Totally Stylin': Three stories in one

By Rebecca Lim

Have you got a passion for fashion? Six best friends, three stories in one!

Prunella prefers surfing to fashion. Yet somehow her ginormous height and broken nose attract a talent scout at a local modelling competition - and her besties insi

• Language: English
• Publisher: The High Street Publishing Company
• Release date: May 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9780648468691

Rebecca Lim

Rebecca Lim is an award-winning Australian writer, illustrator and editor and the author of over twenty books, including 'Tiger Daughter' (a Victorian Premier's Literary Award-winner), 'The Astrologer's Daughter' (A Kirkus Best Book and CBCA Notable Book) and the bestselling 'Mercy'. Her work has been shortlisted for the Prime Minister's Literary Awards, NSW Premier's Literary Awards, Queensland Literary Awards, CBCA Book of the Year Awards and Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards, shortlisted multiple times for the Aurealis Awards and Davitt Awards, and longlisted for the Gold Inky Award and the David Gemmell Legend Award. Her novels have been translated into German, French, Turkish, Portuguese, Polish and Russian. She is a co-founder of the Voices from the Intersection initiative and co-editor of 'Meet Me at the Intersection', a groundbreaking anthology of YA #OwnVoice memoir, poetry and fiction.

Book preview

Rebecca Lim

Totally Stylin’

First published by The High Street Publishing Company 2021

Copyright © 2021 by Rebecca Lim

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Rebecca Lim asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

This bindup edition first published in 2021

Copyright © Text, Cover Girl; Sista Fashionista; Star Style, Rebecca Lim 2021

A Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available from the National Library of Australia

www.trove.nla.gov.au

Cover photo by dimitrisvetsikas1969

Cover design by [e-mail]

Series concept by Rebecca Lim

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

First edition

ISBN: 9780648468691

This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy

Find out more at reedsy.com

Publisher Logo

To my girls, with love and squashy hugs xx

Contents

About the Author

Also by Rebecca Lim

Title Page

I. COVER GIRL

The new girl

Not pretty enough

Prunella’s besties

Teen Model Quest

Cringe-o-rama!

Besties band together

The set-up

The Face of Tomorrow

The catwalk finals

Choices

II. SISTA FASHIONISTA

Fashionably late, again

Girl Fashion Diva

Too cool for school?

The rumour

The backlash

The hunt is on

Besties to the rescue

Making things right

Keeping promises

III. STAR STYLE

Style icon

Makeover queen

Zipper

Red carpet moment

The competition

The real world

Under pressure

Racing to the finish line

Awards night blues

The honest truth

Wabi sabi

The CHILDREN OF THE DRAGON series by Rebecca Lim

About the Author

Rebecca Lim is an Australian writer, illustrator, editor and lawyer. She is the author of over twenty books, including The Astrologer’s Daughter (a Kirkus Best Book of 2015 and CBCA Notable Book for Older Readers) and the bestselling Mercy and Tiger Daughter. Her work has been shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards and Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards, shortlisted multiple times for the Aurealis Awards and Davitt Awards and longlisted for the Gold Inky Award and the David Gemmell Legend Award. Her novels have been translated into German, French, Turkish, Portuguese, Polish and Russian. Rebecca is a co-founder of the Voices from the Intersection initiative to support emerging young adult and children’s authors and illustrators who are First Nations, People of Colour, LGBTIQA+ or living with disability, and is a co-editor of Meet Me at the Intersection, a groundbreaking anthology of YA #OwnVoice memoir, poetry and fiction.

Also by Rebecca Lim

Mercy

Exile

Muse

Fury

Wraith

Machina (forthcoming)

The Astrologer’s Daughter

Afterlight

FOR YOUNGER READERS

Tiger Daughter

The Race for the Red Dragon

The Relic of the Blue Dragon

The Sweet Life

Whiffy Newton in the Case of the Dastardly Deeds

Whiffy Newton in the Riddle of the Two-Tone Trousers

Whiffy Newton in the Affair of the Fiendish Phantoms

Whiffy Newton and the Mystery of the Marble Beach Mugger

Five-Minute Tales Messiest Monster Ever

Five-Minute Tales Bravest Princess Ever

Title Page

TOTALLY STYLIN’

Rebecca Lim

THE HIGH STREET PUBLISHING COMPANY

I

COVER GIRL

The new girl

It was the first minute of Prunella’s first day of school at Breakwater High, and she was already miserable.

