Chocolate Box Girls: Sweet Honey (7 page)

I am not sure how long jet lag is meant
to last, but I’m pretty sure it should be gone by now. I have been in Sydney
for ten days, but even though I fall asleep at roughly the right time each evening,
I am still waking up at four in the morning, head buzzing. I think I am becoming
nocturnal.

Instead of staring wall-eyed at the
ceiling, I pick up my mobile and click on to SpiderWeb. Coco has posted a photo of
Caramel, her new pony, on to my wall, so I hit Like and write
cute
underneath it. It is easier to be nice to my sisters when they are thousands of
miles away, somehow.

A new message pops up almost at
once.

Hey, big sister! Missing you. Mum
says you’re probably asleep but I wish we could talk …

Coco

Grinning, I type out a reply.

I’m not asleep. Want to
Skype?

Seconds later, a new message appears.

You betcha!

I shrug on a sweatshirt and pad through
to Dad’s study, picking up his laptop and bringing it back through to my
bedroom. I am only supposed to use it for emergencies, but talking to my sisters in
the middle of the night has to qualify, right? There’s a familiar whoosh as
the Skype icon launches; with two more clicks the screen is filled with a fuzzy
image of the kitchen at Tanglewood, my sisters leaning in towards the camera,
pulling faces.

‘Can you hear me?’ Coco
yells, loud enough to wake the dead. ‘Can you see me?’

‘I can see your left nostril
really clearly,’ I tell her. ‘Everything else is a blur,
but … hang on … think you might have forgotten to wash your neck
this morning, Coco!’

‘The cheek!’ she rages.
‘A whole week, I have been pining for you! Weeping into my pillow! Playing
violin laments from the treetops! You are heartless, Honey Tanberry,
heartless!’

‘That’s why you love
me,’ I tease.

‘Coco, move back a bit, let your
sisters see the screen!’ Mum’s voice cuts in, and as Coco pulls back and
flops down on to a kitchen chair I can finally see Mum, Skye and Summer crowding in
behind her. My sisters are laughing, waving, huddled in thick jumpers next to the
Aga, cradling mugs of steaming hot chocolate. For a split second I wish I was there
with them, in the crowded, cosy evening kitchen at Tanglewood and not here, alone,
on the other side of the world.

‘We have got
so
much to
tell you!’ Coco blurts.

‘We miss you!’ Summer
adds.

‘Come back, all is
forgiven!’ Skye says. ‘Seriously! It’s just not the same without
you here! Are you settling in? Are you still loving it?’

‘It’s awesome,’ I tell
them. ‘The sky here is so big and so blue … there are parrots in the
treetops and a beach just five minutes from the house! It’s like paradise,
honestly!’

‘How’s Dad?’ Summer
wants to know. ‘Is it weird living with him?’

‘No, Dad’s great,’ I
answer. ‘It’s like he really belongs here, you know? It’s great to
spend time with him again – we’ve always been on the same wavelength. His
business is doing brilliantly, so obviously he works hard but he’s always got
time for me …’

This is almost true
, I think to
myself.

‘I don’t suppose he’s
around?’ Coco asks hopefully, and I shake my head.

‘It’s four in the
morning,’ I say. ‘He’s asleep!’

‘Why aren’t you?’ Mum
wants to know. ‘You’re not jet-lagged still, surely?’

‘Just a little bit,’ I
admit. ‘I’m using Dad’s laptop to Skype, but I’m supposed to
ask first so I really don’t want to wake him up.’

‘Wait there,’ my littlest
sister says. ‘Don’t go away … I’ll be back in a
minute.’ She slips out of the picture abruptly, and Mum takes her place on the
kitchen chair.

‘How’s school?’ she
wants to know. ‘Still good? Is it as supportive as it looked on the
website?’

As before, I sidestep the question. The
last few days at Willowbank have been better – I am trying hard to toe the line, but
I wouldn’t describe the place as supportive, exactly. I can’t help
wishing I’d gone to Kember Grange as planned, but Mum mustn’t find out
anything about that.

‘You’d like Tara and
Bennie,’ I say, steering the conversation into safer territory, and as I say
it I realize I like them too. Tara and Bennie are not the type of girls I’d
have hung out with at home, but they’re kind and clever and funny. Maybe, just
maybe, they could be real friends, the kind of friends I’ve never had?

‘What are your Christmas
plans?’ Skye is asking. ‘I know it’s summer in Australia, but
it’s Christmas too, and I don’t see how that would work … I
can’t imagine it!’

‘My plans for Christmas are blue
skies and chill-outs at the beach,’ I declare. ‘Definitely not ancient
tree decorations and wearing socks in bed because the central heating’s on the
blink!’

Mum laughs. ‘You’re making
me jealous,’ she says. ‘It’s going to be very strange at Christmas
without you around, but I am honestly so proud of you for making this fresh start,
Honey.’

‘I won’t let you
down,’ I promise.

‘I just want you to be
happy,’ Mum says, wiping a sneaky tear away with her sleeve, and for a
fleeting moment I forget blue skies and new starts and surfer boys; suddenly I want
to be home, with my mum and my sisters.

I push the thought away firmly.

‘So,’ I say to my sisters,
‘what’s your news? What am I missing?’

‘Well,’ Skye says,
‘last week we were in Exeter and we saw a whole display of our truffles in the
supermarket. They’re selling really well. The Chocolate Box is going to be a
famous brand!’

I pull a face. I can just imagine Paddy,
swanning around like he’s some kind of twenty-first-century Willie Wonka.
There are advantages to being several thousand miles away from Tanglewood – I
don’t have to see his smug face or Cherry’s sickly smile.

