Blueberry Wishes (9 page)

Dad sighed deeply. “The rainbow theme didn't really help,” he said then. “They felt they'd need to take some of each product to line them up nicely as a rainbow, and then if some sold through quicker than others it would be left looking bitty.”

I really thought I was going to throw up then. “I suggested the core range, and had the rainbow idea,” I stuttered. “This is all my fault.”

“Don't be silly,” Mum cried, putting her arm round my shoulders. “We all agreed. Your dad and I have more business experience than you, so if anything,
we
should have thought of these issues.”

“We should have done citrus,” said Saff. Unhelpfully.

“We should have just concentrated on the gift sets instead of trying to sell individual products, so they were all complete rainbows,” said Grace.

We stared at her. She was right.

I groaned. “Why is it that things you completely miss at the time seem obvious afterwards?”

“We all missed it,” said Mum. “Everyone makes mistakes in business. It's learning from them that matters.” She smiled at me. Well, she tried to, but it went all wobbly. She was right – about making mistakes, I mean. But would we have
time
to learn from them?

“Dad, you didn't answer the question,” Saff said then. “How many orders?”

There was a long pause. “I'm afraid only two shops have actually ordered
anything
,” he muttered. There was stunned silence from our side. “And you're right, Grace,” he said. “They did only go for the gift packs. One shop would like five and the other, three.”

“Eight?” I gasped. “Is that it?” My stomach dropped into my shoes. The future of Rainbow Beauty was riding on the London orders. This couldn't be happening.

“The gift pack product sizes are smaller, so there's much less profit when you factor in all the packaging,” said Grace. “We're hardly going to make any money!”

“I'm sorry, love,” said Dad, and I heard his voice break a little. It must have been tearing him up to have to give us such bad news. “I tried my best, I promise you.”

“I know you did,” I said quickly. “We all know you did.”

“Yes, we do,” said Saff.

“Yeah,” Grace mumbled.

Mum didn't say anything. She just looked dazed.

“It was my fault. The product was wrong,” I muttered.

“No, it wasn't,” Dad said firmly. “What your mum said was right – we all agreed on our strategy.”

“And don't forget, Massimo liked them as they were,” Saff reminded me.

“We can tweak the range now we've got feedback,” said Grace. “We'll just do gift packs of all seven products, and make the sizes a bit bigger.”

“I don't think I'll get another chance to sell them in to those shops,” said Dad, “and the big stores haven't even returned my messages.”

“Well, then you'll have to—” Mum began.

“I
did
go in,” he snapped, cutting her off, “but the beauty-department buyers refused to see me without an appointment. It's so frustrating! How am I supposed to arrange one if they don't return my calls?”

I felt really sick and worried then. For the business, but for Dad too. This had obviously knocked all the confidence out of him. What if he got himself back in the awful state he'd been in when Saff and I first saw him in the bedsit?

“Liberty holds an open call for new suppliers every year,” I said, trying to find something positive to say.

“True,” Dad said. Then he sighed loudly. “Next spring, I think it is. Look, don't worry about this. If you send up the revised rainbow gift pack and costings, I'll just cast the net wider.” We could all tell how disheartened he was, though.

“Well, did Massimo like the shower gel?” I asked, in a tiny voice.

“Yes, love, he did,” said Dad, “and he'd like ten more please, so that's something.”

“Good,” I mumbled. Usually it would have been fantastic. But coming after such bad news, it felt like a really tiny amount.

We all told Dad we loved him (well, except Mum, of course) and then rang off, and I spent the rest of the evening desperately wishing I could somehow magic myself to London to give him a big hug, without a six-hour journey, or missing school, which I knew Mum would never allow.

When the bell above the door jangled on Thursday after school, we were all in Rainbow Beauty, smiling and looking smart in our pink uniforms, ready for our very important visitor.

It had been Mum's idea to invite Mr. Vulmer, the landlord, over. “With the London hiccup, and this new spa, there's no way we're going to have the three months' rent that he wants,” she'd said, as we sat quietly over supper the night before, still upset about Dad's news. “So rather than bury our heads in the sand, we'd better start talking to him about paying in instalments.”

