3: Chocolate Box Girls: Summer's Dream Read online

  3: Chocolate Box Girls: Summer's Dream

  Cathy Cassidy

  Penguin Books Limited (2012)

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  Rating: ★★★★☆

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  The next scrumptious story in Cathy Cassidy's Chocolate Box Girls series. Summer has always dreamed of dancing, and when a place at ballet school comes up, she wants it so badly it hurts. Middle school ends and the holidays begin, but unlike her sisters, Summer has no time for lazy days and sunny beach parties. The audition becomes her obsession, and things start spiralling out of control . . . The more Summer tries to find perfection, the more lost she becomes. Will she realise - with the help of the boy who wants more than friendship - that dreams come in all shapes and sizes? Third must-have title in this gorgeous series from one of the UK's best-loved girls' authors, Cathy Cassidy. Each sister has a different story to tell, which one will be your favourite? Cathy Cassidy was recently voted Queen of Teen - beating Jacqueline Wilson and Louise Rennison to the throne. Praise for Cathy's books: 'Touching, tender and unforgettable.' Guardian Cathy Cassidy wrote her first picture book for her little brother when she was eight or nine and has been writing fabulous stories ever since. The Chocolate Box Girls is a sumptuous series starring sassy sisters, super-cool boys and one of Cathy's biggest loves - chocolate. Cathy lives in Scotland with her family.

  CATHY CASSIDY

  PUFFIN

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Hiya …

  I am a great believer in dreams. I’ve had some big dreams myself, so I understand how hard you have to work to turn a dream into reality. What if the hard work is just too much? If the dream turns into an obsession, a nightmare?

  Summer Tanberry is popular, pretty, clever and talented. When she is offered the chance of a lifetime, the chance to make her dream come true, she grabs it with both hands, but as the weeks pass and the pressure mounts she finds the dream slipping through her fingers.

  How can the ‘girl most likely to succeed’ find herself so lost, so lonely, so scared? And can ‘the most annoying boy in the world’ find a way to get through to her?

  Summer’s Dream is a book for anyone who dreams big or loves dance. It is also a book for anyone who has ever pushed themselves to the limit, dreamed of being the best; and for anyone who has ever looked in the mirror and disliked what they saw there. Summer Tanberry has everything going for her, yet beneath the surface her life is a million miles away from perfect.

  Summer’s Dream is the third book in the Chocolate Box Girls series. Chill out and lose yourself in the story … enjoy!

  Books by Cathy Cassidy

  DIZZY

  DRIFTWOOD

  INDIGO BLUE

  SCARLETT

  SUNDAE GIRL

  LUCKY STAR

  GINGERSNAPS

  ANGEL CAKE

  The Chocolate Box Girls

  CHERRY CRUSH

  MARSHMALLOW SKYE

  SUMMER’S DREAM

  DREAMS & DOODLES DAYBOOK

  LETTERS TO CATHY

  For Younger Readers

  SHINE ON, DAIZY STAR

  DAIZY STAR AND THE PINK GUITAR

  STRIKE A POSE, DAIZY STAR

  Thanks …

  To Liam, Cal and Caitlin for being … well, the best. To Mum, Joan, Andy, Lori and all my brilliant family. Thanks to Helen, Sheena, Fiona, Mary-Jane, Maggi, Lal, Jessie and all of my fab friends for the support, the chocolate, the hugs.

  Thanks to my wonderful PA Catriona, to Martyn for the maths and Darley and his team for being both lovely and all-round brilliant. Big hugs to Amanda, my fab and ever-patient editor, and to Sara and Julie for the gorgeous artwork. Thanks also to Adele, Emily, Jayde, Sarah, Julia, Hannah, Samantha, Jane and all the lovely Puffins.

  Special thanks to Rachel H, Eva M and many anonymous readers who have helped me to understand Summer’s illness a little better. To all my readers, everywhere, thank YOU … your enthusiasm and support mean the world to me.

