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First published in Great Britain 2017
by Egmont UK Limited
The Yellow Building, 1 Nicholas Road, London W11 4AN
Text copyright © 2017 Beautiful Movements Ltd
Cover illustration copyright © 2017 Beautiful Movements Ltd
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
First e-book edition 2017
ISBN 978 1 4052 87180
Ebook ISBN 978 1 7803 1793 9
www.egmont.co.uk
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
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For my nieces Alyson and Gracyn
Also available in the WEDA series:
Billie’s Big Audition
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Front series promotional page
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
TILLY’S SPOKEN-WORD POEM
About the Author
Q&A with Kimberly
Back series promotional page
It aws teh best of tmies, ti wsa the wosrt fo timse, ti was teh age of widsom, it aws the aeg of foloishness, it wsa the epohc of beleif, ti was teh epoch of incerdulity, it was eth saeson of lihgt, it was the season fo dakrness, it wsa the spirng of hope, ti was the witner of depsair.
Tilly stared at the words until her eyes burned and her head hurt, but the letters kept jumping about all over the page.
‘What are you supposed to say?’ Tilly pleaded with the letters. But it was no good, they still wouldn’t fall into their correct order. ‘I hate you, dyslexia!’ Tilly threw the worksheet on to her bedroom floor. It was so unfair. Nine out of ten people didn’t have dyslexia. Why did she have to be the one who did? At her last school she’d been given extra support in class, but since she’d got to WEDA she’d been trying to make out that she didn’t need it. She definitely didn’t need the other students feeling sorry for her or, even worse, making fun of her. Now, as she looked at the paper on the floor, she wondered if she’d been right to hide it.
Before Tilly and her fellow students at WEDA had broken up for the Christmas holiday, their English teacher, Mrs Jarvis, had given them ‘some fun reading for the holiday’. Apparently, the printout contained some of the best opening paragraphs of books ever written. But to Tilly, they might as well have been written in Chinese. She wished Billie was there to help her. Billie was the only person at WEDA she’d told about her dyslexia. Whenever they got set English assignments during term time, Billie would read them out loud for her. At least then she was able to understand what the jumbled-up letters meant.
As Tilly thought of her friend Billie, miles away in London, she felt a pang of sadness. If only Christmas was over already. Tilly frowned. You were supposed to feel homesick for your home, not your school. But for Tilly it was the other way round. In her first term boarding at WEDA she’d come to think of the dance academy as her home and her friends in her street crew, Il Bello, as her family.
Tilly got off her bed and walked over to the full-length mirror on her wardrobe door. She didn’t feel like herself when she was here any more – not her true self, anyway. She gazed at her reflection, at her bland brown hair and her pale, make-up-free face. She hated looking so colourless and plain, and how vulnerable it made her feel. But her parents didn’t like her dyeing her hair or wearing make-up and she didn’t want to do anything to annoy them right now.
Her mum had been really disappointed with Tilly’s first end-of-term report. Even though Tilly had got a glowing report in all of her dance classes, her mum was only interested in her academic grades. She was a lawyer and obsessed with how Tilly did in things like Maths and English. It had been hard enough getting her mum to agree to her going to WEDA – so if Tilly had to look like a boring loser to keep her mum happy over the Christmas holiday, it was a price worth paying. Tilly ran her finger over her cheek. Her skin was as lumpy as a mountain range. G-reat, she was about to have another break-out. Her spots always got worse when she was stressed, which only made her more stressed – leaving her in a vicious, spotty cycle. She glared at her reflection. I hate you, spots! I hate you even more than I hate dyslexia! She grabbed her concealer from her make-up bag, then remembered that her mum didn’t even like her wearing that. She took the cap off the concealer and drew an angry face with it on the mirror instead. Then she added a lightning bolt and a thundercloud. Tilly stepped back and grinned. Channelling her feelings into artwork always made her feel better.
Twenty One Pilots came on the radio and, instinctively, Tilly struck a pose, tilting her head back and extending her arm. Voguing was her favourite way to dance. Like her artwork, it always made her feel better. There was something so therapeutic about the angles of the poses and the tension in her body creating such sharp lines. She took a step to the side, landing on her English assignment. The sound of the paper crunching beneath her foot made her smile again. She liked the power it gave her. She wanted to trample and stomp those stupid, jumbled-up words into the ground.
