by Lisa Siberry
The real-estate agent nodded, like they were talking business, then he walked over to the salon and slithered inside. My head spun. I ran straight towards Elektra. Her car window was closing, but I managed to slide my fingers into the gap at the top just in time.
‘That was my neighbour’s plant you stole!’ I shouted. ‘Those berries don’t belong to you.’
‘They don’t belong to you either, Green!’ shouted Zoe, who was smugly curled up in the back seat.
‘Zip it, Zoe, I’ll handle this,’ snarled Elektra, her grey eyes gleaming at me through the window slit. ‘Well, well, Lily Green. Not exactly the beauty queen I thought you’d be.’
I puffed a curl out of my eyes. ‘Haven’t you ever heard that beauty’s more than skin deep, Elektra?’
She laughed like I’d just said the sky was green. ‘Let me give you a tip about working in the beauty industry, pumpkin,’ she smiled. ‘Lesson number one: Guard your formulas and your ingredients.’
‘But I already told Zoe, those berries are dangerous.’ I clung to the window as though I was hanging off a cliff. ‘Please just give them back.’ Before anyone else gets hurt.
‘Give them back?’ Elektra’s eyes flashed. ‘Now why would I do that, cupcake, when I could make something so beautiful the whole world will want to buy it? You think I built a beauty empire by being nice? Nice gets you nowhere – just look at your pathetic salon.’ Elektra laughed again and I felt pure rage light up every corner of my brain.
‘What have you got against Kitty’s? We’ve never done a single thing to you.’
‘Oh really?’ Elektra blinked. ‘How about the time your mother cheated her way to Beautician of the Year and got a scholarship to beauty college, while I had to sweep up toenails for ten years before I got anywhere.’
I remembered Mum beating Elektra. My mouth fell open. ‘That was a million years ago.’
‘Twenty, actually.’
‘And you’re still holding a grudge?’
‘The Von Hammers never lose,’ Elektra sniffed. ‘And you try sweeping toenails for ten years. Disgusting.’
I squeezed the window. ‘So this is your twisted way of getting back at my mum? By stealing?’
‘Oh no, honeybun, I’m not stealing anything.’ Elektra smiled and her dazzling white teeth flashed bright and hard. ‘In three days I’ll be buying Kitty’s – and knocking it down to build a brand-new BeautyGlow. I can’t wait to see the look on your mother’s face. Who’ll be the winner then?’
Anonymous buyer.
The words drifted across my eyes like clouds and I remembered the golden business card on the BeautyGlow desk. Elektra was the anonymous buyer. She’d been out to get us all along.
‘Mum will never sell the salon to you,’ I said, feeling myself go limp.
‘I have unique ways of convincing people.’ Elektra winked at me. ‘And now that I’ll have my own private garden of miraculous ingredients nearby, well, just imagine the things I’ll be able to make!’
‘You’re evil,’ I whispered.
‘Yes, well, that brings me to lesson number two.’ The window started moving upwards. ‘Sometimes you have to do ugly things to stay beautiful.’ The glass snapped shut, narrowly missing my fingers.
I stood there, helplessly watching the car screech away. The back window rolled down and Zoe stuck her head out. ‘And don’t forget lesson number three!’ she screamed into the wind, her white-blonde hair whipping around her face like a bunch of angry snakes. ‘Watch out for hair mousse!’
A bright red wig flew out the window and splatted on the road.
Hair mousse? I had no idea what Zoe was talking about, but I recognised the wig straight away. The redhead in the sunglasses had been Elektra.
Footsteps thudded behind me and Ivy appeared. ‘Nan just told me what happened. Where’d Zoe go?’ she puffed, leaning on her knees to catch her breath.
‘BeautyGlow.’ My voice sounded flat.
‘Nan said we have to get the berries back, pronto.’
I looked through the salon window. Mum was talking to Mr Sebold.
She was going to sell the salon.
My beauty products had given Faye a terrible rash and twig hair.
I had a bottle of vinegar in my apron pocket and no idea how to make anything better.
I felt so close to giving up, but Ivy took my hand, and her graffitied sneakers made a determined thunk-thunk on the footpath as she dragged me down the street.
‘Come on, we’re getting those berries back,’ she said. ‘I mean, seriously, what kind of desperate jerk steals poisonous plants from an eighty-year-old botanist?’