As it turned out, she was the tallest girl in Year Seven and, possibly, the known universe.

‘You sure you’re in the right classroom?’ a beautiful blonde girl asked as Prunella entered the classroom with her beat-up navy duffle bag and skateboard.

‘W-what do you mean?’ Prunella stammered in confusion.

‘The Year Twelves are upstairs,’ replied the girl with a smirk. Half the class laughed.

Prunella took a seat at the back, her face burning. She couldn’t help it that she was almost six feet tall and hadn’t even turned fourteen yet! Her mum, dad and three brothers were even taller. At home, her family just laughed and called her ‘Sprout’, because to them, she was still the smallest.

Prunella wondered what names she’d be called here. She knew she was about to find out.

‘Prunella Edwards,’ boomed the form teacher, Mrs Oxley, reading off the roll.

‘Prune-ella,’ snickered the blonde girl to her circle of admiring BFFs, who’d probably all come from the same primary school. ‘AKA The Prune.’

Prunella sighed. She hated being the only girl in the room who didn’t know anyone else. Suddenly, she missed her own besties very much. Why did they have to go off to different high schools this year? She didn’t know how she was going to get through the day, let alone the whole of Year Seven.

‘Last, but certainly not least, Chanel Toogood,’ Mrs Oxley called out finally.

The blonde girl raised her hand languidly in reply.

It would be! thought Prunella. She studied Chanel’s perfect profile and her super-stylish outfit. Her and her BFFs looked identical. Half the room was made up of grotty boys and the other half were Olsen Twin look-alikes wearing glam shine lip gloss and clothes to die for.

‘Go choose your lockers,’ Mrs Oxley continued. ‘Then come and sit back down.’

Everyone piled outside. Like a herd of stampeding wildebeests, the boys picked lockers as far away from the girls as possible.

Chanel’s hand shot out just as Prunella was about to open a locker door.

‘I’ve decided that one’s mine, Prune-ella,’ she said. ‘And the next eight are for my friends. So make sure you leave a gap before you go putting your skateboard anywhere.’

Chanel made the word ‘skateboard’ sound like ‘ear wax’.

‘Chanel!’ exclaimed a girl with exotic looks and the most perfect vintage-meets-high-fashion clothes, a camera slung around her neck. ‘There’s plenty of room.’ She gave Prunella a small smile. But Prunella turned away stiffly and took a locker near a boy wearing a surfwear hoodie like her own.

‘Sweet ‘board,’ said the boy in a friendly voice. He only came up to her shoulder.

Prunella grinned down on him. ‘It’s just my brother’s hand-me-down Zoo York deck with Spitfire wheels, nothing custom,’ she answered, tucking her crazily curly, shoulder-length brown hair behind her ears before stuffing her things into the locker.

‘Wicked!’ the boy responded. ‘I’m into Alien Workshop completes. They flip better.’

Prunella was about to reply when she heard Chanel joke to her audience, ‘Which means you two should get along famously, Alexander Ledbury, because she not only dresses like a thirteen-year-old boy, but she talks like one too!’

The boy called Alexander shrugged his shoulders apologetically and left Prunella fuming by her locker.

‘I am so going to hate it here,’ she muttered out loud as she mooched back into class.

Not pretty enough

Prunella was daydreaming her way through Maths class before the lunch break when a ripple of excited whispering went through the classroom. ‘Sista Magazine is holding open heats for The Face of Tomorrow Teen Model Quest this week at the shopping centre, pass it on!’

Prunella rolled her eyes. From the sound of things, just about everyone was planning to strut their stuff or go cheer on their friends. Everyone except Prunella, who was more interested in catching a break with her brothers after school.

Other than her besties, her favourite things in life were surfing, skateboarding and her iPod. She’d even broken her nose once after being dumped on a submerged reef. She’d