Chapter 8
“Hello, Sapphire!” cried a voice from across the pavement.
“Huh?” I looked up, surprised.
“It’s me, Sylvie!” called the bright voice, coming closer.
“Sylvie!” I gasped, running to her and throwing myself at her joyfully.
We clasped each other tightly, hugging as if we could never bear to let go. I felt sad but also happy to see her; I hadn’t written for weeks, and hadn’t attempted to meet up together either; I hadn’t seen her since I was seventeen. I had behaved horribly to her; not putting the addresses or places I would be, travelling with the circus ad not sending her anything for her birthday or even Christmas.
“Oh Sylvie,” I breathed, collapsing into her arms. “I’m so sorry.”
“Sapphire,” Sylvie cuddled me close.
We walked into my hotel room together, and I invited Sylvie to stay for the night. She sighed wistfully, but answered a little sadly, “I can’t. Chloe would kill me.”
“Who?” I asked loudly and disapprovingly.
“Chloe. My best friend. I live with her.” She looked happy enough.
“You can’t just move in with someone you hardly know!” I replied.
“I’ve known her for ages!” Sylvie answered. “Chloe and I met about two years ago. Since you’ve been at the circus I couldn’t get hold of you, so I couldn’t tell you. You don’t know everything about my life!”
“Huh.”
“What?”
“Stop going on about your stupid friend!”
“Stop telling me what to do, missy. I’m older than you,” she said, wagging a finger at me.
“Why are we arguing? Can I meet this Chloe?” I spat out the name with anger.
“Sure, come on then, Sapphire, sweetie. Pack a bag. Stay with us tonight.” She opened the door and then locked it behind us, making sure we had all my nightclothes and toiletries.
“Hi, Sylvie. Hey, who’s this?” queried a blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl with pale skin and a gorgeous red dress with heels.
“Hi,” I replied, mesmerised.
“Well?” demanded Chloe, hands on hips.
“Oh, this is Sapphire, Chloe. She has just left the circus, where she had to leave because of her cruel boss,” Sylvie lied cleverly.
“Oh, sounds typical. Circuses are very rough, scary places. Poor thing, Sapphire.” She gave me an unexpected smile and I went in the house, marvelling at all the amazing rooms.
“Wow!” I commented, loving the way they had made each room a different shade of blue, purple or pink – the living room was deep purple with red sofas and cushions, the dining room was such a deep blue it was almost black. The kitchen was pale blue, and had sky-blue cupboards and sideboard.
I liked the three bathrooms too – one pale violet and white, with lots of fancy, expensive soaps lined up neatly on the windowsill. The other two were pink, one rose pink, with perfumes all over the shelf, and a pearly-pink sink. The other bathroom had glass taps, with transparent blue dolphins on the handles. I turned them on and off, experimenting. The four big bottles of soaps were jasmine, buttercup, rose and tulip, and left heavenly smells in the room.
“Look!” squealed Chloe, pleased that I liked her work of art. She was pointing upstairs.
After a chat about the past with Chloe and Sylvie, I followed her up, liking the very pale pink landing, with paintings arranged randomly. I tiptoed around the seven bedrooms, which were not all in the colour theme downstairs. One was red, with thick maroon curtains trailing to the scarlet carpet, decorated with an orange mat with yellow frills. I loved the furniture – all normal, but painted a bright shade of red, with lots of books and flowers around the room. Chloe had said that was one of the four guest rooms earlier when we had been getting to know each other.
I entered a bland room, with cream walls and a rather cheap, frail bed with yellow legs and sides. The bookcase in the corner was painted white, but looked a weird choice with the mingling colours there.
“Nice,” I lied, not liking that room at all.
“Huh! You don’t like it, do you?” asked Chloe, but she wasn’t cross at all.
I wandered around the amazing house for about an hour, then we sat down on the soft sofas in the living room and chatted for a while.
“So, what do you do now?” Nosed Sylvie with interest.
“I work in Pink’s Nail Salon in the daytime, which brings in quite a bit of money, and I tried out for a waitress job at the Pasta Palace down town, which pays well too,” I replied, trying to sound grown up, but they just laughed at me.
“Huh! I don’t think you know what Chloe does for a job, Sapphy.”
“Have you heard of Chloe Fox, the famous model? Well, here she is!” Chloe giggled proudly.
Modelling was the perfect job for Chloe! She was very pretty, with dark blue eyes, a slim figure, amazing clothes, long wavy golden locks twisted into two tiny plaits at each side, and pale skin with no freckles.