Good question. But I was too ashamed to tell her the answer.
Me.
If BeautyGlow had been scary-busy the other day, it was freakishly crowded when we got to the mall. There was a long line winding out of the clinic, and a cluster of people in front of a sign in the window. Ivy and I pushed our way through and read it:
Coming soon – the Spraynbow!
World’s first, colour-changing mood hair dye!
Change your mood, change your hair colour.
Be a more BEAUTIFUL you!
ORDER NOW
(Only $99)
I re-read the sign and tried to imagine having hair that changed colour. Right then, my curls would have been a rainbow of surprised silver, angry red, and furious fuchsia … especially when I realised all the customers were lining up to place an order.
I looked around. There was a faint trail of dirt leading to a door in the back that said KEEP OUT. EMPLOYEES ONLY.
‘Ivy, this way,’ I said, scurrying into BeautyGlow.
Together we snuck across the shiny white floor, past shelves of broccoli seed serum and customers covered in crocodile tear cream, until we reached the door. Ivy pushed it open a crack and we peeked inside.
It was a full-scale laboratory. Nothing like my dirty kitchen bench. This place was shiny and serious, with a long metal table running down the centre of the room, covered in beakers and jars of chemicals. A huge glass vat full of golden liquid bubbled away on a burner, and standing in front of it with their backs to us were Elektra and Zoe.
The air smelt tart and dangerous.
‘We’re too late.’ Ivy sighed in despair as Elektra dropped the long, straggly berry vine into the bubbling pot. The berries, leaves and twigs tumbled around in the liquid, releasing their secret powers, and I remembered making the lip balm all those days ago in Rosa’s warm kitchen.
I’d only added five berries. Elektra was cooking up the whole plant.
The pot bubbled away furiously.
‘Rosa’s going to be so upset,’ whispered Ivy. ‘Her plants are like babies.’
I tried not to think about the fact that one of Rosa’s babies was now cooking in a pot, and instead looked around the lab. In a nearby bin was a crumpled piece of paper with my handwriting on it: my lip balm formula. I reached in and took it, then quietly closed the door. I knew it was too late to change anything, but I couldn’t stand the thought of leaving one of Dad’s notebook pages in that awful lab.
Ivy and I trudged back through the crowds in BeautyGlow, squinting against all the bright lights. It was only when we passed the gilt-edged mirrors that I stopped.
I’d wanted a purple Kitty’s apron for as long as I could remember. But as I stood there staring at my reflection, my apron didn’t look so beautiful anymore. It was speckled with dirt from Rosa’s garden, and I must have snagged the gold embroidery on the climb over the wall, because the words Junior Beauty Assistant had already started to unravel. It felt different, too. Like it was two sizes too big and I was just a dumb kid playing dress-ups in my mother’s apron. A fake. A mess-maker.
A liar.
I turned away from myself, wondering if it was just the mirror, or if it was me.
Or if everything starts to feel ugly when it’s made out of lies.
Ivy and I ended up sitting on a bench outside the electronics store because we were bot
h too scared to go home. I didn’t have a cure for Faye, and Ivy didn’t have the berries for Rosa, so instead we ate vanilla-glazed strawberry-sprinkle donuts and stared miserably at the ten TV screens in the shop window. They were all playing a cartoon of a witch stirring a cauldron and laughing her evil head off.
Ivy grunted and bit into a donut. ‘Can you believe those BeautyGlow witches? Stealing Rosa’s plant and putting it in a pot. I know zero about chemistry, but it has to have something to do with the Spraynbow hair dye.’
I stuffed another donut in my mouth.
‘And is it my imagination, or does the Spraynbow sound exactly like Lip Switch, only weirder?’
I tried to swallow, but the donut stuck in my throat. I knew I had to tell Ivy the truth – I just wasn’t sure how. Pour it all out at once, like tipping a bottle upside down? Or do it slowly, drop by drop? ‘Ivy, I have to tell you something –’
‘Look!’ Ivy pointed at the TV screens. The cartoon was over and The Lab Girls blinked up on the screens. Ten giant Minas and Mais smiled back at us. ‘Oh no, the invention competition.’ Ivy slammed her palm into her forehead. ‘It’s on Monday and there’s no way we can enter Lip Switch after what happened to your sister.’
