The Secret Life of Lola Read online

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  QUOTE BOARD

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  COPYRIGHT PAGE

  ‘Are you sure?’ my sister Tally asks me. It’s late on a Saturday afternoon and she’s hanging over the side of an open taxi door. ‘You’re, like, literally sure you don’t want to come? To NEW YORK. Lola Powell, you’ve always wanted to go to New York.’

  It’s true. New York has the most amazing art galleries – the Whitney, MoMA, the Met, the Guggenheim. I bet half the stuff I’ve studied at school this year is hanging there somewhere. For people who love art, there’s no place you’d rather be in the world. And don’t get me started on the Empire State Building. The Statue of Liberty! Central Park in the summertime! I’ve been seeing all those things in the movies since I was tiny. I have a poster on my wall of the giant Chagall paintings that hang at the Lincoln Center, where people go to see theatre and ballet and opera and concerts. And between you and me, life’s been tough this year. I’d love to soar over the world and forget all about Clives (that’s my art school) – the massive assignments and not being as good as the geniuses there and the terrible thing I did earlier this week that I really don’t want to think about right now.

  I swallow. Tally raises her eyebrows. Against the setting winter sun, her curls are outlined in the most amazing orange light. My head is telling me, ‘It’s New York! If you don’t go, you’ll regret this! Your sister will only get a free trip there once in her lifetime! GO!’ But my heart is telling me, ‘Stay here, at home, in Sunnystream. You promised the others. Be true.’

  Since we all started at different high schools this year, holidays are for my besties: Isobelle Brodie, Maisie Zhang and Sophia Hargraves. We were so close in primary school, but we barely see each other now. I live on the other side of the city with Aunty Claire during the week so I can be closer to Clives. On the weekends I mostly have to stay to do homework in the studios.

  Belle, who’s a super nerd and a super genius and my official BFF, got a scholarship to a boarding school called Hollyoakes, at the foot of the mountains, so she’s away all term. She’s the leader of our group, which is code for the bossiest, but that’s half of why we love her. The last couple of weeks, though, she’s been missing our group FaceTimes, which is weird. She’s been posting strange stuff on her Instagram, too – lots of pics of waffles, and random quotes from song lyrics. Obviously I need to check what’s going on with her.

  Maisie’s at gymnastics training 24/7, of course. Last holidays she broke two ribs, but she’s recovered, and sometime soon – maybe even these holidays? – she’s going to be in the State Championships. And sometime after that she wants to be in the Olympics, which sounds crazy, but she is seriously good. I guess you’d say Maisie’s the quiet one, but not in a shy way. She just doesn’t show off – even about gym.

  And Sophia’s busy doing dance lessons and swim squad and Girl Guides again – which is great, don’t get me wrong. After her twin sister, Gracie, died at Christmastime, she stopped doing all those things, so I’m happy she’s getting back to her old self. She’s always been the goofy, dreamy one – always into craft and baking and all the whacky activities that happen here in Sunnystream, which is the name of our town.

  So the holidays are the only time we get to hang out IRL – though even that seems quite tricky now. It took a zillion messages to arrange to finally meet up tonight, which means we still haven’t seen each other and the holidays are over twenty-four hours old! Nobody was free for milkshakes this morning or for a picnic lunch in Corner Park. I need to make the most of every second we can actually be together. So I shake my head and tell Tally, ‘Truly, that’s so nice of you. But I’ve … I’ve got stuff to do.’

  ‘You’re not just staying to watch the Sprint Musical, are you?’ Tally asks. ‘I know you love it, but it comes around, like, every two years. You’ll see it next time.’

  She means the Biennial Sprint-Musical Triangular Trophy Competition, which isn’t just a musical competition – it’s one of the most important events on the Sunnystream calendar. We compete for a giant trophy against our ultimate rivals, Cloud Town (the suburb next to ours) and Willowbank, the (no offence) loser town nearby. But it’s about more than that. Belle would say it’s about civic pride and fanning the flame of community enterprise (which is literally how she talks, by the way). That basically means everyone in Sunnystream comes together to make something great. My family loves musicals, so I’ve watched it every second year for my whole life. Usually Tally is the star. This time, it’s being held in Sunnystream – at the Corner Park Clubhouse, which my friends and I saved from being bulldozed by our evil mayor last holidays. But that’s a whole other story.