So she'd called him, and we'd made sure everything was shipshape in the parlour as soon as we'd got home from school – we wanted to show him how professional we were. He came wheezing through the door, and even with autumn in the air, he was still wearing one of his garish palm-tree-patterned shirts. I forced myself not to wrinkle up my nose at his signature scent, which was a mixture of stale bacon fat, sweat and cigarettes.

“Mr. Vulmer!” cried Mum, greeting him like an old friend. “Can I get you a cup of tea? We've got digestives in too, because we know they're your favourite.”

“No thanks, Mrs. Green,” he rasped, hardly even bothering to look at her (and completely ignoring me and my sisters). “I'm a busy man. Why did you call me round at such short notice? If it's the rat problem again, I told you, there's a box of poison under the—”

“No, no, the rat issue has been dealt with by a pest-control company,” Mum said hurriedly. “Everything's been done completely professionally, and all approved by Health and Safety. As you can see, we have a very nice business going here.”

He'd been peering around at the beautiful sofas and reception desk and granite smoothie bar and the glass shelves full of products. “I can see that,” he said. “We should talk about increasing the rent now you've got yourselves up and running.”

Saff made a sudden, half-choked noise and Mum looked panicked. She seemed to be trying to say something, but no words would come out. She gave Grace a desperate look and my sister stepped in.

“Actually, we did ask you here to discuss the rent,” Grace said, sounding calm and breezy (I'm sure only
I
noticed her hands trembling slightly with nerves). “Being a businessman yourself, I'm sure you can appreciate that, as a new business, we've had a lot of initial costs to meet. We're only just recouping those now. So, to help with our cash flow, we'd like to pay you monthly, in advance of course, rather than in three-monthly instalments.”

Mr. Vulmer peered at her, probably dimly remembering that she was the one who'd talked him into letting us rent the shop and the flat at such a low rate in the first place. But Grace's magic didn't work a second time. “No,” he said flatly. “That's not possible. I need to know you're not going to take off at a moment's notice and leave me with this lot to sort out.”

Mum looked furious at that, and I had to put my hand on Saff's arm because I thought she was going to fly at him. I should have stuck my other hand over her mouth though, because, “Why would we do that?” she snapped. “We've built up a business here. Our life is here. We're desperate to keep it going and that's why we're asking you to give us a bit of leeway. You'll get your money each month, but if you won't let us pay like that, well, you might not be getting any at all because—”

“All Sapphire is saying,” said Mum, glaring at her and cutting in, “is that we're as keen to make this work as you are. So if we could just agree to pay monthly – and we could do direct debit, so you had the guarantee…”

Mr. Vulmer sneered. “I do cash only,” he wheezed. “And I'll be round for my three months' rent for both the shop and the flat on the eighth of October, as we agreed. If you haven't got it, you go. End of.”

Mum looked like she was about to burst into tears, and I wasn't sure how much longer I could hold Saff back for.

As Mr. Vulmer turned and lumbered out, none of us said anything. We just watched him, barely breathing, hardly moving. Then, when he'd disappeared from view, we all collapsed onto each other.

“What a hideous man!” Saff cried.

“He's being so unfair!” said Mum. “Most people pay their rent every month, or even weekly.”

“You'd think he
wanted
the business to fail!” I grumbled.

“I think he does,” said Grace quietly.

“What?” gasped Saff, rounding on her. “Why would you say that?”

Grace sighed. “Think about it. He's getting a pretty small rent from us, but the shop fit will have added thousands to the value of this place. If he chucked us out, he might be able to sell it, or rent it to someone else at a higher rate, or even just rip out all the fittings and sell them – I know we got everything cheap thanks to Liam, but this lot would be worth a fortune if it was sold off.”

Mum, Saff and I just stared at her. I felt physically sick. “That can't be true, surely?” I stuttered. We've got to talk to him again, make him understand…”

Mum sighed. “The only language that man understands is money,” she said. “We've got to have that cash ready for the eighth and then we'll probably have to agree to a rent rise to keep him off our backs.”

“But we won't
have
the money,” said Saff, stating the obvious.