My stomach lurched. Ivy was right. I’d failed the salon, and now I was going to fail the invention competition as well – on the exact same day that Mum sold our precious salon to my most putrid enemy.
Zoe would win everything.
My fingers were so numb I hardly felt them as I slid the rumpled lip balm formula page back into my green notebook. ‘This is so, so bad,’ I whispered.
‘Agreed. But there’s only one thing to do when everything goes wrong.’ Ivy stuffed one last donut in her mouth, then whipped a glitter pen out of her pocket. ‘Start again.’
‘No, Ivy, please,’ I groaned. ‘This isn’t like one of your drawings. We can’t just erase everything and start over.’
‘Why not?’ Ivy tilted her head and her watermelon earrings swung back and forth. ‘We’re a team, remember? Sure, the lip balm turned out …’ she gave me a suspicious look, ‘creepy, but let’s just make something else. Only better.’
I was about to tell Ivy this was a terrible idea, when a familiar voice rang out.
‘Lily!’ It was Violet, walking straight towards us. She was holding a grocery bag, with Bella and Saanvi on either side of her. ‘Lily, I’ve been trying to call the salon all afternoon,’ puffed Violet, dumping her bag on the floor. ‘Is Faye all right? I almost fainted when she got that flower rash.’
Bella and Saanvi nodded.
I felt awful as the memory played out in my head like a makeup video gone wrong. But it made me realise something … Ivy. She was the only one who stayed after everything went wrong. Violet hadn’t. She’d gone to the mall. She’d gone shopping.
‘What did you buy?’ I asked glumly, pointing at the bag.
Violet, Bella and Saanvi swapped excited looks. ‘We’re baking.’
‘Baking,’ I repeated.
‘Yes.’ Violet tapped her leather loafer against the shopping bag, which was full of sugar and sprinkles. ‘It’s sort of embarrassing, but when I told my dad what happened at Kitty’s, he freaked out and made me get rid of all the makeup Zoe gave me, plus take down all my makeup videos. He also said I had to give this back to you.’ Violet handed over the half-empty jar of Lip Switch.
I stared at it numbly.
‘I’m really sorry, Lil.’ Violet fiddled with the purple ribbon on her braid. She wasn’t wearing my lip balm anymore. Or Zoe’s glittery makeup. She looked more like herself, except for the magazine sticking out of her backpack called Shut Up and Shoot! I wondered what that was about. It felt like I didn’t know anything about Violet anymore.
‘Does this mean we’re not making the Glow Girl video?’ I asked, already knowing the answer.
‘Afraid not,’ sighed Violet. ‘I don’t want to get a rash like Faye’s. And Dad said I should film something else.’
‘The only problem is, makeup videos get all the views,’ cut in Bella.
‘So I started thinking, what else can I make a video about?’ said Violet.
‘And that’s when I texted her about the cupcakes Bella and I are baking for the invention competition, and the icing spray-gun we invented,’ added Saanvi.
I tried to pretend like this was all extremely interesting, but I kept turning the jar over in my hand. Violet didn’t want it anymore.
‘So we’re texting back and forth,’ continued Violet. ‘And Saanvi’s telling me about these cupcakes, and I did a search for cupcake videos and guess what?’
I wasn’t sure if this was an actual question.
‘What?’ said Ivy, chewing on the end of her glitter pen.
‘Baking videos are HUGE.’ Violet, Bella and Saanvi all smiled at the exact same time. ‘So I’m going to film Bee and Saan baking cupcakes tonight.’
Bee and Saan? Cupcake videos? None of this made sense.
‘What about the makeup videos?’ I asked. ‘Won’t Zoe be mad?’
‘Too late.’ Violet’s face fell. ‘Zoe got so angry at me for making that Lip Switch video. And she was acting so strangely at Kitty’s this afternoon. She had all these bottles of hair mousse in her bag, and when I asked what she was doing she just shouted at me to leave her alone.’
‘That girl’s scary,’ said Bella.
‘And mean,’ added Saanvi.
At least I agreed with them on something.
‘Anyway, we should start filming.’ Violet picked up her shopping bag and I felt my chest tightening. I didn’t want Violet to go, but I had nothing to make her stay.
