Chocolate Box Girls Page 16

  I smile, because I know that now. Perhaps I knew it all along?

  ‘I’ll tell Honey as soon as we get out of here,’ Shay is saying. ‘I’ll explain so she doesn’t blame you, so she understands …’

  My smile fades. I know this is something Honey will never understand, or forgive. There is no future for me and Shay, no future here for me at all … and no amount of make-believe can change that.

  29

  When I wake, the dawn light is seeping through the cave entrance, yellow tinged with pink. Shay’s arms are round me and his head is heavy on my shoulder, the two of us wrapped in the scratchy grey cloak borrowed from the smuggler mannequin, who looms over us now, wild-eyed and brandishing his fake pistol menacingly.

  I can hear the whir of a motorboat in the distance, and I nudge Shay awake. ‘People,’ I say. ‘Someone’s here. I think we are rescued …’

  Shay jumps up, pulling me to my feet, and we run out on to the sand. In the daylight, we look like ghosts or refugees or shipwreck survivors, which of course I suppose we are. Our clothes damp and tattered, our arms and legs cut and bruised and bleeding, our eyes dark with exhaustion.

  ‘Hey,’ Shay says with a weary smile. ‘Miss Robinson Crusoe.’

  ‘Hey,’ I grin. ‘Man Friday, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  In the distance I can see a little white motor launch bobbing over the silvery ocean, and Shay and I start to wave, yelling until our voices are hoarse.

  The little boat has seen us, though, and it nudges in towards us, running ashore in the shallows. Shay’s dad, grim-faced, jumps out with Paddy at his heels, the two of them splashing towards us, and the next thing I know Dad has me in his arms, lifting me up and whirling me round and round.

  ‘Don’t … ever … do that to me again!’ he says into my hair. ‘I swear, Cherry, I couldn’t stand it. I lost your mum … I can’t lose you. Not ever!’

  ‘You won’t,’ I tell him.

  Dad lifts me into the boat and I look back at Shay and my eyes open wide. His dad is hugging him, hard, the big, gruff, grumpy man and the skinny, rebellious boy. He claps him on the back and when they break apart I see Shay’s dad drag a hand across his eyes, take a deep breath in.

  Shay clambers aboard, chucks me a life jacket and puts one on himself. He looks grey-faced, weary. His fringe is a sad veil of damp rat’s tails, but the beanie hat is still in place, slightly askew.

  Dad moves astern, making mobile calls to the police and the coastguards and Charlotte, while Mr Fletcher guns the engine. The little motor launch noses out of the bay, chugging carefully between the long lines of black rocks we crawled over last night.

  I feel sick just looking at them.

  ‘You don’t need me to tell you how stupid you’ve been, right?’ Shay’s dad barks. ‘You can see that, can’t you? Do you know how many shipwrecks there have been in this cove, back in the smuggling days? How many people lost their lives trying to steer round the rocks in the dark?’

  Shay hangs his head.

  ‘It was my fault,’ I say in a small voice, and Shay takes hold of my hand and holds it tightly.

  ‘Well, you’re safe now, and that’s what matters,’ Mr Fletcher says, turning back to his wheel. ‘Thank God.’

  Shay looks at me from under his fringe. ‘Did I hear that right?’ he whispers. ‘Who is that guy, and what’s he done with my dad?’

  ‘He loves you,’ I say.

  For once, Shay doesn’t argue.

  ‘They found the canoe,’ he tells me. ‘Floating upside down, a little way out from Kitnor Quay. They must have thought …’

  I don’t even want to imagine what they must have thought.

  ‘We were worried sick,’ Dad says. ‘It was dark by the time we realized you were missing, and we looked everywhere. Then someone remembered the canoe, and we ran down to the beach and it was gone …’

  ‘It was my fault,’ I tell him. ‘Not Shay’s. I was upset … I thought everything was ruined …’

  ‘Nothing is ruined,’ Dad says. ‘Not now we know you’re safe. Last night was pretty dramatic, though. The girls told me what happened down at the beach … the things Honey accused you of …’

  He looks at the two of us, his eyes questioning.

  ‘We didn’t plan it,’ Shay says. ‘We didn’t mean to hurt anybody.’

  I just wrap my arms around myself, shivering, shamefaced.

  Dad sighs. ‘Thing is, there was a reason why Honey jumped off the deep end – quite apart from whatever was or wasn’t going on with you two. She had a phone call from Greg …’

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ Shay says. ‘Her dad cancelled out on her again, and she took it pretty hard. I know. That’s why she called me, asked me to come over …’

  Dad still looks troubled.

  ‘We think,’ I say uncertainly, ‘that Honey might have been planning to stay in London with her dad. For a while, anyway. That’s why she was so gutted, right?’

  ‘Yes, she mentioned that … but there was a bit more to it,’ Dad says, frowning. ‘Greg has just been offered a new job – in Australia. It’s one heck of a bombshell to drop on anyone, especially over the phone, but … well, that’s his style, from what I’ve seen. He always takes the easy way out.’

  ‘Australia?’ Shay repeats. ‘No way … poor Honey.’