Mum sighed. “It doesn't look like we will, no.”

“There's still the pamper day,” I said quietly. “I've sold quite a few tickets.”

Mum gave me a proud, sad look, as if her heart was breaking. “That's great, hon, but without any decent London orders it's not going to make much difference…”

“I know,” I murmured. “I know.”

No one said it would be okay, and no one said we'd work things out, and no one came up with a miracle solution. In fact, we barely spoke, and after forcing down a thrown-together supper of scrambled eggs on toast, we all stumbled about, staring at the TV, flicking through magazines without taking anything in, and drinking endless cups of tea we didn't really want.

I couldn't get to sleep for ages that night, and when I finally did, I had horrible dreams about Rainbow Beauty being closed down. Everything was ripped out, and it was all dingy and dusty, with a pile of unpaid bills on the floor. The door was bolted and when we tried to get up into the flat, the locks had been changed. Our stuff had been piled up on the pavement, and we had absolutely nowhere to go.

Saturday – the day of the Autumn Fayre – was lovely and clear with a chill in the air. Even though I still felt awful about, well, pretty much everything, I had to pull on my clothes, and a smile – Summer needed me, after all. I'd promised Mum and my sisters that I'd sell my heart out (and promote my bottom off!), given them all big hugs and gone to call for Liam, who'd offered to take me and my stuff to Summer's place in his van.

When we got there, Liam stayed to help her dad, John, and her brothers set up the stalls. The Autumn Fayre was being held on a big bit of grassy garden past the vegetable plots at the back of the house. As well as the usual random chickens, plus Biff and Chip the dogs wandering around, there were loads of cars in the drive and people unloading things and lugging stuff about.

I put the blenders down on my stall, along with the posters we'd made, and once I'd waved goodbye to Liam I wandered into the house to find my best friend. Summer's house is one of those walk-in-the-door-and-shout-hello! ones, and I always get a warm feeling as I step through into the officially fabbest, maddest, messiest, cosiest kitchen in the world. A huge rack of bunches of herbs hung up by the ceiling, and the giant dresser was cluttered with mismatched china, boxes of strange teas and bits of artwork that looked like they'd been made in primary school by Summer and her brothers, and put up ten years ago. The big red Aga was topped with trays of muffins, cupcakes and brownies, cooling ready for the Fayre.

“Hi, Abbie! Help yourself,” said Annie, Summer's mum, as she wandered in and saw me eyeing up the stove top.

“Thanks,” I said. I reached into my blue denim skirt pocket and found 50p to donate. I was also wearing a purple top, pinky-purple leggings, and the gorgeous purple scarf Sienna had given me. Saff had even done my nails indigo, so I'd match my blueberry-themed stall from head to toe.

Summer came crashing down the stairs then, burst in and pulled me into a big hug. “You look great!” she cried.

“You look amazing!” I shrieked. She was in charge of the face-painting, and had started with herself, shimmering with pinks and purples, and wearing full hippy fairy gear – stripy tights, glittery DMs, tutu, tattered tie-dyed top, wings and all.

“Give me a hand taking these to the cake stall, would you, girls?” Annie asked. “People will start arriving in half an hour and I haven't even got the bunting up yet!”

Annie grabbed a pile of gorgeous vintage plates and platters from the dresser and we arranged the delicious goodies on them. We only had two of those dome things you put over cakes, but Summer had had the idea of improvising by covering the rest with some upturned glass mixing bowls and they looked really good too. Annie found the white paper bags and tongs and put them into the big pockets of her patchwork skirt and we set off for the cake stall, weaving our way through the runaway runner beans and the bright clumps of rainbow chard that grew right by the back door.

We reached the lawny bit and found that the Fayre was already taking shape. John was getting the spit-roast going, some young mums were organizing a bric-a-brac and baby clothes stall while their little ones toddled around on the grass, a couple of older ladies were sticking numbered tickets onto prizes at the tombola, and over in the field to the right, Carrot the donkey was getting a good brush down by Jim, Summer's brother, before his starring role giving donkey rides. The goats and sheep had been brought into a pen by the fence for petting too, though the chickens had obviously decided that they were staying
free range,
thank you very much, and had strutted off to investigate Summer's face-painting table. It looked gorgeous with all her colours and brushes and glitter sprays set out on it. She'd even put up some pictures along the side of the table of the kind of faces children might like to choose – there were tigers, lions, pandas, pixies, aliens, wizards and witches, and fairies, of course. “I could do you as a blueberry,” Summer said, appearing at my side.

