Kimberly Wyatt - Tilly's Time to Shine

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 were so low!’ She handed the phone back to Tilly. ‘I knew it was a mistake sending you there. I said to your father that –’

‘It wasn’t a mistake!’ Tilly interrupted, her stomach churning. ‘I love it there and I’m doing really well in my dancing.’

‘I don’t care about your dancing!’ her mum snapped. ‘Once you’re out in the real world it’ll be your academic exams that count.’ She folded her arms and stared at Tilly, the way she always did when she was done talking.

‘But you don’t understand,’ Tilly blurted. ‘I find it so hard to concentrate! It’s not my fault I have dyslexia!’

‘But you told me your dyslexia wasn’t much of a problem any more,’ her mum replied. ‘That was one of the reasons I agreed to let you go to WEDA.’

‘It isn’t. I – I was just using that as an excuse . . . for my grades.’ Tilly’s face flushed. Whatever she said now, she’d end up busted. She might as well avoid the dyslexia conversation.

‘Right, so clearly you aren’t trying as hard as you should be.’ Her mum sighed. ‘I mean it, Tilly – if you don’t get your academic grades up next term, I’m taking you out of WEDA.’

Tilly walked into her dorm room at WEDA and gave the world’s biggest ever sigh of relief. It was so good to finally be back – it had felt like the Christmas holiday would never end. But as she looked around her side of the room – at the bed crammed with cushions in every shade of pink and the brightly coloured mood-boards hanging on the wall – the relief she felt was tinged with fear. Her mum had reminded her yet again of her threat to remove her from WEDA when she’d dropped her back at the academy. ‘I meant what I said, Tilly,’ she’d repeated as they got out of the car. ‘If you don’t get your grades up this term, we’re moving you to a normal school.’

Tilly sank down on to her bed. She couldn’t go to a ‘normal’ school. She wasn’t normal, and she didn’t ever want to be. WEDA was the first place she’d ever felt free to be her own quirky and expressive self. She looked over to the other side of the room. There was a half-unpacked suitcase on the other bed, with clothes spilling out of it and on to the floor. Her roommate Naomi was obviously back, and there were no prizes for guessing where she’d be. Naomi’s twin brother Jordan was also at WEDA, so she spent most of her time in his room. Normally, Tilly liked this as it gave her loads of space to be on her own. But after the holiday she’d just had, being on her own was the last thing she wanted.

It was weird – even though she’d been with her family the whole time, she’d still felt all alone. Bobby had spent most of the break on Skype to his girlfriend or playing Xbox games with his mates, and their parents might as well have been on another planet, wrapped up in their work or talking about the news. Tilly had spent the entire holiday feeling like a jigsaw piece in the wrong puzzle. She jumped to her feet and looked in the mirror on the back of the door.

‘Time to be me again,’ she said to her reflection, before grabbing a pack of hair dye from her bag.

One hour later, Tilly looked back at her reflection and smiled. Her sharply bobbed hair was now fiery-red, her eyes were lined with black kohl in a perfect cat-eye and her skin had been smoothed out with a layer of foundation. Like a warrior dressed for battle, she felt ready to face the world again. She applied some rose-tinted gloss to her lips and pouted. She was about to pull a pose when the door burst open and Andre marched in. He was wearing a bright green tracksuit, lilac high-tops and a baseball cap with BORN BEAUTIFUL written in diamante around the rim.

‘Oh, thank God!’ he exclaimed. ‘If you weren’t here I think I might have actually cried . . . and that would have totally ruined my look. Red eyes so do not go with green.’ He came and stood behind Tilly and looked at her reflection in the mirror. ‘Babes, your hair is fetch!’

‘Thank you! It’s so good to see you, Dre!’ Tilly turned and hugged Andre tight. As always he smelled amazing – a mixture of coconut oil and cocoa butter.

‘How good?’ Andre pulled back and stared at her.

Tilly frowned. ‘What?’

‘How good is it? To see me? On a scale of one to ten?’

‘About fifty million.’

Andre breathed a sigh of relief.

‘Why?’

He shrugged and looked away. ‘Oh I don’t know. I thought maybe after some time away from here you might have gone off me.’

‘What? Why?’ Tilly stared at him in shock. It was totally out of character for super-confident Andre to show any sign of self-doubt.

Andre sat down on the edge of her bed. ‘Tillz, can I ask you something?’

‘Of course.’

‘Do you like being my friend?’

‘Are you being serious?’ Tilly sat down next to him.

‘Why did you say that?’ Andre stared at her. ‘Why didn’t you just answer the question? Were you trying to avoid answering the question?’

‘Dre, chill! Of course I like being your friend! I love being your friend. You have no idea how much I missed you over the break.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes! Now why are you being so weird?’

Andre took his cap off and sighed. ‘Let’s just say I didn’t exactly have the happiest of holidays.’

Tilly gave a wry laugh. ‘Join the club!’

‘Really?’ Andre looked at her hopefully. ‘Did you have a lousy time too?’

‘You could say that.’

‘Oh good!’

‘Andre!’

‘Sorry. I didn’t mean – I’m not glad that you had a lousy time. I’m just glad that I wasn’t the only one.’

‘But how could you have had a bad time? You were in New York!’

‘Yes, and so was my so-called dad.’

‘Oh.’ Tilly wasn’t sure what to say to this. Andre never talked about his dad, apart from saying things like his dad was dead to him and that he’d rather have a cardboard cut-out of Dr Dre for a father.

‘Why did you have a bad time?’ Andre asked.

‘My mum was stressing over my end-of-term report.’

‘What? But you aced your dance classes.’

‘I know. But she doesn’t care about that. She only cares about how I do in my academic subjects. Total nightmare.’

Andre sighed. ‘Parents!’ He put his cap on back to front and held his hand out to Tilly. ‘Come on. I know something that’ll cheer you up.’

Tilly followed Andre out of the ultra-modern dormitory block and past the old WEDA building. It looked so majestic, lit up in the dark.

‘Where are we going?’ she asked, and then it dawned on her. ‘Oh my God, is it ready? Are you taking me to the stable?’

‘That’ll be the official street dance Stable Studio,’ Andre said with a grin. ‘And yep, my mum said they completed the refurbishment over the holiday.’

As Tilly followed Andre through the cluster of trees at the back of the building she felt excitement bubbling inside her. Last term, the old abandoned stable at the bottom of WEDA’s grounds had become the secret HQ for their street dance crew. But then Andre’s mum, Miss Murphy, the world-famous ballerina and now Head of Dance and Wellness at WEDA had caught them rehearsing. They could have got into massive trouble, as street dance wasn’t on the curriculum back then and they were banned from rehearsing privately when they had a show coming up. But thankfully Miss Murphy had been so impressed by their routine she’d allowed Il Bello to perform in the end-of-term showcase and street dance had been added to the curriculum at WEDA. The old stable had been renovated over the Christmas holiday to make sure it met studio health and safety regulations. Tilly couldn’t wait to see what it looked like. As they approached the stable, Andre took a key from his pocket.