDEA?
I had lots of ideas. My green notebook was full of them. But would any of them be big enough to beat Zoe?
Violet didn’t walk home with me that afternoon. Instead, she went to Zoe’s house to film a face-glitter video.
I definitely was not going to watch that video.
Or maybe I’d just watch it once.
For Violet, I thought. And to see if Zoe gets glitter in her eyes.
I trudged home a few metres behind Ivy. She kept flicking a pen around her fingers, and her sneakers and school bag were covered in drawings. We hadn’t spoken all day, but I’d tried writing some invention ideas in my not
ebook. The problem was, whenever I wrote spray-on licorice shower jelly? or donut-flavoured toothpaste? I remembered Zoe’s smirk and crossed them out.
The more I thought about it, the more it felt like everyone around me was getting good at something. Like Faye with her Beauty Assistant job, and Violet with her makeup videos. Even Bella and Saanvi had started a year-six baking club. But there I was, still mixing up bowls of beauty products that no-one wanted to use.
It hadn’t always been like that. I was seven when Faye lost Mum’s favourite Cherry-Cha-Cha lipstick, and gave me five dollars to make a replacement. It was actually pretty easy (melted beeswax candles, coconut oil, beetroot juice) and Faye loved it because it got her out of trouble.
After that, I tried making other things. Like the time I put mud and flower petals into empty tea bags, and sold my herbal mud bath-bags to customers. Everyone thought that was adorable, and the best part? I made twenty whole dollars out of it.
But that was cute when I was seven. Not twelve. I couldn’t put mud in a tea bag and call it beautiful anymore. If I wanted to be taken seriously, I had to make something that was genuinely good – something people would actually want to use.
Not things that clog the tub and smell like rotten pineapple, I told myself.
Annoyed, I kicked at a stone. It bounced along the path towards Ivy, narrowly missing her sneakers as she made a sudden turn through a gate up ahead. Her house was shut off by a high stone wall, but when I slowed down at the gate and swished aside a tangle of vines, I stopped in surprise. Beyond the metal bars was a small brick house, and behind that, far off in the distance, was the back of my apartment and our little kitchen window. Which meant Ivy lived right behind me – with old Rosa.
Great, now we’re neighbours too, I thought, watching Ivy walk down a stone path edged with bright red roses. She opened the front door and disappeared, but my eyes hovered over the roses. The red petals were covered in brilliant white polka dots.
Polka-dot roses?
The shivering orange tree flashed through my head and I swiped the vines back into place. It had to be my imagination. As far as I knew, there was no such thing as polka-dot roses, and trees did not shiver. Still, I started running and didn’t stop until I skidded into our tree-lined street and saw the salon.
I felt the day melting away, and smiled proudly at our little shop. It was bright purple, with a purple-and-white striped awning and a line of twinkly glass bottles in the window. From far away, it looked like a beautiful purple jewellery box. It was only when you got closer that you saw the peeling paint, and the holes in the awning, and the faded gold letters on the big front window that were supposed to say Kitty’s Beauty Parlour, but looked more like Kit … B … a … t … P … ur.
Kit Bat Pur. Sounds like a weird pet shop.
I chuckled to myself and reached for the salon door, but it tinkled open, and a man with slick hair and a tight suit stepped out. He brushed past without a word, slipping straight into a black car that was parked nearby. As the car purred away down the street, I wondered if we’d had a new customer.
Maybe things are looking up, I thought, walking into the empty salon. Mum was banging around in the back office, so I stood there sniffing the air. The man had left behind a cloud of cologne that made my nose prickle.
Licorice, grapefruit, musk.
I didn’t like it. Musk is this perfume ingredient that’s made from the secretion of male musk deers who use it to mark their territory, which is just, eww. I coughed my way through the cologne cloud and picked up a golden business card that was propped against the cash register. It said:
SYLVESTER SEBOLD
TURNING BRICKS INTO GOLD!
Scrawled underneath were the words See you next Monday.
I dropped the card back on the desk.
How do you turn bricks into gold? The salon seemed to shrug back at me. I decided not to think about it and instead turned on the little TV behind the desk. The Lab Girls was on, and Mina and Mai had just finished making a lava lamp out of oil and food colouring. They both smiled at the camera – right at me.
‘That’s it for today,’ said Mina, dusting off her overalls. ‘But remember, you’re only one idea away from making something wonderful.’
‘So what are you waiting for?’ laughed Mai. ‘Get inventing!!’
My fingers tingled a little. I was only one invention away from getting on that show. Me, on TV, with the Lab Girls! Now all I needed was some inspiration. Instinctively, I pulled my green notebook out of my bag, opened it to the first page, and ran my hand over the faded drawings.