“Thanks, but I think I look like enough of one already,” I told her. “Can you give me a hand with my stall? The Fayre starts in fifteen minutes and everything's still in boxes.”

Summer linked arms with me. “Sure,” she said. “Oh, today is going to be fantastic!”

When we'd finished my stall, it looked really cool. The posters of Ben with the blueberry mask on (and pulling a silly face) were so funny, and much better than if
I'd
been on them. Summer hadn't been joking when she said that she thought Tom the greengrocer would donate loads of blueberries. He brought over about forty punnets of gorgeous fresh indigo berries, glowing like jewels in the autumn sunlight (and we thanked him loads, of course). We left them in the wooden crates and just propped those up with some old bits of brick, to show them off. Then we set up the blenders and paper cups for smoothies, and Jed brought over a cool box of Annie's home-made yogurt, which was going into them, and sorted out an extension lead for us.

When we were all ready, we had a few minutes free, so Summer took me over to see the yurt. She and Annie had transformed it into an enchanted storytelling tent, with scarves hanging everywhere, and a huge papier mâché dragon curled around the floor cushions. The little fairy lights that Summer had put up for our last sleepover made the whole thing glow magically.

“Wow, Summer, it's amazing!” I gasped.

“We've got an actual storyteller coming,” she said. “When we said the event was for charity, he offered to perform for free.”

“That's really kind,” I said.

“Yeah, everyone's been so amazing, helping us out,” said Summer, as we ducked back out of the yurt…

…and pretty much fell straight into Ben and Marco.

“Hey, Abs,” Marco drawled. I blushed about a zillion degrees, of course, and wobbled a bit, because seeing him always made my knees go completely collapsy.

“Hi,” I said, and luckily it didn't matter that I could hardly stand up because he pulled me into a hug.

When we broke apart, and I regained the use of my legs, Ben was still staring at Summer in what I swear was a “me likey” kind of way.

“What?” she demanded, doing the goggly eyes thing at him.

Ben came to and grinned. “Oh, nothing. You've just got something on your face,” he said.

“Ha ha,” she said, swatting at him. Ben grabbed Summer's wrists and started on about her violent streak, and she aimed her DMs at his shins while he leaped out of the way, smirking. They jumped about two metres apart as Annie came hurrying up to us, though.

“Hi, boys! Thanks for coming,” she said. “Sorry to rush you, but people are already arriving. So, Abbie and Summer, if you could take your places, and Ben, you're on donkey duty. Marco—”

“Sure thing,” he cut in. “Summer told me I'm handling the spit-roast.” He grinned at me and then strode away, saying, “Fire, meat – what's not to love?”

“Erm, change of plan,” Annie called after him. “Ethel's not well, so we need you on the cake stall with Iris and Brenda.”

Well, Summer and I totally killed ourselves laughing at
that
. Luckily her face-painting table was right next to my stand and we were pretty much opposite the cake stall, so we could keep on killing ourselves laughing as Iris and Brenda fussed over Marco, tying up his flowery apron and showing him just the right way to set out the price labels.

We had a good few minutes of giggling and going, “Oooooh, young man!” (while Marco had a big session of secretly flicking V-signs at us when Iris and Brenda weren't looking), before people started making their way across the lawn and we had to concentrate on what we were supposed to be doing.

Well, things got busy really quickly, and I was whizzing up and selling so many fresh face masks that another volunteer – Sue, from the cafe where Headrush did their last gig – had to come and take over making the smoothies for me. It was really fun, chatting to people about Rainbow Beauty. I gave out loads of leaflets, too, and it felt like our opening day again, when we'd gone to the town fayre and set up a stall. Lots of people were interested in the pamper day, and I sold three tickets for it within half an hour. But then I kept suddenly feeling really sick, thinking about the London disaster and what the new spa might do next, and how on earth we were going to find the next three months' rent for vile Mr. Vulmer by his horrible deadline. It was like being on a roller coaster.