  1

  Have you ever wanted something so badly that it hurts? I guess we all have, but I am not lusting after a new dress or a kitten or a baby-pink laptop – I wish. No, my dream is bigger than that, and tantalizingly out of reach.

  It’s not even an unusual dream – loads of little girls probably share the exact same one. Anybody who ever went to dance class or dressed up in fairy wings and skipped about the living room probably hopes that one day they’ll be up on stage with the audience throwing red roses at their feet. For me, the dream stuck; it hasn’t been replaced by a passion for ponies, for pop stars, for boys. Even though I have a boyfriend these days, the dream hasn’t wavered one bit.

  I want to be a dancer, a ballerina, to dance the part of Giselle or Coppélia or Juliet, to dress up as the swan princess in a white tutu made of feathers, to make the audience gasp and cheer. I want to dance, and you know what? It didn’t seem like such a crazy idea, back when I was nine or ten.

  I push open the door of the Exmoor Dance Studios and go inside, my ballet bag swinging. It’s early, an hour before my class is due to start, but the small upstairs studio the seniors use is empty at this time and Miss Elise has always told me I am welcome to use it whenever I like.

  I do like, quite a lot, these days.

  The foyer is busy with little girls in pink leotards, laughing, talking, buying juice and biscuits as a treat between school and dance class, or queuing with their mums to book up for the summer holiday sessions. I used to be just like them, once.

  I was good. I got distinctions in every exam I took, danced centre stage at every dance school show, got used to Miss Elise telling the class, ‘No, no, girls, pay attention – look at Summer! Why can’t you all dance like that?’

  My twin sister, Skye, used to roll her eyes and stick her tongue out at me, and the minute Miss Elise’s back was turned the whole class would fall about giggling.

  Don’t get me wrong, though – dance was one thing I always took seriously, even if Skye didn’t. I loved it. I signed up for every class the dance school offered: tap, modern, jazz, street … but ballet was my first love, always. At home I devoured ballet books about girls who overcame the odds to make their dreams come true. My poster girl was Angelina Ballerina, and I watched my DVD of Billy Elliot so many times I wore it out. When I wasn’t reading about dance or watching DVDs or dreaming about it, I was practising because even then I knew that being good was not enough; I had to be the best.

  Dad called me his little ballerina, and I loved that. When you have lots of sisters – clever, talented sisters – you have to try a little harder than most to be noticed. I guess I’m a bit of a perfectionist.

  Miss Elise told Mum she thought I was good enough to audition for the Royal Ballet School, that she would set up the auditions for when I was el
even. I was so excited I thought I might explode. I could see a whole future stretching before me, a future of pointe shoes and leotards and aching muscles, a future that could end with me in a feathered tutu on the stage at the Royal Opera House.

  It was so close I could almost reach out and touch it.

  And then everything fell apart. Dad left us and moved up to London and it was like our whole family crumbled. For months Mum looked hopeless and crushed, and there were rows about visits with Dad, rows about maintenance payments, rows about everything. My big sister Honey raged and blamed Mum for what had happened.

  ‘I bet Dad thinks she doesn’t love him any more,’ Honey told us. ‘They’ve been arguing loads. Dad can’t help it if he has to be away a lot, he’s a businessman! Mum nags too much – she’s driven him away!’

  I wasn’t sure about that, though. It seemed to me that Dad had been spending less time with us and more time in London for a while now. Mum didn’t so much nag as mention quietly that it’d be great if he could be around for Coco’s birthday or Easter Sunday or even Father’s Day, and that would trigger a big scrap, with Dad shouting and slamming doors and Mum in tears.

  When I asked Dad why he was leaving, he said that he still loved us, very much, but things hadn’t been perfect for a while now. Back then it didn’t seem like a good enough reason to me. When things aren’t perfect, you need to work at them until they are, right? Dad obviously had different ideas.

