Coleen McLoughlin - Dress to Impress

HarperCollins Children’s Books

Cover Page

Title Page Coleen Style Queen Dress To Impress HarperCollins Children’s Books

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Best Mates Mirror

Coming Soon!

Acknowledgements

The Coleen Style Queen series

Copyright

About the Publisher

So, I’m on the side of this freezing cold pitch, stamping my feet and totally wishing I had a special ankle heater. No disrespect to my little sister, but watching footie in the winter is a nightmare. Especially when there are no goals and the match is practically over.

Em plays on the wing in our local under-eights team. She’s dead keen and brilliant with it, and the whole family goes to watch her most weekends. I’m proud and all, but why do footie matches always have to be so cold ?

“Pass the ball, Em!” yelled my dad, racing past me with his whistle bouncing on his tracksuit like a twinkly silver necklace.

“I’m not sure your dad should be telling Em what to do, Coleen,” Mum murmured to me as Dad pelted back the other way, still roaring instructions at my sister. “As the ref, isn’t he supposed to be neutral?”

“Asking Dad to be neutral in a game of football would be like asking me to wear school uniform at the weekend,” I announced between chattering teeth. I swear my toes were about to fall off.

Mum glanced at me from underneath her dark blue beanie hat. She had her famous annoyed-but-resigned look on her face. “Getting you to wear a coat would be a start,” she said.

My outfit was a little summery for a cold day, I have to admit. But I’d spent ages customising my T-shirt that morning with a bunch of safety pins all threaded with these brilliant neon-coloured beads. They made excellent patterns all down the front and jangled when I walked. There was no way I was going to hide my handiwork underneath a coat.

“Boots might have been an idea too, Coleen,” Mum said wearily. “Who on earth wears sandals in October?”

“I wanted to try out my new nail polish,” I said, admiring my dark blue toenails. The cold was totally worth it every time I looked down.

“Your toes are practically as blue as the polish,” said my best mate Mel.

Mel was more sensibly dressed than me, with a scarf wrapped tightly round her neck and a woolly hat with a peak at the front sitting neatly on her head. Beats me how she got it on over her crazy curls. The hat is new: we bought it together yesterday, and it totally rocks. The colours are perfect for her.

Standing beside Mel was my other mate Lucy. She’s gorgeous, with long blonde hair and blue eyes. Her plain blouses and ironed jeans drive me crazy, and I spend most weekends at the shops persuading her to try new stuff. She’s as different from Mel as France and England – which makes me the Channel Tunnel, I guess, cos I’m the link that joins them together!

“Which one’s Em again?” Lucy asked, peering across the windy pitch to where a blur of muddy knees and blue team strip identified the Hartley Juniors.

“Th…th…that one,” I shivered, pointing to the far side of the pitch.

A small, brown-haired streak of mud and energy was flying down the wing, dribbling the ball like a pro. As we watched, a little blond lad raced up beside her. Em neatly passed him the ball, totally foxing the boy on the other team who’d been chasing her.

“Go, Em!” Mum yelled, clapping enthusiastically.

“Yay!” cheered Mel and Lucy.

Believe me, I wanted to clap. But my hands were tucked too tightly into my armpits. So I clapped like mad inside my head instead.

The blond lad who now had the ball for Hartley Juniors raced on down the pitch. He dodged a couple of opponents, and then lofted the ball right up and smack into the net, just as the final whistle went. Goal! Our side of the touchline erupted.

“Hart lee ! Hart lee ! One-nil!”

“Billy, Billy, Billy!”

“I guess that’s Billy,” Mum observed as Em and her team mates clustered around the blond lad and tried to lift him off the ground in celebration.

I squinted at the lad. I’d never seen him before. He was obviously a new member of the team. Then I forgot all about him as something blissfully warm settled down on my frozen toes.

“Rascal,” I gasped, looking down at our hairy black spaniel who had curled himself up on my feet. “You total hero!”

“Psst,” Lucy whispered in my ear. “Coleen, look over there! He’s gorgeous !”

I stared at where Lucy was pointing with one finger over her shoulder. A father and son were standing together on the touchline a little further along. Judging from how madly they were clapping and grinning and waving at the little blond goalscorer as he trotted towards them, I guessed they were his family. The dad was tall and strong-looking, with close-cropped blond hair. The lad standing with him looked about the same age as us.

I have to say that I find most lads boring – with the massive exception of Lucy’s older brother Ben. Ben Hanratty is totally the boy I’m going to marry one day, when he opens his eyes and sees that there’s more to me than just his kid sister’s mate. But even I could see that the lad down the touchline was quite cute. He was blond, with a lovely straight nose and bright blue eyes whose colour you could see even in the sludgy October light.

“There’s no need to be so obvious, ” Lucy hissed.

I whipped around and had this wild urge to giggle, which is a sure sign that I’m losing it. “Do you think he noticed us looking?” I mumbled.

Mel peeped over Lucy’s head. “Yeah,” she said with a grin, “I think he did. He’s coming over.”

Lucy groaned and hid her face in her hands. Sure enough, he was heading towards us. I bit down hard on my tongue, which made my eyes water but at least killed the giggles – for now.

“He’s really looking at you,” I said in a low voice to Lucy.

“As if!” Lucy squealed, sounding totally delighted.

The boy stopped beside Lucy. Lucy went bright red and stared furiously at the ground. Unable to catch Lucy’s eye, he turned to me instead. “That your sister then?” he said to me, nodding at Em as she jumped around with Dad up by the goal. “She made a really great pass.”

“Thanks,” I stuttered.

There was a funny silence. Lucy waggled her eyebrows madly at me, which I took to mean, “Keep him talking.”

“Um…” I said. “That your brother then?”

I realised just too late that I sounded totally like a parrot. It was exactly the same question he’d just asked me, apart from the sister bit.

“Yeah,” he nodded. “Billy’s going to make us all famous one day.” He grinned as he said it, then he glanced hopefully at Mel and Lucy. “All right?” he asked.

Mel grinned back. Lucy just looked like she wanted to sink into the ground and die right there. Lucy’s funny like that – all shy around people she doesn’t know, especially boys who obviously like her!

I quickly introduced myself and my mates.

“I’m Frankie Wilson,” said the lad, “and the tall bloke’s my dad. But don’t try and talk to him,” he warned. “He’ll bore you to death with football statistics.”

“He should meet my dad,” I said. “There’d be a footie stat stand-off.”

For some reason, I decided that this was the most hilarious thing I’d ever said. Snorting giggles roared out of me, huge and loud and uncontrollable. Frankie Wilson looked a bit surprised.