“Well, you really fit it!” I exclaimed, blushing a little.
“Thanks, sister.” Chloe gave me a sly grin, tossing her head.
I knew it was way past midnight, and we should head off to bed.
Yawning hugely, I stood up saying, “Please can I stay the night? It is like, really late!”
“Yeah, sure, you can stay as long as you like! But I’m going out a little later – you can come if you like,” Chloe said, yawning too. “If you want to go up to a bedroom to sleep, that’s fine, but my modelling job is quite soon so you can just lie down on the sofa if you like?”
“OK, cool. Don’t wake me up if I drop off!” I lay down sleepily.
“Right, Sapphire,” whispered Chloe, waving at me as I shuffled around comfortably on her sofa, a lime-coloured blanket draped over me like a duvet.
I was woken at half past three by Chloe, who was frantically rushing around, grabbing lipstick and mascara from her eight different handbags. She washed her silken hair three times, each time putting a different scent and different shampoo. Sylvie and I looked at each other, eyebrow raised comically. We laughed, trying to be sensible and failing miserably.
“Oh Sapphire, lovely, why didn’t I come and collect you from the circus?” mumbled Sylvie worriedly, stroking my long brown hair gently. “I am the worst sister in the whole world.”
“Oh, Sylvie! Stop it, you’re making me so sad! Why didn’t we stay together, just the two of us?” I cried pitifully, holding her cold hands tightly.
“Yes, why didn’t we?” Sylvie stared sadly into my watering eyes. “One whole year when we didn’t write or text or call or meet up at all. Then you ran away, poor thing, and came here! What a fluke!”
“Hey, Sapphire, I’ve got a minute. Show some of your tricks, then, sweetheart,” ordered Chloe, sweeping her hair up into a huge donut and pushing kiss curls into place at the front.
“OK! But it might hurt; I broke my leg in three places, fractured my toes and dislocated my knee a few weeks ago,” I agreed.
I pushed myself into box splits for ten seconds, then arched my back and bent over, walking like a demented crab. My legs and back were warmed up, so I tipped onto my hands and stayed upright for a long time, performing a straddle handstand, bent-over handstand (where you push your legs right forward and balance by shifting your weight onto your hands totally and stretching your back so you don’t overbalance) and the straight-splits handstand, which almost tore my tight leggings. Then I stood up, ready to push from a headstand to a handstand and then tip my weight gradually over, so I ended up with my feet on the floor and standing up, though my leg ached a little and my back was sore too. Standing up properly again, I threw myself into an aerial cartwheel, then landed lightly, pleased that I hadn’t misjudged it and crashed into the heavy wooden bookcase near me.
“Wow!” shouted Chloe, presumably scared I would fall to my death on the shining marble floor under the soft fluffy blue rug I was standing on. “Oops, soz!” She put her hand over her mouth, grinning as she landed o
n my toes when trying to do a cartwheel. “Not my dream job!” she laughed.
We travelled to the studio (where Chloe was going for her modelling job) and I watched Chloe strut confidently along the narrow planks, striking poses and twirling gracefully every so often. I liked watching the others too – they had flouncy tops and tight pink leggings, sparkly vests and tights with shimmering shorts, fitted denim jackets with bright badges and dark skinny jeans. I particularly liked a sixteen-year-old model, who had lovely wavy red hair and a pale face with pink cheeks and long, dark lashes. She was very thin, and all her clothes were a little loose, but looked utterly brilliant when she used her full make-up.
“Hey, Sapphire!” she called after the route march up and down the catwalk. “Shall I take you to my dressing room for a bit?”
“Cool!” I replied, hopping up eagerly. I followed her along a mass of corridors, up flights of stairs and through large doors until we reached a well-hidden, dark blue door with ‘Skye’ scrawled across the name plate.
“Amazing!” I exclaimed as soon as I walked in. The two rooms were bright and fetching – the washroom and bathroom were hot pink with lilac and red hearts, and the main room with a bed, desk and dressing table was midnight blue and covered in shining white stars, with a red and pink and yellow sunset creeping in and the bottom, and an owl flying mystically at the side, silhouetted by the dark background. Taking my shoes off, I pattered into the bathroom, loving the strong smell of roses and lavender soap and bath bombs piled up at the ledge on the wall. I squirted out a blob of raspberry soap, and rubbed a little on my rosy face, wanting it to look dignified and grown up. I looked stupid; Skye was only sixteen yet she was slimmer and so much prettier than me.
