Blueberry Wishes (8 page)

“You're right,” said Mum, managing a small smile.

“Like what, though?” asked Grace. All three of them looked at me expectantly, waiting for the answer to come tumbling out of my mouth.

But it didn't. At that moment my creative brain seemed to have crawled under the duvet, put its headphones on and gone for a very long lie-down. I guessed we should do the same. “Let's sleep on it,” I said. “We're bound to come up with something in the morning.”

So we all slopped around getting ready for bed, our excited mood completely gone.

It was nice to see my friends on Monday, but not even Ben's jokes, Summer's hugs or Marco's arm round me as we walked between lessons could make me feel better. They were all really shocked about the Haven Spa's hardball tactics. They were gutted for me when I explained that people had stopped coming in for our offer (and in fact seemed to have stopped coming in, full stop) and they were almost as worried about our rent fund as I was.

Marco got really angry and macho and said we should sue, Ben offered to go up there and come back with some dodgy illness, but Summer understood that there wasn't a lot we could do because, like Mum said, on paper the new spa offered similar things to us and had the right to promote them in whichever way they liked, even though it felt like a personal attack.

Marco asked me if I wanted to go into town with him after school (he was meeting Luke at Pete's cafe, where the gig had been) but I said I couldn't. My sisters and I hadn't been able to come up with a plan to combat the new spa's aggressive tactics, but as we'd set off down the road together that morning, we'd thought of something to cheer Mum up, at least. So, as soon as the bell went, Grace and I hurried straight home to put our plan into action.

Mum was still in one of the treatment rooms with a client as we got things ready, and Saff joined us half an hour later, bursting in and saying she'd run all the way,
even in these shoes
, to be on time after the stupid bus was late. Grace and I had been tidying the parlour so that Mum wouldn't have to do anything, and Saff helped us finish that off. Mum came out a few minutes later, and cheerfully made up her client's bill and then saw her out, before collapsing into a heap on one of the purple velvet sofas. “Oh, I've had a terrible day,” she wailed. “There were three cancellations…”

“Oh, Mum, I'm so sorry!” I cried.

As Grace, Saff and I listened to the details, I had a deepening feeling of doom. Even with all our Rainbow Beauty powers, the storm cloud hanging over Mum was so big and black, I didn't think we had a hope of lifting it.

“It was probably just a coincidence that they cancelled,” Saff said blithely. I know she was just trying to cheer Mum up, but Grace and I both cringed.

“Of course it wasn't!” Mum snapped. “How can you not be worried? We lost over half our bookings today, and the rest of the week is looking very patchy.”

“Of course I'm worried,” Saff snapped back. “But getting all moody about it isn't going to help!”

“Moody?” Mum cried. “Saff, I'm not
sulking
. I'm devastated!”

Before Saff could open her mouth and say anything to make Mum even more stressed, Grace dragged her into the kitchenette. Meanwhile, I found a way to send Mum off up to the flat, claiming that I couldn't find the stock sheets anywhere and saying that she must have left them somewhere upstairs.

When she'd gone (well, stomped off, complaining about me losing things) we rushed around getting the surprise ready. A few minutes later she stormed back down again. “Well, they aren't up there,” she snapped. “You'll have to go and borrow Liam's printer and run off some more. Honestly, Abbie, that poor man's helped us enough without you having to go and ask for something else. He must be sick of the sight of us…”

She trailed off and gradually took in what we'd done. There were candles everywhere, and soft music was playing. She'd marched right past Grace and Saff, who were standing either side of the door. Grace had a special smoothie on a tray for her and Saff was holding a fluffy dressing gown and slippers. “Surprise,” we all mumbled, feeling like the whole thing was a bit pointless.

Mum gasped and put her hands to her mouth. Tears sprang into her eyes. “Oh!” she gasped, her voice going all wobbly.

“We wanted to do something special for you,” I told her.