  A few days after the split, Skye, my twin, announced that she didn’t want to go to ballet class any more, that she’d only really gone along with it because I wanted to go. That kind of pulled the rug out from under my feet. I always thought that Skye and I knew everything there was to know about each other … and it turned out I was wrong. Skye had a whole bunch of ideas that I didn’t know about.

  ‘Summer, I don’t want to tag along in your shadow any more,’ she said, and if she’d slapped my face, I couldn’t have been more hurt. It felt like she was cutting loose, leaving me stranded, at exactly the moment I needed her most.

  If you’d taken my life and shaken it up and thrown the smashed-up pieces down in a temper, you couldn’t have made more of a mess. So … yeah, that whole ballet school idea. It was never going to take off after Dad left, I could see that.

  I passed the regional auditions OK, but by the time the date rolled around for the London one my head was a muddle of worries and fears. Could I really leave Mum, so soon after the break-up? Could I leave my sisters? I was torn.

  Dad had agreed to take me to the audition, being based in London himself, but he was late collecting me and by the time we finally arrived I was sick with nerves. I danced badly, and when the panel asked me why I thought I should be given a place at the Royal Ballet School, I couldn’t think of a single reason.

  ‘Never mind,’ Dad said, exasperated, driving me home. ‘It’s no big deal. Ballet is just a hobby really, isn’t it?’

  That just about killed me. Ballet was a big deal to me – it was everything. I stopped being Dad’s ‘little ballerina’ that day. I’d lost his respect – I was just one daughter of several after that, the one whose hobby was dance.

  Needless to say, I wasn’t offered a place.

  ‘Don’t blame yourself,’ Mum told me. ‘You’ve been under a lot of pressure, and I should never have trusted your dad to get you there on time. There’ll be other chances.’

  I smiled, but we both knew that I’d messed up a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

  You’d never have made it anyway, a sad, sour voice whispered inside my head. You were kidding yourself.

  I brushed the voice aside, although I couldn’t quite forget it. Sure enough, that voice has been around ever since, chipping into my thoughts with a bitter put-down whenever I least expect it.

  That was over two years ago. Now, I am thirteen and I still love to dance. I still get distinctions in my exams and I still get good roles in the shows. Things at home are better. Dad lives in Australia now, but it’s not like we saw much of him anyway, even before the move. Mum has a new boyfriend, Paddy, who is kind and funny and easy to like. They are getting married in just a few days’ time. Paddy has a daughter, Cherry, so I have a new stepsister too, and I like her lots.

  My big sister Honey can still be a nightmare, especially since Paddy and Cherry moved in, but I have Skye and Coco, a boyfriend, and good friends I can rely on. I do well at school. I should be happy, I know … but I’m not. Even though I messed up my chance of dancing professionally, I still have that dream.

  In the deserted changing room beside the senior studio, I peel off my school uniform and fold it neatly, wriggling into tights and leotard. It’s like peeling away the layers of the real world. In my dance clothes I feel light, clean, free.

  I loosen my hair from its long plaits, brush away the day’s hassles and braid it again tightly, pinning it up around my head. I have done this so many times I don’t even need a mirror any more. I sit down on the wooden bench and pull the pointe shoes out of my bag. I slip my feet into the pink satin shoes and tie the ribbons firmly, tucking the ends out of sight the way Miss Elise has taught me. I stand and walk across the changing room, into the empty studio, the mirrors glinting. Beside the door, I dip the toes of my shoes into the chalky dust of the rosin box, so that I do not slip or slide on the hardwood floor. I reach down and flick on the CD player and the music unfurls around me, seeping under my skin.

  When I dance, my troubles fall away. It doesn’t matter that Dad left and that my family are still putting the pieces back together again. It doesn’t even matter that I never got to go to the Royal Ballet School.

  I take a deep breath and run forward, rising up en pointe, curving my arms upwards, swooping, twirling, losing myself in the music. When I dance, the world disappears, and everything is finally perfect.

  2

  ‘Summer!’ my twin yells through from the bedroom. ‘Can you help me with my hair?’