After I’d had a face massage and wash from Skye, she sat me down at the table and reached for her large wooden cabinet, bringing out firstly mascara and eye shadow, then lipstick and blusher. Finally, she placed eyeliner and a powder compact on the table, along with glittery nail varnish.
“Wow …” I looked at the make-up, hardly believing she had so much.
“Come here.” Skye gently pulled me closer to her, and gave me a big selection of different eye shadow. “Choose,” she encouraged.
I finally decided on a blue with glitter, liking the way it caught my eye. Skye dabbed at me carefully, transforming my eyes and bringing out the blue. I chose a deep pink lipstick and silver eyeliner, with black mascara and tulip-pink blusher.
“I look … nice!” I peered anxiously in the mirror opposite.
“You look fabulous!” declared Skye, busily shining up my cheeks with her rose-scented powder puff and spraying my fluffy hair with a deep blue sparkle tint, making it stay in a quiff and three long fishtail plaits.
She had to rush back downstairs for another hour of performing to the audience, while I played music loudly and wrote in my notebook. I’d wanted to be a model since I was four – and I wanted it badly now. So I drew Chloe and me together, posing prettily and pouting while Sylvie drew up the performance books and wrote out leaflets that we sold before and after each sell-out show. Each day after the show, we would be filmed on a popular TV show, dancing and singing and posing before retreating to our 500-room palace, complete with ten horses in stables and a huge swimming pool, sauna, Jacuzzi and steam room.
I lay on my back, sipping a bottle of lemonade that Skye had left me. Imagine, me and Chloe like that. In my dreams!
“Sapphire? Here’s a letter from those nice girls,” Sylvie explained, passing me an envelope from her bag, obviously taken from home.
I opened it, and found a card with a big ‘Famous Together’ on it, and lots of roaring audience. I opened the card and found three pages of scribbled writing in pink gel pen.
Dear Sapphire,
This is just Ellie who is writing this, not any of the others. Jade has got a little better, but she still can hardly get up and we have to wait on her hand and foot. It is a bit tiring. Olivia and I were really hoping you would be our best friend, we liked you so. Will you? I really would like it!
Olivia and I are best friends, even though we are almost exactly the same age and sisters too. Jade is left on her own a bit, but she doesn’t mind because she has a great imagination and makes up stories all the time.
Freya, who is dreamy and clever just like Jade, is her best friend, and they get on well too, even if it is only doing homework together or hanging out in town.
I have worked out my dream job – going to New York or Hollywood and becoming a model. Perhaps it could be a double act with Olivia, and even better with you! Please come, Sapphire!
When will you get your savings and pack up from the circus? I hope it isn’t too soon!
Ellie xxx
(And Olivia x)
I read this quickly, and then glanced at the smaller sheet that described her fabulous holiday, which was a little too exciting for me. I decided to write back and surprise both of them, telling them I was living with Chloe Fox, world-famous fashion model, and had actually talked to her and been out to town with her before too!
Dear Ellie and Olivia,
Thank you for your letter. I have left the circus now and am in the next town, with two part-time jobs that fill up my day. I was pushed out by Riel because of my injured leg – he only gave me a week to let me heal! I couldn’t perform after that, so I was sent packing. But it isn’t so bad! I met up with my sister Sylvie last night, who invited me to stay with her instead of in a hotel. I am living in total luxury, with a gorgeous pink bedroom all to myself.
Chloe Fox, model and true superstar, is living with Sylvie and me! She is so utterly gorgeous, I can’t keep my eyes off her! She has taken a shine to me, and loves to watch my various acrobatic skills (my leg has healed properly now) if I’m up to it.
Right now, I am actually in Skye Coal’s dressing room, because I’ve made friends with her. She is so lovely and ever so pretty too! I am at a modelling show in Edinburgh! I have been introduced to some world-famous people and a lot of very kind models who are seeking out fame. I like them all so much!
I will definitely be your best friend, but it might be hard to communicate face to face seeing as we are so far apart!
My dream is to become a model too – amazing!
I wish you well and I hope Jade gets much, much better!
Sapphire xxxxx
I lay there, imagining me and Ellie on the stage together, posing on the front of celeb magazines, and in the newspapers frequently. We could be world famous…
I woke up and found Sylvie staring at me, reading the long letter I had written to Ellie and Olivia.
“Sapphire? We are going to explore tomorrow!” she whispered.
“Edinburgh? Amazing!” I agreed, before dozing off on my small comfy bed in my own room.