Lisa Clark - Cupcakes and Glitter Shakes

I know. We’re super-jealous too. No uniform. No long division. More importantly, no Evil Eva Satine to heckle you in the playground.

Bella says that home-schooling is much harder than going to real school, but seriously, Sadie and I are still not entirely convinced.

“Are you absolutely sure you’re cool about this Sadie?” I ask hoping and wishing really hard that she meant what she had just said.

“Of course I am, Lola” Sadie confirms. “This is big stuff in Lola’s land of pink fabulousness, it would be rude and wrong of you NOT to go!”

I thank each and every one of my lucky pink-tinted stars that I’ve got such incredibly amazing friends.

“And to show you how totally cool I am about it, why don’t we have a cupcake bake here at mine on Sunday?”

“Sounds great, Sadie. Thank you so much, love you!” I say, feeling my insides fill up with the total loveliness that comes with having caring, sharing gal-pals who know what’s important to you.

“Love you too, see you Sunday—mwooah!”

I press the red button on my mobile, sit down next to Bella and rest my head on her shoulder.

Happy days.

This moment of girlkind bliss is rudely interrupted by a parental that appears to have lost the ability to knock, standing, hands-on-hip in my doorway.

The parental said yes.

No really, she did.

And I think, although I can’t be 100% sure, that she might even have been a little bit proud of me in her own hard-to-spot way.

Chica, I’m just as shocked as you are, but it seems Aunt Lullah is able to cast her special kind of fabulous magic all the way from NYC.

Lullah spoke with her BFF Skye, who is adorable and cute and basically a black-haired version of Lullah. They were just like two-peas-in-a-pod at University and in the holidays, Skye would come down to the coast to escape the big city. That’s why I think that when Skye rang to speak to the parental, the parental instantly agreed to let me go. She knows Skye, she’s met her and actually really likes her, which is really good news for me. And guess what? Not only is Skye super-lovely and nice and liked by the parental, she’s also editor at a new magazine based in the same building as Missy . I didn’t even know she was an ed-girl! So now I’ll be working with super cool ed-girl Tori by day, and I’ll be staying with super-cool ed-girl Skye at night, it’ll be inspir-o-girl city-hurrah!

IM to self

Q. Could life be any more fabulous?

A. No.

I’d been so ready to practise the new-found parental persuasion skills that I’d learned from an episode of this American-o show called Dr Grill , that I was the teeniest tiniest bit disappointed when I didn’t get to try them out for size. It had been a great episode too, with Dr Grill, who’s not a cook btw, but actually an agony uncle type dude, giving bratty American-o teens with ‘issues’, failsafe ways to get their parents to ‘understand’ them. In fact, if I didn’t know better, I’d have thought the Mothership had watched it too, because getting her to agree to let me go was much less painful than I could ever, ever have imagined. Turns out that Lullah + Skye + Yoga Dad’s bendy-wendy, zen-like presence = a near normal parental able to make rational decisions that may change the course of her daughter’s future for the better.

Now that’s an equation that makes me think Maths might not be all that bad after all.

So you’d think I’d be worry-free, right?

Wrong.

My only real concern should have been creating a day-by-day outfit plan and figuring out how I could be the best intern-girl that Missy has ever seen, but there was still the smallest niggle in the back of my mind that I was letting Sadie and the Pink Ladies down.

Y’see, school breaks are the only time we get to all spend quality BFF girl time together, because that’s when Angel comes home from her swanksville boarding school. Except this particular school break, I was going to be rockin’ it up journo-girl style in the Londinium. What if Angel comes home, gets bored of not seeing me and decides she’d rather stay at her super-swank boarding school with her new friends who have daddy-funded credit cards, yah?

When I’d messaged her about the internship, she replied instantly with;

Wow! Amazing. B sure 2 scope out the fashion rail and if you’re allowed freebies remember I’m a size 5 shoe, ‘k?

Which made me think she was more than okay with it, so I couldn’t help but wonder why today, at the thought of the impending yummy scrummy cupcake bake, when my head should be filled with thoughts of pink frosting and edible glitter shakes, I was actually still feeling slightly weirded out at the thought of hanging with my gal-pals.

“Lo-Lo, it’ll be fine,” Bella assures me as we whizz at a hundred miles per hour (well, it feels like it anyway!) along the promenade on her brand new Chopper bike. It shouldn’t be cool because it’s a total throwback from the 1970’s, but with its black and hot pink piping, coloured ribbons and feathers attached to the handlebars that flap and blow the faster we go, it was totally hipster cool, just like her.

“Sades will be fine, and as for Angel…” Bella shouts in my ear as we pass the funfair, “it’s just hard for you two. You’re so used to having spent all your time together as kids, that now, when you’re apart, you both just get your weird on!”

I was sitting on the metal bar in front of Bella, with my flip-flop feet outstretched in front of me and my candyfloss pink coloured hair whipping my face in the wind, it was all I could do to stay on board let alone answer. Instead, I let the salty sea air tangle up my pink tresses, the smell of hot dogs and fried onions fill my nostrils and the strain of some cheesy 80s pop star provide the soundtrack to my beach ride with Bella.

“Hey, hey, hey!” Sadie sing-songs as she answers the door to us. She’s wearing a baby blue apron with big floral print and she’s licking cake mix from her finger.

“Mmmm, delish!” she informs us. “Angel and I already have a batch in the oven, so they’ll be ready for frosting soon!” Sadie throws me a little wink, as she knows that hands down, frosting is by far my most favourite part of Cupcake Bake. Well, besides the actual taste testing part obviously, but surely that goes without saying, right?

“When she says ‘we’, what she actually means is ‘she’!” says Angel coming at me with open arms. “Do I look like I could whip up cupcakes? Seriously, do I?” she asks.

Her hugs were the most familiar and comforting hugs in the whole wide world. When Matthew Mavin tied my plaits to the chair in year three, it was an Angel hug that made it better. When the Mothership and the dad dude used to argue, which, FYI, was a LOT, it was an Angel hug that made it better. She was really rather good at them. She was also really rather good at throwing an outfit together, although whether this particular ensemble was Cupcake Bake appropriate, I’m not too sure. Not that Angel would altogether care, she’s not one for being appropriate, just well dressed.

Her fro is tied back with an adorable purple head scarf, she’s wearing a yellow velour track top and cut off denim short shorts, there’s no denying she looks fab, which is why I’m guessing she’s refusing to put on the apron that Sadie is holding out for her.

“Thanks Sadie-cakes,” Angel says, running her finger around the mixing bowl and popping the contents in her mouth, “but I’ll be just fine as I am!” She pulls herself up onto one of the kitchen stools and turns her attention to Bella.