Hazel Wood Girl (3 page)

All morning I snooped round the farmyard and the farm (getting under people’s feet apparently, even if they were yards away). By lunchtime I was sure of the answers and ran down to the Hazel Wood. My note read,

I left it on the tree where I found the original and put 
‘To The Watcher’ on the envelope, as I guess they must have been watching me hang out in the wood. I have been forcing myself not to go back and look again until tomorrow.

Adam was getting dressed up all fancy again (which for him means no welly-boots) so I just asked him,

‘Which teacher are you going out with?’

He said, ‘Liza’ as he walked out the door, which is no help at all seeing as I don’t know any of the teachers’ first names.

Mum is annoyed because the geese are not laying so many eggs this week. Dad pissed her off more when he said he’d have a word with them about it. Then he made her a coffee and she calmed down. I wish my life was that easily fixed.

I saw Barbara’s ridiculously beautiful friend Emma-Jo in town again today.

She was talking to this cute guy with dark eyes and dark hair who is
really
tall and a bit gangly, like he hasn’t quite grown into himself, and wears a leather jacket and nods a lot when he listens. He has this
amazing
smile, which I know sounds like a cliché, but he really does. Emma-Jo was so into him, talking his ear off about God knows what. I’m just jealous that it was
her
talking to a guy, and that she could think of things to say. I would have just stood there like a lemon. Which reminds me, I put the lemon in my hair yesterday and it has sort of worked a bit, but not so as you’d notice. 

Dad said we had to get rid of the rabbit as it ate all the carrots in the kitchen garden. I told him we didn’t have a rabbit and he was all surprised. Dads are not good about pets, ages, clothes, birthdays or friends’ names. I suggested that maybe Adam was giving bunches of carrots to his new girlfriend instead of bunches of flowers.

I found out that it’s Miss Dobbs the supply teacher he’s seeing, so it’s almost like she’s not really a teacher at my school because she was only there for two weeks this term, and then was at other schools further away when their versions of Mr Hackett the history teacher got their versions of ulcerated hernias.

I have been writing this to stop myself running down to the Hazel Wood in case there is no note for me and I’ll be all disappointed like some starving puppy with a rubber bone. But now if I wait any longer I will rupture my head, so I
have
to go see.

Cool, brilliant and excellent, and not necessarily in that order. There was a note and it said that I carried out the mission
admirably
. I like that. My new task is 1) make something for someone, 2) have a conversation with someone new, 3) fix something I 
have broken.

I am going to make a welcome card for Mrs Hooper, talk to little Sammy-boy (who is now hanging out around the farm every day), and maybe fix the handle back on the mug I broke when I tried to make gravy in it on Mum’s birthday.

I called JL again and hung up again. One more time and I’m on track for a criminal record.

Drawing’s not my thing, but Mrs Hooper loved her welcome-to-the neighbourhood card. Sammy-boy was actually there in the kitchen with his mum so I had a quick chat, where I just asked him a bunch of questions and he said yes or no or mumbled. That took care of the ‘conversation with someone new’ bit of it.

I fixed the mug too, but I don’t really think that’s what the note meant. So I phoned Mindy and asked her did she want me to look after anything of hers while she was away, like water her plant or wash 
some clothes. She was really surprised and said ‘no thanks’, and then she had to go kayaking. But I know I wasn’t very nice to her the last time we spoke, so now I feel like I fixed that. I will now write it all up and run down to the Hazel Wood.

On the way back through the town from fetching the cattle-feed in the jeep with Dad, I saw that tall, smiley, dark-haired guy again, this time on his own. I know he doesn’t go to our school so maybe he is just here visiting relatives for a week. Hopefully he has nothing to do with the Grangers on the Egg Farm. Even driving past the Egg Farm makes me feel like I’ve caught something; it’s so manky, with rubbish everywhere. The poor hens must be miserable!

Going with Dad meant I didn’t get to the Hazel 
Wood until the afternoon, which was good because I wasn’t hanging out for it like a spare.

Today’s note from The Watcher reads,

OK, I can tell the joke about ‘What’s brown and sticky? – A stick’, because it’s the only one I can ever remember. I’m thinking now that maybe Dad is The Watcher, but I’m not certain. I know Dad would only be trying to cheer me up, but that would be a major downer. No, I have a strong feeling it’s someone more on my wavelength, an actual friend.

As for the ‘outrageous’ thing, I’m not exactly the outrageous kind. The worst I’ve ever done is say that I don’t like cheesecake when it’s supposed to be everyone’s favourite. Or maybe bunking off school that day I found out that they call me The Farmer.

Anyway it says, ‘Do something outrageous,’ which 
means something new.

Mrs Hooper came around to our house tonight and was talking away to Mum in the kitchen for ages. Mum said,

‘Of course, you’ve met Poppy, our quiet one.’ They both said I should go around and keep Christophe company. Yeah, like I’d be up for playing computer games and talking about skateboards or whatever little boys are into. That’s the worst thing about living out here, your choice of people to hang out with is very limited. Especially when none of the hopefuls will look your way. I am going to write a letter to JL just for the hell of it and to stop me phoning.

I wrote a letter to JL, but I will never send it. In fact I burned it already in the bathroom sink and the burning smell stuck around. Now Mum and Dad think I am smoking and we have to have another conversation tonight.