‘Nice,’ I say, a little
sourly.

‘I’ve had a letter from
Jodie,’ Summer tells me, changing the subject. ‘She’s almost
finished her first term at the Rochelle Academy. She’s loving it … I
think she’s feeling a bit guilty about taking my place, but honestly, Honey, I
am almost glad things have worked out this way. It sounds so strict, so
full-on.’

‘You used to
like
strict
and full-on,’ I comment.

She laughs. ‘I
know … but look where that got me!’

I look at Summer, leaning on the back of
Mum’s chair, her too-thin body disguised in an outsize pink sweater, her
cheekbones sharp, blue eyes shadowed. She is still beautiful, but she looks worn
out, exhausted; it will take time for her to get properly well again.

‘How’s it going?’ I
ask, treading carefully, because usually we don’t mention Summer’s
eating disorder to her face. It’s as if the slightest whisper of it might
cause her to break into little pieces that can never be put together again.

‘Fine, fine,’ she says
brightly. ‘I’m still going to the clinic, still working on stuff. I
haven’t actually put on any weight this week, but I’m not losing
either … that’s got to be good, right?’

I bite my lip, anxiety flooding through
me. I was the first person to notice that Summer was getting ill a few months back;
what if she gets sick again and I’m not around to help?

Summer’s twin, Skye, leans in to
the camera. ‘Guess what?’ she says. ‘That film you and Coco were
in during the summer will be on TV soon. We’ve seen trailers for it already,
with Shay’s song as the soundtrack! We’re going to have a big movie
night with popcorn and everything!’

‘Oh – I’d forgotten about
that!’ I say. ‘We were only extras, but it was such a cool day!
I’d like to see it, but I don’t suppose it will be on over
here.’

‘It’ll be on
Watch-Again
, afterwards,’ Mum says. ‘Ask Greg to let you
watch on his laptop. You can’t miss your own TV debut!’

‘I won’t,’ I promise.
‘Remember those funny Edwardian costumes we had to wear?’

‘I’m going through a
Victorian phase just now,’ Skye tells me, leaning in to show me her new hat, a
little blue velvet number with a CND badge pinned to the side. ‘I found a
stash of old lace petticoats in the Oxfam shop in Minehead – how cool? I’m
wearing them to school and the teachers haven’t said
anything …’

‘I bet you look great,’ I
tell her. ‘Have you seen my uniform? It’s a crime against
humanity!’

I take the freshly washed and ironed
tent dress and hideous yellow neckerchief down from their coat-hanger, holding them
up against me, doing a wiggle for the webcam. Skye and Summer recoil, pretending to
make themselves sick.

‘But … I thought the
school was non-uniform?’ Mum asks, confused, and too late I realize I’ve
put my foot in it big style.

‘Um … they’ve had
a radical change of policy,’ I say, thinking quickly. ‘Brought back
uniform, so that everyone is … equal. Just my luck, huh?’

Mum frowns. ‘How strange! It just
seems such a turnaround for them, against their whole free expression
ethos …’

Miraculously, Coco chooses that exact
moment to elbow her way in front of the screen with her pet sheep Humbug in her
arms, and Mum’s words are lost in the resulting chaos. Summer lifts Fred the
dog up so I can see him and even Cherry and Paddy appear, crowding in at the edges
of my screen, waving.

Suddenly my bedroom door swings open and
Dad stands there in his PJs, arms folded, face stern. Oops. Busted.

‘I have to go,’ I say
abruptly. ‘Look, I’ll Skype again soon, promise.’

‘Hang on!’ Skye is saying.
‘There’s loads I wanted to say. You can’t go yet!’

‘Wait!’ Coco screeches.
‘I was going to bring Caramel in to say hello –’

The call disintegrates as Mum tells Coco
she can’t bring a pony into the kitchen, and the screen is a mess of leaping
dogs and sheep and sisters, everything pixellated and blurry. I cut the call
abruptly.

‘Honey?’ Dad says calmly.
‘What’s going on?’

‘I was awake,’ I bluster.
‘Talking to my sisters on SpiderWeb. And I just thought I’d Skype. I
didn’t think you’d mind …’

Dad closes the lid of his laptop
firmly.

‘Of course you can Skype your
sisters,’ he says. ‘That’s not an issue. But not in the middle of
the night, when Emma and I have work tomorrow, and you have school.’

He shakes his head. ‘You need to
think before you act, consider how your actions might affect others. Your chatter
woke me up, and I need to be fresh for work because I have a very busy day ahead.
And you’ve taken my laptop without permission, which really isn’t on.
What happened to the new start, Honey?’

I try to answer, but without warning my
throat tightens and my eyes brim with tears. Letting Dad down is the last thing I
wanted. I want him to see the best in me, not the worst; I want him to see how
similar we are.

‘Sorry,’ I whisper.
‘I’ll try harder, I promise.’

Dad sighs. ‘Look, you know how I
feel about this now,’ he says. ‘Let’s leave it at that, start
over. I can see that you need to talk to your sisters now and then … and I
imagine a laptop might be useful for schoolwork too. I expect you could do with one
of your own.’

I blink. Is Dad offering to buy me my
own laptop?

‘C’mon, Princess,’ he
says gruffly, putting an arm round my shoulders. ‘No more tears – you’re
a tough cookie. Now, let’s both grab some sleep before those darned alarms go
off, right?’

‘R-right,’ I agree.

I dredge up a wobbly smile.

Seriously, even when he’s angry,
my dad is pretty awesome.