  ‘I’ll send you live updates, I promise. And Tally? Have the best time. You deserve it,’ I say, and I mean it.

  Tally grins and puts her palm on my cheek, just for a second. ‘I’ll bring you back those eye shadows you asked for. And the art magazine,’ she says. ‘I’ve got your list. And don’t forget your part of the deal, OK?’

  I sigh. ‘Yeah, yeah. I’ll visit Nana Marjorie.’ That’s our mum’s mum, who’s a grump. Tally loves Nana M. She finds it funny how sour and snappy she is, but I think Nana Marjorie’s just mean. She doesn’t like much – and she really doesn’t like me. Tally goes to her nursing home all the time. I avoid it as much as I can.

  ‘The trick is, you just can’t take her insults personally,’ Tally tells me. ‘She’s actually a total champ. You’ll see. OK, love you, bye.’ She folds herself into the taxi and as it pulls away, I realise I’m going to miss her.

  But if anyone deserves a free trip to the Young Influencers for Peace conference in New York City, it’s Tally. In case you haven’t put it all together yet, my sister is Tally Powell. The Tally Powell. The sixteen-year-old YouTube star who hangs upside down from a specially designed towel rail and sings songs with her ukulele. When our town’s miniature horse, Pony Soprano, needed emergency surgery last year, she sang him a Beatles song called ‘Yesterday’. (Our dad is kind of obsessed with the Beatles.) Then she was asked to play it at a giant fundraiser in a football stadium, and that concert was put on TV. That’s how she got picked for this conference – the organisers saw a clip online.

  You might think it’s easy being a YouTube sensation and having two million followers – over two million, as Tally would point out – but, boy, she works hard. People write mean things about her on the internet allll the time and she has to deal with that. She has to keep thinking up new ideas, learning new songs. She gets a truck-load of emails that she has to sort through, trying to figure out which ones are from weirdos offering to buy her old socks and which ones might actually have interesting stuff in them, like the one about this trip.

  I should remind myself about this more often because I can get super jealous of Tally. I hate it when people mix u
s up, and truthfully? I can get a little snappy. When people suck up to me just to get to her, it makes me want to, I don’t know … shave my head and move to France. But, come to think of it, heaps of people in France love Tally. The comments on her feed always have thousands of people saying ‘Je t’adore!’

  As I watch the taxi weave out of view, wondering if I’ve made the right choice, my little sisters come barrelling out of our front door and slam into my legs, wrapping themselves around me.

  ‘Mum says you need to come inside and help pack the wrapping paper NOW,’ says Gwynnie (six and a half, bossy, loud).

  ‘And that we’re leaving for the market in TWENTY MINUTES,’ says Poppy Jean (four, sweet, also loud but not quite as loud). She’s talking about the Why Would You Lie About Christmas in July Market, which is a Sunnystream tradition in winter and also a terrible name. That’s where I’m meeting my friends. I’ve been counting down the hours all day.

  ‘And Dad says that it will be YOUR fault if we’re not there in time to get a pudding before they sell out,’ says Gwynnie.

  ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ I say, shaking Gwynnie off and scooping up Pop and blowing a raspberry on her cheek. ‘I’m almost ready – just gotta change my earrings.’

  ‘Can I come?’ asks Pop, nuzzling into me as we walk across the lawn.

  ‘No,’ I say.

  ‘That means you’re going to steal Tally’s!’ says Gwynnie, who has a strong sense of right and wrong when it comes to other people’s property. ‘But if you buy me a gingerbread elf at the Christmas market, I promise I won’t tell,’ she adds.

  ‘Me neither,’ says Pop. She wriggles to get down as I hold open the front door.

  ‘You do realise blackmail is illegal?’ I ask them.

