Vocaloid Actors (Book #1 of Vocaloid Actors Trilogy)

Chapter 27

I look around the shop and see the spools of thread were stocked near the boxes of sewing needles. I walk over and see a light pink spool of thread straight away. I grab it and a box of sewing needles and walk over to the counter.

"How much of the fabric would you like?" the cashier asks, holding a pair of scissors to cut the amount of fabric I needed.

"Uh, can you hold these until I get back?" I say, starting to stress. I need to get out of here before I have a meltdown.

"Yes," she says and I practically dash out of the shop. I breath in the warm air gratefully. The sun is warm on my skin and I start to calm down. I start to run back to the Vocaloid Communion Room, which, thankfully, isn't too far away.

I push through the door causing Lucy and Louis to look up in surprise. "Hey, do you have the final design and the measurements?" I ask, "I don't know how much fabric I need!"

"Oh, yeah," Lucy, giving me a weak smile. She hands me a piece of paper. "Here."

I look down and see the dress design redrawn, inked and coloured. I got the exact right colours. Maryann's measurements are written beside it.

I go back to the tailor's, and I give the cashier the drawing. "That's the dress we're making and the measurements are right there," I say, pointing.

"Alright," she says, and I see a flash of scissors as she cuts a length of fabric. She hangs it over my arm, before attending to the cotton. She also hangs it over my arm. She then scans the needles and thread. "That'll be 75 VocaBucks!"

I look inside my purse and see the VocaBucks have numbers in the corners just like the notes at home. I pull out three twenties, one ten and one five and hand it over to the cashier. She gives me a bag which I hold with my opposite hand.

I step outside the shop to see Rachel and Kevin stepping out of their respective stores, holding bags. Kevin is also holding a fairly large jar under his arm.

"Oh, you're also finished," Rachel says, looking a little surprised. "I'll guess we'll walk back together then."

We walk side by side back to the Vocaloid Communion Room. I take a quick look into my back and realised they gave me back the design.

We all flop down on the floor when we give Lucy our bags. She pulls out the glue, the frame, the shoes, the thread and the needles.

"Okay, who's doing what? I'm doing the dress, but we need to allocate the other tasks," she says.

"Can me and Rachel do the tiara?" Louis asks, holding up a final design of a tiara, which looks amazing. The jewels look intricately placed.

"And can I do the shoes?" Kevin asks, taking the final design of the shoes. Small dark blue jewels ring the edges of the shoes.

"What about Mia?" Lucy asks, looking to me.

"I can do basic sewing, maybe I can help you with the dress," I say, looking hopefully towards Lucy.

"Only with my sewing machine," she says sternly, pulling one out from her cupboard. "Only sewing the big parts together, I will be handling the cotton and the jewels."

I nod in understanding, she wouldn't want her dress ruined. I have adequate understanding of how to operate a sewing machine.

"Mia, can you measure these on the silk?" she asks, giving me a couple of measurements. One says bodice, the other says skirt. I measure each one and draw a faint line in pencil on where to cut the fabric. She's measuring and cutting the cotton as it is very delicate. I grab some scissors and carefully cut along my pencil lines, trying not to tear the fabric as I go.

I hand the pieces of fabric to Lucy, with the respective measurements on top. She finishes the cutting of the cotton. She looks over the skirt piece. She takes the scissors and trims the piece before passing it back to me.

"Use my sewing machine to sew the skirt together, and make sure the stitches aren't visible," she instructs. I fold the piece in half and place the exposed ends under the sewing machine. I set the stitches to the most basic and kept the speed slow, I don't want to mess anything up. I turn it on, and carefully run the fabric under it, making sure to keep it straight, even if it goes at a diagonal.

It hits the end and I stop the sewing machine. I pull the fabric gently out from the sewing machine and turn it inside out to hide the stitches, the fabric was the same on both sides anyway.

I look up and see Kevin, Rachel and Louis gently gluing jewels to their accessories. Kevin done half a shoe and Rachel and Louis have done the top part of the tiara but it was a complicated design.

I hand the skirt to Lucy who is painstakingly hand-sewing jewels to the bodice.

"I won't need you until I have finished the bodice," she says, so I go to Kevin.

"Can I help with the other shoe?" I ask. He jumps slightly, before turning red and turning to me.

"Yeah," he says, sounding a bit embarrassed. I laugh a little before I sit down. I take the jar and pick out the small dark-blue jewels, before giving them back to Rachel and Louis.

I take the glue and painstakingly glue the jewels to the edge of the shoe, just like Kevin.  I get engrossed in the task and then hear an alarm. I jump up smudging the glue on the shoe.

"Don't worry, I'll sort that," Kevin says.

"What is that?" I ask, as it continues to blare out.

"It means someone is trying to wake one of us up," says Louis, his eyes flickering everywhere. His eyes focus on the top left corner of the room. I look and see an alarm flashing red. "Mia, it's you, your Mum must be trying to wake you up."

"How do you know?" I ask, though I have a suspicion I know what it is.

"The alarm is flashing red, your character colour," he says, and so I press the 'go home' and wake to my Mum shouting me. At least it is the summer holidays.

I walk through to the kitchen, and she greets me.

"Tired, Mia?" she asks.

"A little," I reply, a little shocked that I spent the whole night at the Vocaloid World.