I asked Adam did he know any jokes and he said none that my Dad would forgive him for telling me. So, I guess it’s the sticky stick joke then. Can’t think of anything outrageous to do.

I spent the afternoon sitting in the only café in town where you don’t have to order food, and have drunk so much orange juice that I’m safe from colds or flu for the next ten years.

I really miss my old café in the city beside the art gallery, the one that changed its name and menu every six months. And the way I could go to see a movie, or shop, or all those basic things, every day if I wanted. Now even getting a decent haircut involves a military-style plan and three week’s notice. What’s the point of living far away from the things that you need to have a life?

I have been daydreaming about JL so much that it doesn’t even feel good any more. Like when you sit in 
a hot bath for too long and go all wrinkly, you want to stick with it, but you know it’s time to move on. Maybe that’s how Dad felt about living in the city.

I ran down to the Hazel Wood to see if there was a note, and it was fantastic –

I know all those ones from my last school. My favourite is – What do you call a woman with one leg? Eileen. Then what do you call a woman with two
legs? – Noleen.

Then the note said,

I’ve been thinking about that all day, and I think that the BEST thing that ever happened to me was when I sang a song in front of my family, and all my cousins and uncles and aunts at my Grandad’s birthday. I sang one that used to be Grandad’s favourite and he hadn’t heard it in years and there were tears in his eyes. They all kept telling me how great it was, and telling Mum and Dad that I had a lovely voice and must have got it from their side of the family.

When I read the note I thought how I haven’t really been singing at all lately. 

I tried to get into the school choir when we moved here, but you had to audition in front of all the others who were already in the choir, and my voice went all funny and I didn’t even finish the song. The teacher was really nice and said to work hard in music class and try again next year, but I heard some of the others laughing so I don’t want to be in their stupid choir now. I used to love singing.

I met the tall guy today (well, sort of), and he looks even better close up. Or maybe he just seems to look better because my brain went all fuzzy with nerves. He was in the supermarket looking at the bread shelves and I was with Mum and not paying attention, so I almost walked into him.

He looked really shocked, I think because I was carrying a sack of sweet potatoes and dropped them when I saw him. He said,

‘Hello’, and I was so surprised that I just picked up the sweet potatoes, turned around and walked back 
to Mum. I could hear him laughing at me as I walked away which shows that he’s
exactly
like they are in school. Still, I was kicking myself that I didn’t say ‘Hi’ back, or maybe even stand there and say something. I could have suggested a good type of bread or something. No! There, you see, that’s as charming and witty as I can imagine myself being, a bread-suggester, and that’s so ridiculous! Anyway he probably knows I’m The Farmer and it’s everyone’s job to not like me.

Then, as if that didn’t scramble my head up completely, on the way back to the car I saw Emma-Jo and she was walking hand-in-hand with this guy from the year above me called Beau. They looked so cute together; their hair is almost exactly the same, short and fair and they are the same height. So she isn’t going out with the tall guy, or at least I hope not. Not that he would ever like me, but it would be a bit much if she has loads of boyfriends while all the other girls in town are sitting in their greenhouses, dreaming like idiots.

Before the supermarket trip, I left a note down at the Hazel Wood saying about the singing day, the good one at Grandad’s party not the whole choir fiasco. I wanted to tell The Watcher about the tall guy laughing at me and how much that hurt, but I can’t 
do that until I know The Watcher’s identity. It would be amazing if it was a girl my age (a nice one) and I could tell her about things.

I just this minute went down to the Hazel Wood again, and there was already a note there. It says –

I wonder if JL counts as a person from history. It feels weird, like I have a friend even though I have never met them. I kidded myself for a while that it might be the tall guy but I know that I never have that kind of luck.

I HAVE FINALLY REALISED. I am an idiot, like as if that’s news. When I woke up this morning, in one single brain-spasm it became glaringly obvious that Barbara and her friends thought of the whole Hazel Wood Girl thing. It’s
so
obvious that they will be showing my notes all around school, and laughing at me again, and putting them on the noticeboards. I know she’s away, but I bet she paid someone to do this to me. Why? What did I ever do to any of them?

I wish everyone would either be my friend or leave me alone properly. I feel horrible and wish I could get 
back to just feeling numb.

I did about an hour of French and then sat there looking at the stupid cows. Sammy-boy was doing the same thing from near their house on the other side of the field (staring, not learning French) and for some reason I got up and wandered over. As usual, he had his hands in front of his mouth with his sleeve-ends pulled up over his fingers, so I could just make it out when he said,

‘Mum said to ask would you like to come for tea today?’

I was in the mood for nice normal people so I said,

‘Love to.’

And he said,

‘Come on then,’ through his sleeves.

It was good to sit and talk to Mrs Hooper. It made me feel I could be anywhere. Little Sammy-boy is so adorable. He really loves wild animals, and before I left he told me about a hedgehog he found and has been feeding on worms in their back garden.

Her other young son, Christophe, wasn’t there, and I am pretty certain that maybe Mrs Hooper has invented a second kid for the purposes of child-support money or some kind of tax relief. 

I die inside whenever I think of the girls from school being behind the notes. Why can’t they just like me?