  ‘What’s blackmail?’ asks Gwynnie.

  ‘Why an eagle?’ asks Pop.

  ‘It means you guys are basically criminals,’ I say. ‘Like, bad guys who go to jail.’

  ‘What?’ they say, sounding worried.

  ‘LOLA!’ scolds Mum from the kitchen. Truly, her hearing is supersonic. ‘People in jail aren’t bad. They’ve just made bad decisions. You hear that, girls?’

  ‘I think Lola is about to make a bad decision,’ says Gwynnie. ‘About some earrings.’

  ‘Well, Lola is going to have to think long and hard about that decision,’ says Mum. ‘Because once she makes a decision, she can’t go back in time, and she might really regret the choice she’s made.’

  I freeze. Are we still talking about the earrings, or does she mean another bad decision – the one I made earlier this week at school? Has my Studio Art teacher, Miss Ellershaw, called my parents while I was outside?

  If I have to spend the next two weeks in my room, grounded, while the others hang out at the clubhouse drinking ho chos from Mikie, who runs the local coffee cart, my heart will actually break. I’ve been missing those guys so much that I’m half thinking about asking if I can drop out of Clives. I could make a fresh start at Sunnystream High next term and then I’d never have to go back. Life at Clives is … well, complicated.

  I got into that school because I used to do these really big black-and-white murals that looked like photographs. I don’t wanna boast, but for a while everyone in Sunnystream went crazy for them.

  Then I went to Clives, and it dawned on me that realistic art – art that actually looks like something real – is totally babyish, like tracing someone else’s work, and not creative or at all original. Not compared to covering yourself in paint and rolling down a piece of canvas that you’ve dragged onto a hill, which was Skye’s end-of-term project about freedom. Not compared to dyeing the school pool red and filling it with floating candles, then filming it from a drone, which was Herod’s assignment about peace after war. Compared to all the other kids, I feel like a total nothing who can only make cute earrings. Speaking of …

  ‘I’ve rethought my decision about the earrings,’ I say, trying to keep my voice light. ‘And I won’t be making that decision. So everyone can calm down.’ I shoot an ‘I’ll-get-you-later’ glare at Gwynnie. ‘Hey, um, did anyone call the home phone?’

  ‘Anyone like who?’ Mum asks.

  ‘Like a boy!’ says Gwynnie.

  ‘Not a boy.’ I frown at her, though that would have been nice, TBH. ‘Like … um … Sophia?’

  ‘I thought she got a new phone, so she can message you now,’ says Mum, and I can’t help but smile. Trust Mum to remember about Soph’s phone. My mum adores my friends. When she was growing up, I don’t think she had a best friend aside from her dog, Hutch. She was one of the only kids in her neighbourhood with brown skin, and back then other kids made her feel bad about it. How stupid is that? I think that’s why Mum loves our friends so much. She remembers their news better than I do – like Soph and her old phone, which she threw out a window last summer.

  ‘Oh. Oh yeah, that’s right,’ I say, relieved that my secret is safe and I’m free to roam the streets of Sunnystream once more. These holidays are going to be all about Soph, Maisie, Belle and me, together. Not just the together that looks good in a selfie, but the kind you remember for always.

  The Christmas market has never been so full, and truly? Handkerchief Place (which is like our town square, but it’s a circle) has never looked so pretty. Tonight, market stalls are lined up around the edge of the grass. Each one is decorated with its own quirky style – snowflakes and bats and neon cactus lights. People are wandering through with steaming drinks, colourful packages under their arms. The gazebo in the centre has so many crisscrossing strings of fairy lights, they look like the glowing strands of a spider’s web. Everyone’s in jackets and beanies, their breath coming out in those cool wispy puffs, which totally adds to the atmosphere. The streets around Handkerchief have been closed off so you can walk on the road, which always feels a little magical. Sunnystream really is one of the cutest towns there is. Aunty Claire’s apartment is in a chic area across the river, with warehouse apartments and lots of shops, but it doesn’t feel cosy like this.

