Tilly's Time to Shine. Kimberly Wyatt

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СКАЧАТЬ felt a red-hot rush of anger. I would! she wanted to yell. But she managed to stay silent.

      ‘I have a ton of work to do, Tilly,’ her mum continued. ‘I need you to get this mess cleared away immediately.’

      ‘It’s not mess,’ Tilly muttered. Then she had an idea. Maybe if her mum saw some of her finished creations she’d be more impressed. She picked up her phone and did a quick search for Andre’s blog. ‘Look. Here are some of the things I’ve made recently.’ She showed her mum the phone. ‘I put the braiding on those trousers and I added the pink fur trim to that coat.’ She waited nervously for her mum to respond.

      Her mum stared blankly at the screen. ‘And when exactly did you do this?’

      ‘When I was at WEDA – in my spare time.’

      Her mum frowned so hard two sharp lines appeared in her forehead between her eyes. ‘You’re supposed to be studying in your spare time, not playing dress-up or arts and crafts. No wonder your grades were so low!’ She handed the phone back to Tilly. ‘I knew it was a mistake sending you there. I said to your father that –’

      ‘It wasn’t a mistake!’ Tilly interrupted, her stomach churning. ‘I love it there and I’m doing really well in my dancing.’

      ‘I don’t care about your dancing!’ her mum snapped. ‘Once you’re out in the real world it’ll be your academic exams that count.’ She folded her arms and stared at Tilly, the way she always did when she was done talking.

      ‘But you don’t understand,’ Tilly blurted. ‘I find it so hard to concentrate! It’s not my fault I have dyslexia!’

      ‘But you told me your dyslexia wasn’t much of a problem any more,’ her mum replied. ‘That was one of the reasons I agreed to let you go to WEDA.’

      ‘It isn’t. I – I was just using that as an excuse . . . for my grades.’ Tilly’s face flushed. Whatever she said now, she’d end up busted. She might as well avoid the dyslexia conversation.

      ‘Right, so clearly you aren’t trying as hard as you should be.’ Her mum sighed. ‘I mean it, Tilly – if you don’t get your academic grades up next term, I’m taking you out of WEDA.’

      Tilly walked into her dorm room at WEDA and gave the world’s biggest ever sigh of relief. It was so good to finally be back – it had felt like the Christmas holiday would never end. But as she looked around her side of the room – at the bed crammed with cushions in every shade of pink and the brightly coloured mood-boards hanging on the wall – the relief she felt was tinged with fear. Her mum had reminded her yet again of her threat to remove her from WEDA when she’d dropped her back at the academy. ‘I meant what I said, Tilly,’ she’d repeated as they got out of the car. ‘If you don’t get your grades up this term, we’re moving you to a normal school.’

      Tilly sank down on to her bed. She couldn’t go to a ‘normal’ school. She wasn’t normal, and she didn’t ever want to be. WEDA was the first place she’d ever felt free to be her own quirky and expressive self. She looked over to the other side of the room. There was a half-unpacked suitcase on the other bed, with clothes spilling out of it and on to the floor. Her roommate Naomi was obviously back, and there were no prizes for guessing where she’d be. Naomi’s twin brother Jordan was also at WEDA, so she spent most of her time in his room. Normally, Tilly liked this as it gave her loads of space to be on her own. But after the holiday she’d just had, being on her own was the last thing she wanted.

      It was weird – even though she’d been with her family the whole time, she’d still felt all alone. Bobby had spent most of the break on Skype to his girlfriend or playing Xbox games with his mates, and their parents might as well have been on another planet, wrapped up in their work or talking about the news. Tilly had spent the entire holiday feeling like a jigsaw piece in the wrong puzzle. She jumped to her feet and looked in the mirror on the back of the door.

      ‘Time to be me again,’ she said to her reflection, before grabbing a pack of hair dye from her bag.

      One hour later, Tilly looked back at her reflection and smiled. Her sharply bobbed hair was now fiery-red, her eyes were lined with black kohl in a perfect cat-eye and her skin had been smoothed out with a layer of foundation. Like a warrior dressed for battle, she felt ready to face the world again. She applied some rose-tinted gloss to her lips and pouted. She was about to pull a pose when the door burst open and Andre marched in. He was wearing a bright green tracksuit, lilac high-tops and a baseball cap with BORN BEAUTIFUL written in diamante around the rim.

      ‘Oh, thank God!’ he exclaimed. ‘If you weren’t here I think I might have actually cried . . . and that would have totally ruined my look. Red eyes so do not go with green.’ He came and stood behind Tilly and looked at her reflection in the mirror. ‘Babes, your hair is fetch!’

      ‘Thank you! It’s so good to see you, Dre!’ Tilly turned and hugged Andre tight. As always he smelled amazing – a mixture of coconut oil and cocoa butter.

      ‘How good?’ Andre pulled back and stared at her.

      Tilly frowned. ‘What?’

      ‘How good is it? To see me? On a scale of one to ten?’

      ‘About fifty million.’

      Andre breathed a sigh of relief.

      ‘Why?’

      He shrugged and looked away. ‘Oh I don’t know. I thought maybe after some time away from here you might have gone off me.’

      ‘What? Why?’ Tilly stared at him in shock. It was totally out of character for super-confident Andre to show any sign of self-doubt.

      Andre sat down on the edge of her bed. ‘Tillz, can I ask you something?’

      ‘Of course.’

      ‘Do you like being my friend?’

      ‘Are you being serious?’ Tilly sat down next to him.

      ‘Why did you say that?’ Andre stared at her. ‘Why didn’t you just answer the question? Were you trying to avoid answering the question?’

      ‘Dre, chill! Of course I like being your friend! I love being your friend. You have no idea how much I missed you over the break.’

      ‘Really?’

      ‘Yes! Now why are you being so weird?’

      Andre took his cap off and sighed. ‘Let’s just say I didn’t exactly have the happiest of holidays.’

      Tilly gave a wry laugh. ‘Join the club!’

      ‘Really?’ Andre looked at her hopefully. ‘Did you have a lousy time too?’

      ‘You could say that.’

      ‘Oh good!’

      ‘Andre!’

      ‘Sorry. СКАЧАТЬ