  I didn’t think it could be possible to feel any worse, any more guilty, but boy, was I wrong. I think back to yesterday at the beach, to Honey’s lost look, her tears, her anger. She mentioned a bombshell, a disaster … she even told her sisters that their dad would be calling them, to tell them about his new job. Now I know why.

  A dad who calls you on your mobile to explain that you cannot come and live with him because he’s about to move to the other side of the world … well, that has to hurt. The stuff about me and Shay must have been the icing on the cake.

  ‘The girls were in pieces, obviously,’ Dad goes on. ‘It was chaos. And in the middle of it all, we discovered you two were missing …’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I whisper. ‘I’ve wrecked everything, haven’t I?’

  Dad slides an arm round my shoulder and pulls me close.

  ‘We can sort this out,’ he tells me. ‘It’s one heck of a mess, sure, but … well, we’ll deal with it. That’s what families do.’

  ‘But Charlotte … and Skye and Summer and Coco …’ I protest. ‘They won’t want me now!’

  ‘Want you?’ Dad echoes. ‘Of course they want you. They’re worried sick about you!’

  We sit in silence until the little motor launch slows and turns, swooping into the bay beneath Tanglewood House.

  Charlotte and the girls are waiting on the beach, looking almost as tired and grey and weary as we are. They wave and yell and run down to the water’s edge as the little boat chugs in, all except for Honey, who stands alone, watching, further up the beach.

  Her cold blue eyes slide over me, over Shay. She sees his hand, curled round mine, and understands instantly. Just for a moment, her eyes flicker with hurt, betrayal, and then they are icy cool again.

  I get up to clamber out of the boat, and Shay stands too, to help me. At the last minute he pulls me close in a quick, warm hug, the boy I’ve been crushing on for weeks, the boy with the cool blond fringe and the blue guitar, the boy who smells of darkness and the ocean.

  ‘Be brave,’ he whispers into my ear. ‘It’ll all work out.’

  The hug says more than any amount of words ever could, of course. It makes everything clear, and I know there can be no going back to the way things were before.

  We break apart, and everyone is staring – Honey, obviously, and Dad and Mr Fletcher and Charlotte and Skye, Summer, Coco. Their faces register shock, surprise, dismay, amazement … except for Honey’s, which shows nothing. No pain, no anger, no emotion at all.

  She turns sharply and walks away.

  I sleep right thr
ough the day and into the evening, and when I wake a doctor is there to check me over, and he says I am fine, just a few cuts and bruises, no lasting damage. Sleep, he says, will be the best remedy. And after the doctor a couple of policemen, who sit at the kitchen table and lecture me gently on the foolishness of running away and taking a boat on the water in the dark. I listen and I hang my head and tell them I will never do those things again as long as I live, and I mean it, I really do.

  Once the policemen have gone, we eat tomato soup that Charlotte has made specially, because Dad told her it was my favourite. I eat it and I do not mention that the kind of tomato soup I love best comes from a tin, and is best eaten with white sliced bread and margarine, not the multigrain rolls Charlotte has baked and spread with butter.

  Honey doesn’t join us at the table.

  ‘I’m sorry about your dad,’ I tell Skye and Summer and Coco. ‘Really sorry.’

  ‘It sucks,’ Skye says. ‘He’s pretty useless, as dads go.’

  Charlotte sighs. ‘Greg couldn’t have chosen a worse way to break the news, or a worse moment … but yes, it’s typical of him. Why he couldn’t just come down here for once and explain it all properly …’

  I take a sip of soup.

  ‘Is it all over with Honey and Shay then?’ Coco asks. ‘Are you his girlfriend now?’

  I blink. ‘I don’t know. Maybe.’

  ‘I thought you hated him?’ Skye says, frowning.

  ‘I thought I hated him too …’

  Summer says what nobody else dares to. ‘Honey’s furious. She’s been locked in her room all day, crying and playing her music too loud. She won’t let anyone in. Not me, not Skye, not Coco … not anyone.’

  ‘It’s bound to hurt,’ Charlotte says. ‘But … Honey will cope. She is stronger than she thinks. She’ll come round.’

  Not in this lifetime, I think.

  ‘I’ll tell her I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘Once she’s calmed down a little bit. I am sorry, you know … about Shay, about Honey, about the lies … everything.’

  ‘I know,’ Charlotte sighs. She ruffles my hair, and I want to cry because I don’t deserve her kindness, her understanding.

  She opens a drawer and takes out a flat parcel wrapped in blue tissue paper and passes it to me.

  ‘You’re a creative girl, Cherry,’ she says. ‘You’re imaginative, a dreamer. You just need to use those skills in the right way. Lies are only lies if you try to make-believe they’re true … but what if you see them as stories, fantasies? That way you’re free to imagine anything you like. You’ve been through a lot in your short life, Cherry … you’re still making sense of it all. I thought that writing down the stories and fantasies might help …’

  I open the tissue paper and inside there is a book, a beautiful, blank-paged notebook with a red silk cover embroidered with cherry blossom. It’s the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.

  ‘Oh … but … thank you, Charlotte!’