Tilly spun and twirled and vogued her way around her bedroom using the crumpled piece of paper as a skate on the carpet to help her glide. She caught sight of her reflection in the wardrobe mirror. She no longer looked sad and boring. Her eyes were sparkling and her cheeks glowed. One of Tilly’s teachers at WEDA, Mr Marlo, called this feeling Doctor Dance. No matter how bad things might get, dance always made you feel better. Tilly put her hands on her hips and stared back at her reflection.
‘You’ve got this,’ she told herself. ‘You don’t need anyone’s help.’
She grabbed her fake fur coat and studded leather rucksack from her bed and headed for the door. Time for some Christmas shopping.
Tilly’s family lived in a town south of London. Normally Tilly found it super boring, but today even she had to admit that it looked magical. The high street was strung with flashing, star-shaped Christmas lights, and the wide pavements were full of market stalls selling everything from French cheeses and wine to designer jewellery and handmade cards. Tilly picked out a couple of cards for her parents and her older brother, Bobby, then headed down one of the side-streets to her favourite charity shop. Tilly loved charity shops. Browsing through their racks and shelves was like treasure hunting – you had to sift through a load of junk, but Tilly had a knack for finding the gems. Her friend Andre loved this about her, because she was always finding weird and unique outfits for his fashion blog, Spotted. Tilly felt another twinge of sadness as she thought of Andre. He was even further away than Billie, spending Christmas in his hometown of New York.
The bell above the shop door jangled as Tilly made her way inside. The air had that slightly musty smell that all charity shops have, mingled with the spicy scent of a Christmas candle. She made her way to the women’s clothes section and started rifling through the jumpers and blouses. Straight away, Tilly’s mind filled with brightly coloured pictures, as she imagined snipping a sleeve off a shirt, or layering a vest top over a jumper, but none of the clothes passed the tingle test. The tingle test was something she and Andre always used for Spotted.
Unless an outfit was so exciting it made their skin tingle it wouldn’t make the cut. But then she saw a hat, randomly perched on top of a pile of records. It was an old-style captain’s hat, huge and black with a curved rim. Tilly picked it up and turned it over in her hands. There was so much blank space on the black felt – it was just begging to be customized! She pictured the hat covered with pink, black and gun-metal sparkles. She imagined gold chains hanging down from the rim around her face. Her skin began to tingle. She took the hat over to the counter to pay.
When Tilly got back home her parents were still out, picking Bobby up from uni, so she set to work at the dining-room table. In her first term at WEDA she’d collected loads of accessories customizing things for Andre’s blog, and had bought a vintage trunk to store them all in. She opened the trunk and piled paint, glue, glitter and costume jewellery on to the table. Then she took out a pack of strawberry bubble-gum and popped a piece in her mouth. Her parents hated her chewing gum in the house, but it helped her to think. She placed the hat in the middle of the dining-room table and stared at it, waiting for inspiration to strike. This was how she always worked when she was customizing something, or creating a look. She didn’t need to try out different things – she could see the finished look straight away. Andre called it her styling superpower. And sure enough, as Tilly stared at the hat, she saw an image start to appear on the front, like a Polaroid picture developing. The image was of a bright pink flamingo – it would go so well against the black of the hat! She imagined it glinting and shining in the light, and reached for her bag of Swarovski crystals and a tube of pink paint. Then she grabbed the hat and a pencil and started sketching the outline of a flamingo on the front. Tilly LOVED flamingos. Not only were they her favourite colour – pink – but they had long legs, like her.
When Tilly was younger, a bratty girl at her school called Angelica had constantly taunted her about her long legs, calling her ‘lanky’ and ‘daddy-long-legs’. Tilly finally snapped and got her revenge by squirting ketchup into Angelica’s school bag one lunchtime, which, of course, had got her into loads of trouble. But when she’d told her dad why she’d done it he’d said something she’d never forgotten. ‘You’re not a daddy-long-legs,’ he’d told her, as he gave her a hug. ‘You’re my fearless flamingo.’ Tilly loved her dad for saying this. Flamingos were way cooler than daddy-long-legs and they made her feel proud of her body instead of embarrassed.
Within a couple of minutes the outline of the flamingo was complete. Tilly blew a satisfied bubble with her gum and kept on blowing till it popped. The rest of Il Bello loved watching her draw and paint. They always made a big deal of her graffiti murals in the old stable they used as a studio. But to Tilly, art came easy – a bit like words came to them, she guessed. Oh well, at least there was something she could do that the others couldn’t. She painted in the outline of the flamingo in pink and while she was waiting for it to dry, she took a photo of the hat and texted it to Andre. He texted back straight away.