  ‘Um, Dad?’ I say, wrestling with a roll of sticky tape. It’s hard to see where the tape ends, and my fingers are clumsy in the freezing night air. ‘I, uh, really respect our family enterprise, but could I have a break to see my friends?’

  I’ve been at this market table doing Wrap Music with my family for two hours, and before you tell me it’s spelled ‘rap’ music, I’m not actually rapping. We sing carols as we wrap people’s gifts in homemade wrapping paper and, in return, people donate money. Last year we raised heaps for a sanctuary for miniature ponies that people don’t want because they’ve got too big or have weird legs, or because the owners realised you can’t keep a pony in a backyard. Pony Soprano, our town mascot, came from that sanctuary. He’s the most popular person in Sunnystream, and, yes, he counts as a person even though he’s a tiny horse because he totally has his own personality. He’ll be where he always is at the Christmas market: pretending to be a reindeer pulling Santa’s sleigh at North Polaroid. That’s the Santa photo opportunity Belle runs every year.

  ‘But we haven’t got to “Silent Night” yet,’ says my dad, sounding a little hurt as he tries to wrap up an octopus plush toy. ‘And you love Wrap Music.’

  That’s true, but I also REALLY want to see my friends – to squash them into a giant group hug and smoosh their faces between my hands. I know they’re all here – Soph’s at the gingerbread stand, Maisie’s with her parents, selling vintage ornaments from their antique shop, Belle’s bossing Santa around – but I haven’t spied them yet. Sometimes when I think about life without them, I feel like I can’t breathe. It’s been way too long. ‘Two more songs?’ I ask Dad. ‘And I’ll bring you back some of Soph’s gingerbread.’

  ‘You sing the descant of “O Come All Ye Faithful” and a duet with Gwynnie of “Away in a Manger”,’ he bargains back.

  ‘Nooo,’ I groan. ‘Anything but that.’ Gwynnie is the only Powell with zero musical ability. Mum (who – fun fact! – was training t
o be an opera singer when she got pregnant with Tally) has tried to teach her to sing in tune. But it’s like she hears something completely different – a song being played on another planet in a parallel universe. I’d feel sorry for her, but she’s so confident (about singing, about everything) that it’s actually annoying.

  ‘Just go.’ He sighs dramatically. ‘Abandon me! See if I care.’

  I give him a kiss on the cheek just as Mum comes back to the table with a tray of four hot chocolates from Mikie’s cart.

  ‘I’m going to find the girls,’ I tell her. ‘Just in case you’re looking for a home for those hot chocolates.’

  ‘I’ll have you know I queued for twenty minutes to get these,’ she says. Then she breaks into a giant smile. ‘And there’s nobody I’d rather give them to. Off you go.’

  ‘Can you hold them for one more sec?’ I ask, whipping out my phone to text: GAZEBO! HO CHO! NOW! Then I kiss Mum’s cheek too. It’s nice to be back around these guys, even if they can be annoying sometimes. Aunty Claire is cool and she’s super good at doing hair, but my parents are … well, they’re my parents, you know what I mean? It feels like my life at Clives is a million miles from their dorky jokes and movie marathons and warm, strong arms.

  Even for a hurdler like me, ducking and weaving with the tray is quite tricky on account of the giant crowd. I almost drop it when I squeeze between Sookie La La’s Mince and Tinsel Pie table and the No Snowflakes stall, which sells Punk Sherman’s homemade anti-dandruff shampoo. Punk Sherman is Belle’s mum’s boyfriend – though I wonder if they’re still together? She hasn’t mentioned him in a while.

  Eventually I push through a gap and there they are – my girls, under the fairy lights, all wearing beanies. Maisie’s swinging off the gazebo’s roof beam. Soph’s sitting on the steps with Togsley, her pug, on her lap. Belle’s standing next to her, frowning at her notebook.

  When I see them together, it’s like the black cloud that’s been following me all term morphs into a rainbow. This is the opposite to how I feel at Clives – like I’m a fake and I don’t belong. I smile. ‘Bring it in!’ I say. ‘Group hug!’