Violet hesitated, and her dark eyes suddenly looked sad. ‘I’m so sorry today turned into such a disaster, Lil. I keep wishing there was something I could do to help Kitty’s.’
‘Me too.’
‘See you Monday,’ she waved, and hurried to catch up with Bella and Saanvi, who were already talking about frosted flowers.
‘A cupcake icing spray-gun,’ said Ivy, shaking her head. ‘Why didn’t we think of that for the competition?’
I watched Violet’s purple ribbon disappearing into the crowd, and my eyes prickled. ‘Yep. I guess the lip balm really was a bad idea.’
‘Don’t be so hard on yourself.’ Ivy picked up my notebook from the bench and started flicking through it. ‘We have the weekend to make something better, and there has to be an idea in here somewhere.’
‘Wait, Ivy.’ I went to grab my notebook back, but a page drifted onto her lap.
The lip balm formula.
Everything around me seemed to stop. The crowds milling past, the Lab Girls on TV, my heart. Everything – except for Ivy’s huge brown eyes, which were running down the page, all the way to the last ingredient.
Rosa’s berries.
Ivy’s mouth fell open. ‘You used … you took …’
‘I can explain –’
‘Don’t bother, it’s all written down here quite nicely.’ Ivy’s face flushed a deep red and she threw the formula on the floor. Someone pushed a stroller over it. Another person kicked it as they walked past.
‘What about the shampoo?’ she demanded. ‘What did you put in that?’
I felt my neck burning with shame and guilt. ‘An orange from Rosa’s tree.’
‘And the body cream?’
‘Flowers.’ I swallowed hard. ‘Glowing flowers.’
Ivy jumped up. ‘I knew you were up to something, but seriously, Lily? You used Rosa’s plants to make all of your beauty products?’ A realisation flashed across her face. ‘And that’s why Zoe stole the berries. Because she knew they were your secret ingredient.’
I stared at my hands. There was a bit of glowing purple body cream stuck under my nails. It made me feel sick. ‘I’m so sorry, Ivy,’ I said, sliding my hands under my thighs. ‘I was just trying to make something that would save Kitty’s.’
‘Then why didn’t you make something of your own?!’ yelled Ivy.
‘My own? Are you kidding? You don’t know what it’s like growing up in a beauty salon, Ivy. In my family, everything’s supposed to be beautiful. And my ideas aren’t beautiful, they’re blurg.’
‘Oh, spare me.’ Ivy threw her glitter pen at me and it bounced off my head. ‘You know what beautiful isn’t? It isn’t stealing from your neighbour, or boasting to everyone at school that you can make things when you can’t, or letting your sister smear poisonous goop all over herself.’
I slipped lower on the bench.
‘I really wanted to believe that you made all those things.’ Ivy’s voice cracked. ‘And I had fun making that lip balm with you. But you weren’t interested in being friends, were you? This whole time you’ve been using me to get into my nan’s garden, just so you could make something beautiful.’
Her words felt like punches in my stomach. ‘You don’t understand,’ I spluttered.
‘You’re right. I don’t.’ Ivy pulled another glitter pen out of her pocket and madly crossed out the drawing of me on her sneaker. ‘I have absolutely no idea who you are, Lily Green, because this whole time you’ve been pretending to be something you’re not.’ She scratched out my face one last time, then threw that pen at my head too.
‘Hey. I said I’m sorry.’
‘Yeah, well, I’m sorry too.’ Ivy put her hands on her hips. ‘Sorry I ever thought we could be friends.’
Behind Ivy’s angry face, the Lab Girls were smiling away on the TV screens. ‘What about our invention project?’ I pleaded. ‘Come on, Ivy, we’re a team, remember?’
‘Not anymore we’re not,’ Ivy shouted over her shoulder as she stomped away into the crowd. ‘I quit!’
I walked home feeling lost and lonely. The sun was dipping below the trees and a cold wind snatched at my apron. But all I could think about were Ivy’s angry words. I have no idea who you are, Lily Green.
Did she really mean that?
I ran a hand over the unravelling embroidery on my apron pocket. After everything that had happened, I didn’t know who I was either. I definitely didn’t feel like a Junior Beauty Assistant. And I wasn’t much of a sister.