OGM! That si so goign no SPOTETD! Xoxo
Tilly stared at the words until she finally figured them out – OMG! That is so going on Spotted! Xoxo
She sent back a smiley-faced emoji. Tilly was so grateful for the invention of emojis. If only she could do her school work in them!
Once the paint had dried, she began gluing the crystals around the outline of the flamingo. She pictured dancing in the hat on a stage somewhere, a spotlight casting reflected beams from the crystals all around her. She was so engrossed, she didn’t even hear her family arriving back home until Bobby walked through the door.
‘Sis! It’s so good to see you!’ he cried, dropping his bag to the floor and throwing his arm round her shoulders. Even though it had only been three months since Tilly last saw him, his hair was a lot longer and he looked older somehow. Uni life clearly suited him, but then Bobby was a brainiac just like their mum. ‘What are you up to?’ He nodded at the hat. ‘I hope that isn’t Dad’s Christmas present – I’m not sure pink’s his colour!’
Tilly burst out laughing. Their dad was an accountant who specialized in corporate taxation. Tilly wasn’t exactly sure what that meant but she knew it sounded seriously boring. And her dad had a seriously boring wardrobe to match, spending his entire life in grey suits or brown cardigans. The thought of him wearing the flamingo hat was hilarious!
‘What’s so funny?’ Tilly’s mum came through the door smiling, but as soon as she saw the dining-room table, her face fell. ‘Oh, Tilly, what a mess!’
‘She’s being creative,’ Bobby said, instantly slipping into his usual role as the family peacekeeper. ‘Look at the flamingo she’s made. Isn’t it cool?’
‘It’s ridiculous.’ Her mum sighed. ‘Who would ever wear such a thing?’
Tilly 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. I didn’t mean – I’m not glad that you had a lousy time. I’m just glad that I wasn’t the only one.’
‘But how could you have had a bad time? You were in New York!’
‘Yes, and so was my so-called dad.’
‘Oh.’ Tilly wasn’t sure what to say to this. Andre never talked about his dad, apart from saying things like his dad was dead to him and that he’d rather have a cardboard cut-out of Dr Dre for a father.
‘Why did you have a bad time?’ Andre asked.
‘My mum was stressing over my end-of-term report.’
‘What? But you aced your dance classes.’
‘I know. But she doesn’t care about that. She only cares about how I do in my academic subjects. Total nightmare.’
Andre sighed. ‘Parents!’ He put his cap on back to front and held his hand out to Tilly. ‘Come on. I know something that’ll cheer you up.’
Tilly followed Andre out of the ultra-modern dormitory block and past the old WEDA building. It looked so majestic, lit up in the dark.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked, and then it dawned on her. ‘Oh my God, is it ready? Are you taking me to the stable?’
‘That’ll be the official street dance Stable Studio,’ Andre said with a grin. ‘And yep, my mum said they completed the refurbishment over the holiday.’
As Tilly followed Andre through the cluster of trees at the back of the building she felt excitement bubbling inside her. Last term, the old abandoned stable at the bottom of WEDA’s grounds had become the secret HQ for their street dance crew. But then Andre’s mum, Miss Murphy, the world-famous ballerina and now Head of Dance and Wellness at WEDA had caught them rehearsing. They could have got into massive trouble, as street dance wasn’t on the curriculum back then and they were banned from rehearsing privately when they had a show coming up. But thankfully Miss Murphy had been so impressed by their routine she’d allowed Il Bello to perform in the end-of-term showcase and street dance had been added to the curriculum at WEDA. The old stable had been renovated over the Christmas holiday to make sure it met studio health and safety regulations. Tilly couldn’t wait to see what it looked like. As they approached the stable, Andre took a key from his pocket.
‘My mum wants you to paint a sign for over the door.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Yeah, she loves your work.’
Tilly felt a burst of happiness, swiftly followed by a pang of sorrow. Why couldn’t her mum be more like Miss Murphy and appreciate the things Tilly could do instead of picking holes in those she couldn’t?
Andre opened the door and flicked a light switch.
‘Oh wow!’ Tilly gazed around the stable. The main wall was exactly as they’d left it, with Tilly’s mural of Il Bello and the street-style bumblebees. But the wall opposite was now fully mirrored and the remaining two walls had been painted white.
‘My mum asked if you’d do some more murals there too,’ Andre said, gesturing at the blank walls.
‘Of course,’ Tilly murmured. She looked up at the ceiling, which now twinkled with mini spotlights, casting a golden glow over the shiny pine floor.
‘So, what do you say we dance out our holiday blues? Have a ’rent vent on the floor?’ Andre said.
Tilly grinned. ‘I say, YEAH!’