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Coleen Style Queen Sun, Sand & Sequins Table of Contents Ok, so holiday packing can be a struggle. Especially when you’ve got a mountain of clothes and shoes – not to mention an iPod, a camera and a hairdryer – to pack into a case roughly the size of a box of tissues. Oh, and did I mention that this particular suitcase is pink with gold sparkles? “Mum!” I complained as Mum got my suitcase down from the loft and put it on my bed. “I can’t take this on holiday. I’ll get laughed off the beach!” “You loved it when you were seven, and I’m sure you can love it again, Coleen,” said Mum. I sighed and flipped the case open. Then I packed my favourite summer shoes: a pair of sparkly sandals covered in silver sequins. They fitted – with about three millimetres left over. “But I’ll never get everything in!” I wailed, looking at the other six pairs that I’d lined up on my bedroom floor. “What do you need seven pairs of shoes for?” Dad asked, stopping at my room and staring at my packing. There was something bright orange draped over his arm. “We’re going for a beach holiday, Coleen – tomorrow, ideally, though at the rate you’re going you won’t be packed until Tuesday. Are you planning to paddle in a different pair of shoes every day?” I rolled my eyes at him. Dads don’t get shoes. “What’s that?” I asked, eyeing the orange thing on Dad’s arm. “Ta-da!” Dad announced, unfurling the most disgusting pair of orange swimming trunks I’d ever seen and flapping them at me. “What do you think?” “The fish in the sea’ll think you’re a giant Wotsit, Dad,” I advised. “Think again.” “At least you lot won’t lose me at the hotel pool,” Dad joked, folding up his shorts again. “Believe me, Dad, we will,” I muttered as Dad went off to help Mum squeeze everything into their old black case on wheels. “As quickly as we can.” My little sister, Em, wandered into my room and flopped down on the bed. As usual, she looked a total mess. Football strip (badly in need of a wash), football socks and a pair of trackie bottoms with holes in the knees, not to mention a gap in her front teeth where a tooth had just dropped out. “And there was me, thinking seven-year-old girls wore pink all day long,” I sighed. “Yuck,” said Em, as I knew she would. Needless to say, her suitcase had the emblem of her favourite footie team, Marshalswick Park, on it. “Get out of here, Em,” I begged, trying to decide between three different T-shirts. “Haven’t you got packing to do?” “All done,” Em smirked. “What?” I shrieked, dropping my tees. “But you only started about five minutes ago!” Em shrugged. “Cozzie, T-shirts, shorts, sandals, latest football mag, autograph book because footballers go to the Algarve and you never know, toothbrush,” she recited. “Didn’t take long.” “What about knickers?” I demanded. Em wrinkled her forehead. “Oh yeah,” she said, getting off my bed, “I’d better stick in a couple of pairs.” Holidays in my family usually go like this. Mum goes on at Dad for weeks to book something. The holidays get closer. Dad doesn’t do anything until the last minute, and then he grabs the cheapest thing he sees, which nearly always has flights leaving at four o’clock in the morning. Mum’s left running around like a mad thing, getting Nan to take Rascal our dog and vacuuming behind the couch. Well, this time, Dad has totally outdone himself. He booked us a week in the Algarve this afternoon – and we are getting a taxi to the airport before sunrise tomorrow morning. “Heaven knows what this place is going to be like,” Mum grumbled as we all grabbed a bite to eat before what was going to be the shortest night’s sleep in history. “It’s the Algarve, Trish,” Dad said soothingly. “Sea, sand and plenty of sun. I tell you, I can spot the good ones a mile off. When have I ever been wrong?” “Well,” Mum started, “how about that time we went to Croatia and the hotel hadn’t even been built? Or the trip to Brittany that turned out to be a trip to Britain, which I didn’t want to visit because I already lived there? Or—” “Well, this one’s going to be different,” Dad interrupted hastily. “Trust me.” Em and I shared a look. We’d believe that once we got there. It felt like I’d only just shut my eyes when Mum was shaking me awake again. I whittled my shoes down to three pairs and jumped on my sparkly pink case to shut it. I squeezed another T-shirt, scarf and belt into my hand luggage and put on as many extra clothes as I could. Then I think I actually fell asleep in the taxi, because suddenly it was all lights and bustle and that ding-dong echo you get in airports. Now my eyelids were officially open, it was time to get excited. Airports are brilliant places. They just smell of holidays. There’s so many different kinds of people to look at, making me wonder about all the different places they must be travelling to. Tall ones, skinny ones, rich ones, ones with tans that make them look like old leather handbags and ones so pale you just know they’ll burn to a crisp on their holiday beach within seconds. And if you ever need fashion inspiration, the mix of colours and styles in an airport is full of it! As we waited around for our flight to be called, I browsed through the gorgeous duty-free clothes shops and dashed off a couple
