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