  ‘I used to keep a sketchbook on the go when I was your age,’ she tells me. ‘I’d put my heart and soul into those books, and you can do the same. Use it as a diary, a memory book, a place to sort the dreams out from reality. Write stories. Imagine.’

  I think about what Charlotte’s just said. What if I looked at things a different way? Called the lies make-believe, like Shay does? Fantasies, stories, imaginings, creative thinking … ways to express the feelings inside. Surely that wouldn’t be shameful or sad? If I write the stories down, they might even be something to be proud of, one day.

  ‘I will!’ I promise Charlotte. ‘Thank you. I can’t believe you’re all being so kind to me when I’ve been so stupid … when I’ve lied, and … well, worse.’

  I stroke the creamy paper, blinking back tears.

  ‘Young love doesn’t last forever,’ Charlotte says. ‘And trust me, Cupid has rotten aim sometimes. I don’t suppose you could help liking Shay … and who’s to say things will last for the two of you anyway? It’s awkward … but … well, it’s not the end of the world.’

  ‘I thought I’d wrecked everything,’ I whisper. ‘I thought I’d ruined it all … you, Dad, the wedding, the future …’

  ‘It’d take a lot more than that,’ Charlotte says. ‘And that’s a promise …’

  ‘They’ve set a date for the wedding,’ Coco whispers. ‘The first of June. We’re all going to be bridesmaids …’

  ‘Me too?’ I ask.

  ‘Cherry, obviously, you too!’ Charlotte says. She sighs. ‘Look … I’m sorry you felt you had to lie to fit in, be a part of things, but I think I can understand why you did. We must have seemed pretty full-on, and Honey made things tough for you right from the start. I suppose you felt out of your depth. We just want you to relax, though, be yourself … be one of us.’

  ‘We’ll be a proper family, soon,’ Skye says. ‘You’ll see.’

  ‘We’re a proper family now,’ Charlotte corrects her. ‘A piece of paper won’t change that. It’s the loving and caring that really count …’

  I want to be a part of it, and I think that maybe I can be. I have a dad who loves me, a new stepmum who cares enough to make tomato soup from home-grown tomatoes and basil from the garden, and I think on reflection I like it better than the tinned sort. I have a bunch of new stepsisters, and three of them accept me, like me even. They know I am not perfect, that I have done something bad, something awful, stolen their sister’s boyfriend, scared everyone half to death … they may not approve, but still, they are speaking to me. I think.

  Then there is the fourth sister. She hated me on sight, and she still hates me, I know, but I cannot blame her for that. I would feel the same, in her shoes. I’d like to tell her that I am sorry, that I tried and tried to stop it from happening, but I don’t think she’d believe me.

  I’d like to say I regret it, but I don’t … not really.

  How can I? I didn’t choose Shay, and he didn’t choose me. We just couldn’t help it. Love is like a force of nature, something bigger than either of us, having a laugh at our expense, stirring up trouble and watching the fallout shake down.

  ‘Shay is grounded,’ Skye whispers. ‘For the rest of the holidays. You should have seen his dad, last night, though … he yelled and he swore and then he sat at our kitchen table and cried, and Shay’s mum told him he was too hard on Shay, and he said that maybe he was …’

  I think that things might be better now, for Shay. I hope so.

  It is dusk when I go outside again. I sit down by the fish pond, throw a pinch of food to Rover. Five goldfish rise up to the surface, flicking their tails, swooping and splashing, and at first I can’t tell which one is Rover. Everything changes, I realize, but sometimes the changes are for the better. My lonely goldfish has friends now, and a pond with water lilies and a future.

  ‘I probably won’t see Shay again until September,’ I tell Rover. ‘When school starts. That’ll be fun … a brand-new high school with only Honey for company … I’m guessing I’ll be popular, right? Well, I suppose that’s nothing new …’

  Rover glides beneath a lily pad and reappears, eyeing me darkly.

  ‘Shay will be there too, though,’ I sigh. ‘I won’t be on my own.’

  I stand up and walk across the grass, into the trees, towards the caravan, and at the last moment I look back towards Tanglewood House.

  Up in the turret room, a small, slender figure is curled up on the window seat, her long Rapunzel hair fluttering a little in the breeze from the open window.

  Honey is watching me, a princess in her tower, waiting for a prince who will never come. As I watch, she wipes a hand across her eyes, pushes the window wider still. I think for a minute she might call out, talk to me, yell at me, but then I see the glint of silver in her hands.

  My heart stops and my eyes open wide.

  The scissors slide open and shut again with a cold, crisp snip.

  Slowly, slowly
, slender hanks of soft, blonde hair drift down from the open window, long ribbons of gold that swirl and spiral and land like snow on the gravel drive. It goes on for five, maybe ten minutes, and when she puts the scissors down, Honey’s beautiful hair is short, stark, shorn, like a prisoner or a cancer patient. Her eyes hook on to mine, a long, meaningful look, and my heart turns over.

  My gaze slides away. The light is fading now, and in the lower rooms, the lights are coming on. I can hear the warm buzz of chat from the kitchen, a flicker of movement behind a curtain in one of the guest rooms, music, life.

  I turn and pick my way across the grass, beneath the cherry trees, towards the little red caravan.