“To show how much we appreciate everything you do,” added Grace, walking over and handing her the drink.

“It's pineapple and blueberry, your favourite,” said Saff, in a sad little voice.

“Oh, come here!” Mum cried, pulling her into a hug. “I'm sorry I snapped at you, love.”

Saff smiled and handed her the dressing gown and slippers. “Don't worry about it,” she said generously (usually she'd milk it and be sulky for at least an hour). She gestured towards the treatment room we'd prepared, and put on the soothing professional beautician voice she used for clients. “If you'd like to go and get changed and then make yourself comfortable, Mrs. Green, your therapists will be with you in a moment.”

Mum raised her eyebrows at Grace and me, and wandered off, sipping her drink as she went. After a moment, we all followed her in. In the treatment room, there were more candles, relaxing music, and a blend of rose and geranium oils in the burner.

“Oh, my favourite scent,” she said, taking a deep breath.

“You're having the same oils for your massage too,” said Saff. “Right, up on the table please, madam.” Mum lay down with no arguing. “Then there's a luxury pedicure with our Olive Grain Foot Scrub and Soothing Minty Foot Lotion, which Abbie's doing, while Grace looks after your nails, and gives you a hand massage with our skin-saving Carrot and Calendula Hand Balm. I've taught her everything I know. She's getting very good.”

“That sounds great, but what about your homework, Grace?” said Mum, sitting up again. “It's always Maths on a Monday, isn't it?”

My sister smiled sweetly. “Luckily I'm very, very bright, so I'll just quickly do it in the loos before school tomorrow,” she said. “Now, lay back and relax – that's an order.”

A couple of hours later, Mum was swanning around in the dressing gown, smiling serenely. She looked like a completely different person.

“That was an amazing treat, girls. Thank you so much,” she said, as we headed off (she was so relaxed that she didn't even care about walking out the front door to go up to the flat still
in
the dressing gown).

I was just locking up after us, and looking in at our gorgeous beauty parlour, and Mum was in the street in her dressing gown, beaming and waving to Mr. Trewis from the corner shop, when suddenly it came to me…

I knew how we were different and special.

And I knew what we could do to compete against the new spa.

“Mum, I've got a plan,” I said suddenly. Grace and Saff turned back to listen. “We should put on a pamper day, with a really personal, community feel,” I told them all. “Everyone will get to see their friends and meet new people, have treatments and try out our products, and we could do a massage demonstration so they can have a go at home, and we'll put on a buffet lunch too. The new spa may have the latest equipment, but they don't have what we have –
us
!”

“Wow, Abbie, that's a fab idea,” said Saff, straight away.

“I agree,” said Grace. Then she added, “We'll need to think about how much to charge for it, though, because they'd probably want to just pay a set price, wouldn't they, for everything, and—”

“It
is
a great idea, love,” Mum cut in. “But do you think we could discuss it upstairs, because I'm starting to feel a bit silly standing in the street in this dressing gown!”

So we all hurried up to the flat and I grabbed a notebook from my chill-out room while Saff kicked her shoes off and put the kettle on. Mum got changed and Grace got out her beloved calculator and began sharpening her pencils to neat points. Then we all sat down and worked out the details of the pamper day. My heart was thudding with excitement. I love it when ideas just happen, like magic – it makes me feel charmed, and invincible.

“So, Abbie, say what you said downstairs and let's write each point out separately, so we can talk about it,” said Mum.

“Okay, well, there would be a chance to try out the products,” I said. “And what about teaching them how to make the smoothies and fresh face masks? And each person could have a mini-treatment, like a head massage, facial or manicure – maybe they could choose from a list of four or something. We could do them in the main reception as well as using the treatment rooms.”

“Hang on!” Mum cried. “What was that last one? Manicure?” she asked. I nodded and she wrote it down.

“We'd put on lunch,” I continued. “You could make your lovely canapés, like you did for the grand opening.”

“That sounds great!” Saff enthused.