Still, I just had to put it all out of my mind and concentrate on making the most money I possibly could for the hospice, so I smiled and chatted and sold my heart out. Our bags of Blueberry Wishes were selling really quickly too, although no one seemed to have heard of it before, so I guess it
was
just Summer's family tradition, and not the whole of Devon's, after all!

Summer had a queue of children at her table and soon there were little pixies and lions and aliens pinging about everywhere, and even a Harry Potter lookalike, with a painted-on lightning-bolt scar and glasses. We all worked solidly for the first couple of hours, and more and more people kept arriving, and it wasn't till about midday, when the spit-roast was ready and everyone made a beeline for it, that we had a quiet patch.

Sue said she was fine to look after my stall for a while, and Summer put a
Back in ten minutes
sign on hers and we grabbed Marco and headed over to the field to see how Ben was getting on. On the way we did a few more rounds of “Oooooh, young man!” and insisted that we saw him checking out Brenda's bum, just to wind him up. We found Ben running around the petting-zoo pen – the goats and sheep seemed to have joined forces to terrorize him.

“Summer, do something about your psychotic animals, will you?” he shrieked. “That goat's just tried to bite a hole in my shirt!”

Summer just about managed to control her laughter enough to get out her phone and take a few pictures. “I'm not coming in there,” she giggled. “I don't want poo on these boots!”

“Summer! This is serious!” Ben yelled, as she doubled up laughing again.

I managed to control my giggles for a moment and gave Marco a pleading look. He gazed down at his Vans sadly. Then he sighed and marched towards the pen, saying, “You shouldn't have sent a boy to do a man's job. Watch and learn, ladies. Watch and learn.”

But as soon as the goats and sheep spotted Marco, they headed in his direction instead. They weren't even running or anything, just going to have a look at him, but he totally freaked out, doing a really girly scream, scrambling back to the fence and just throwing himself over it. It was so funny I could barely breathe from laughing. Marco landed in a heap in the mud by our feet, and Summer snapped another picture. “That's SO going on Facebook,” she told him. “Not such a cool rock star now!”

“What were you saying, mate, about boys and men?” called Ben, who'd slipped out of the gate while the animals weren't looking. Marco just gave him the evils, then stood up and brushed himself off, grumbling.

“I thought you were on donkey rides?” Summer said to Ben.

“I was,” he told her, “but Carrot's having a hay break because he was going non-stop all morning. I thought I'd help out with these, but they're vicious!”

“Only to you!” I giggled. A mum and small girl were now petting the goats and sheep through the fence further down, and the animals were standing calmly, looking super-cute.

Ben scowled at them. Then he said, “Who's up for checking out the stalls?”

“I'd better get back to my table,” said Summer with a frown, “or there'll be an angry mob of five-year-olds on my case.” She hurried off, and Marco headed into the house to de-muddify himself, so just Ben and I went back to the main bit of the Fayre and wandered round.

We had a go on the tombola and when Ben drew a ticket ending in zero, he leaped around celebrating like a little boy.

“I wouldn't get too excited. It's not the lottery,” I teased, wrinkling my nose up at him.

“Abs, you don't understand, I have never
ever
won anything in my entire life!” he cried. “I don't care what it is. Even if it's just a box of chocolates or whatever, I've
won
it!”

I grinned as one of the nice old lady volunteers matched the ticket with the right prize and handed Ben something pink and knitted and a little bit scary.

He took it, thanked her, grabbed my arm and pulled me away from the stall. “Oh my God, it's hideous!” he hissed. “What's it even
for
?”

“That, my friend, is your classic ballerina loo-roll cosy,” I told him, smirking. “Last seen in a bathroom circa 1985.”

Ben squinted at it. The spooky-looking half Barbie doll on top seemed to be staring back at him in an evil way. “I think this one's haunted,” he said. “And who wants to keep a loo roll
warm
, anyway? Isn't that a bit pervy?”