  I glance into the bathroom mirror and smooth down my white lace dress, frowning. The dress is a copy of a vintage petticoat, and all five of us sisters are wearing the same style, each with a satin sash in different ice-cream colours. Skye loves vintage, but this dress is not one I’d ever have chosen. It looks wrong on me somehow, too lumpy, too gathered, making me look bigger than I really am. I’m starting to hate all my clothes lately … or is it my shape I don’t like?

  ‘Summer?’ Skye calls again.

  ‘OK, I’m coming!’

  Skye has woven a circlet of soft-pink mallow flowers and trailing baby-blue ribbon for her hair and she needs my help to fix it in place. My hair is simpler, left loose and wavy with just a pink silk flower pinned on one side. The flower was a gift from my boyfriend Aaron last Christmas. That was before he was actually my boyfriend, of course. I found the prettily wrapped present labelled ‘from a secret admirer’ in my locker at school – it’s probably the most romantic thing Aaron’s ever done. He is not a slushy kind of boy and he has never mentioned the flower at all, but still, I love it.

  ‘We look OK, don’t we?’ Skye says. ‘For bridesmaids!’

  ‘Not a nylon ruffle in sight,’ I agree. ‘But … you don’t think the dress makes me look … well, too curvy, do you?’

  ‘Too curvy?’ Skye echoes. ‘No way, Summer! You’re really slim, you know you are! Besides, we’re meant to have curves. That’s part of growing up.’

  ‘I’m not sure I like it,’ I sigh. ‘When I look in the mirror these days, it doesn’t even look like me.’

  ‘Well, it is,’ Skye says. ‘And it’s me too – we’re identical twins, remember? I know what you mean, though. It takes a bit of getting used to!’

  She sticks her tongue out at her reflection, and the two of us burst out laughing together.

  ‘I can’t wait to see Mum’s dress!’ I say. ‘She’s been so strict about keeping it secret. She actually made Paddy sleep in the gypsy caravan last night!’

  ‘It’s bad luck for a bridegroom to see the wedd
ing dress before the big moment,’ Skye says. ‘And Mum and Paddy don’t need any more of that!’

  Skye is right. Paddy’s first wife died when his daughter Cherry was just a toddler, and Mum has had it rough too, what with Dad leaving. We’re all hoping this wedding will be the start of happier times.

  The door swings open and Coco comes in, dragging Humbug, her pet lamb, on a leash. ‘Should I make a flower garland for Humbug’s collar?’ she asks. ‘So that she looks pretty for the wedding? Or would she just eat it, d’you think?’

  ‘Eat it,’ Skye and I say together.

  ‘Definitely,’ I add, peering out of the window. ‘That lamb is a walking, bleating waste-disposal unit. Oh … look! JJ’s here with the horse … It’s the dappled grey one!’

  JJ’s dad owns the farm next door, and Mum and Paddy are borrowing one of their horses to pull the gypsy caravan.

  ‘He’s early!’ Coco squeaks. ‘I’m going down!’ She clatters down the stairs, Humbug at her heels.

  I press my face against the glass, looking down at the garden. Some blokes I’ve never seen before are draping fairy lights and bunting through the trees. A car pulls up and Paddy wanders across the grass towards it, his hair sticking up in unruly clumps, carrying a pair of new Converse trainers and his wedding suit over one arm.

  ‘The best man’s come to collect Paddy,’ I say. ‘That’s it then … not long now!’

  Since early this morning Tanglewood has been in total chaos. The house is stuffed with Mum’s friends and relatives instead of our usual B&B guests, and when Skye and I went downstairs earlier, we found a crowd of women eating bacon and eggs at the kitchen table in their pyjamas, friends of Mum’s from her art college days. There were two great-aunts from Yorkshire trying on scary wedding hats in the living room, and a tribe of children smeared with chocolate spread, the offspring of distant cousins. In the middle of it all, Grandma Kate was calmly making cheese scones; her husband Jules (who’s not really my grandad, but sort of is now) was buttering bread.