The notebook was my dad’s. He was a hairdresser, like Mum – they started the salon together – but Dad also invented things in his spare time. He wrote down all of his invention ideas in the notebook, so the first ten pages were filled with funny scribbly drawings, like a pair of gloves with scrubbers on the fingers (probably for washing people’s hair). And a big fan-looking thing, with a picture of the sun (solar-powered manicure fan?). The rest of the drawings were crossed out, with arrows and random words written next to them (Not working! Start again. Think BIGGER).
I was six when Dad died, so I only remember glimpses of him. His curly red hair. The green pen that was always behind his ear. The two of us shouting out invention ideas as we watched The Lab Girls. But that’s where the memories stop, like a movie that only plays the first scene, then blacks out. I guess that’s why I kept Dad’s old notebook. It makes me believe he’s still around, plus it’s perfect for writing all of my own secret ideas.
The salon door tinkled and I slammed my notebook shut. It was Faye, wearing bright red lipstick and a denim jacket over her school uniform. As always, she switched the TV to The Bold and the Beautiful, then opened the appointment book.
‘Anything?’ she peered at Monday’s page. There was just one appointment.
‘Mrs Dougall, as usual.’ I made sure Faye wasn’t looking, and snuck a gumball out of the customer lolly jar. Those gumballs used to go really fast, but the jar had been full for months. Thank goodness Mrs Dougall still came every Monday for a wash, set and pedicure. She was our most loyal customer.
‘So, that makes a grand daily earning of …’ Faye started counting on her fingers.
‘Ninety dollars and fifty cents,’ I said through a mouthful of gum.
‘Is that it?’ Faye flicked through more pages. ‘Miss Sparrow’s coming in for her regular manicure on Wednesday, but that’s only two customers for the whole week. Two customers.’ Faye slid the book away. ‘This is worse than I thought.’
We looked at each other and I knew we were thinking the same thing. The salon had always been full of customers when we were little, but ever since we lost Dad, it had started to wilt like a faded flower. Half the light bulbs around the mirror weren’t working, the chairs were rusty, and the once-vibrant purple wallpaper was a sad shade of lavender. Mum might be the makeover queen, but she hadn’t changed a single thing about our salon in years.
‘We really need to make Kitty’s beautiful again,’ said Faye, peeling off a piece of wallpaper and letting it fall between her fingers.
‘We could get some paint.’
‘I was thinking more like getting customers, Lily.’ Faye put on her apron just as Mum wandered out from the back office.
‘Did someone say customers?’ Mum asked hopefully. Her hair was pulled back into a neat bun and her gold hoop earrings matched the embroidery on her salon apron. But there were also dark circles under her eyes that I hadn’t noticed before.
‘Mum, we need to talk about the salon,’ said Faye matter-of-factly. ‘We’re down five customers from last week. Which was twelve short from the week before that. I’m not exactly a maths brain, but even I know those numbers are bad for business. We have to do something, now.’
Mum’s face fell a bit, but she snapped it back into her usual smile. I could tell she was trying to think positive thoughts. Mum does that a lot. Our fridge is covered with self-help quotes written
on Post-it Notes.
‘There’s always a solution to every problem,’ said Mum brightly. ‘The trick is finding the right one.’ Her eyes fell on the golden business card on the desk, and she slid it into her pocket.
‘Well, we have a big purple problem, right here,’ replied Faye, waving her hand around the shop.
I half choked on my gum, then spat it in the bin. ‘Hey, don’t talk about Kitty’s like that.’
‘Lily, wake up and smell the nail polish remover,’ snapped Faye. ‘In case you haven’t noticed, beauty salons don’t look like this anymore. They look shiny and modern, like BeautyGlow. I went past there today –’
‘You did?’ Mum looked hurt.
‘For research,’ said Faye. ‘And they had customers. Lines of them. And everything’s white, and the walls are lined with incredible beauty products like Pearl-Dust Face Masks and Pink-Peppercorn Perfume.’
‘Which is probably made from the lining of whale stomachs,’ I said. ‘A lot of perfume is.’
‘Whatever.’ Faye gave me a withering look. ‘The point is, we’re falling behind. Look around, our shop sign says Kit Bat Pur, half the shelves are empty, and we don’t even have a website.’
‘Oh sweetie, I don’t have time to run a website,’ said Mum, rearranging some pots of face cream on a shelf to fill in the gaps.
‘Then let me do it.’ My sister’s voice started rising. ‘Let me start a website so we can at least promote ourselves and take online bookings. Let me make this place better, because face it, Mum, if we don’t start doing things differently, BeautyGlow’s going to put us out of business for good!’
We all fell silent. Faye was always arguing with Mum, but this time my sister looked scared, which made me scared. If the salon closed, where would we live?