“It does,” Mum agreed. “Oh, Abbie, thank goodness for you! For
all
of you girls! I was feeling so down today, and you've completely turned things around.”

“I just hope it works,” said Grace.

“It will,” said Saff confidently. “People love being pampered with their friends.”

I smiled. “Look, I know we've been badly hit by this new spa, but we've worked so hard to get Rainbow Beauty up and running, nothing's going to stop us now.”

“I hate to say this, but one pamper day isn't going to make everything better,” Grace began. “We're behind on our rent targets now. Way behind…”

“I know,” I told her. “But it's a start. And if it goes well, we could have one a month. And don't forget the orders from the London side – they'll be coming in soon.”

“
Flooding
in, I bet,” said Saff. “It went so well with Massimo, I'm sure it will be the same with the other shops. Dad's had three more appointments today – he'll be racking up orders as we speak. Maybe I should ring him to get an update…?”

“Do if you like,” I said, “but I know he's got meetings booked in for tomorrow and Wednesday too. Maybe we should leave him to it for now. He's probably travelling back to his flat at the moment.”

“Okay,” said Saff.

“We won't let this beat us,” I told Grace. “No way.”

“Let's do the ticket sales just by word of mouth, and at the Autumn Fayre, though,” she said. “No posters or anything. If they get wind of this at the new spa, they'll just do something to sabotage it. We need to be clever.”

“Good thinking,” I said, and Mum and Saff agreed.

We decided to hold the pamper day on the first of October, so that we didn't clash with the big arts festival in town the week before. Saff had wanted to do it right away the following week, but Mum was worried we wouldn't have enough time to sell all the tickets – and we all agreed it had to be sold out. We set the ticket price at £25, including lunch and a mini-treatment, and agreed to try and sell fifteen tickets.

Then Mum said, “Right, now that's sorted, how about some tea?”

And when we sat down to eat half an hour later, I didn't mind that all the posh bits were missing from our cannelloni and it was just tomato pasta again. We had the London shops (I'd just sent the shower-gel sample off to Massimo along with the ten lime and ginger body scrubs he'd ordered), and we were expecting big things from Dad's pitches. And now, with the pamper-day plan in place, we had something special to offer our local clients, too. We were sure we'd get the rent money together in time, and get our mozzarella and crème fraiche back!

Getting on with the pamper-day stuff gave me a good feeling for all of Tuesday, and it lasted most of Wednesday too. I was also busy counting down the hours until we heard back from Dad. His last appointment was at four o'clock that day and he'd promised to call us straight after. Like Grace had said, the pamper day was a step in the right direction, but it was the London orders that would keep us afloat, and make up the main chunk of our rent payment. Grace and I rushed back from school and Saff got in just after us. Then it was pretty much a case of all four of us hovering round the phone on the reception desk. When it finally rang, I snatched it up.

“Hi, love,” said Dad.

“Dad! Thank goodness!” I cried, automatically hitting the button for speakerphone. “So, did they love the new range?”

“How are the figures looking?” Grace cut in, grabbing up a pen and some paper from the reception desk. “Have we hit our targets? I know we were aiming for 200 initial orders, but I'm hoping it'll be more like 300.”

“I have to stop you there,” said Dad in a weary voice. “I'm afraid I haven't got good news. I've been to all my pitches now, and at every single one they told me the same thing. It seems that committing to a year-round range is much more difficult for them than we'd realized – our Beauty and the Beach products went into their promotional space, and that'll be filled with Christmas stuff soon, which they've already chosen. To get permanent shelf space is much harder, apparently.”

“But Massimo loved them!” I cried.

“I guess we shouldn't have relied on the opinion of one single retailer,” said Dad. “We should have checked with a few more. Well, I've done that now, and the results haven't been good.”

“So what are you saying?” asked Saff anxiously. “They've still taken some, haven't they? Even if it's not as much as we'd hoped?”