Chocolate Box Girls: Coco Caramel (14 page)

I look across the busy cake-sale queue for
Lawrie, but he has vanished, taking his own personal raincloud with him. You’d
think he would at least support the cause. I wrap a couple of the prettiest caramel
cupcakes in foil to give to him later – why should his little sister miss out just
because Lawrie is too sour and stingy to cough up his cash?

‘Can I interest you in a cupcake,
Sir?’ I ask Mr Wolfe. ‘Caramel Surprise. You won’t regret
it!’

‘I probably will,’ he sighs.
‘I’ll take one, though – and one for Mrs Gregg. It might sweeten her up,
though I think she means it about the cake-sale ban, Coco. Time to give other kids and
other charities a chance. OK?’

This seems a bit mean. I can’t
remember any other student fund-raising attempts, except for the time Summer
and Skye did a sponsored three-legged day for Children in Need two
years ago. You would think Mrs Gregg would be happy to have caring, charitable pupils
raising funds and awareness in her school, but no, clearly not.

‘OK,’ I agree, my shoulders
slumping. ‘I guess. I don’t suppose you can donate a horse blanket or a bale
of hay to the sanctuary, can you? Or an unwanted saddle or curry comb?’

‘Funnily enough, no,’ Mr Wolfe
says, paying for his cupcakes. ‘Good luck, Coco.’

Sarah and I have almost sold out by the time
the weaselly Year Six boy sidles up, offering five pence for a slightly lopsided piece
of rocky road.

‘No discounts,’ Sarah tells him
firmly. ‘It’s for charity.’

He prods it a few times until it cracks
right down the middle. ‘You’ll have to sell it to me now,’ he says.
‘I’ve touched it. And besides, it’s broken. You should give it to me
for free.’

‘Not a chance,’ Sarah says.
‘You broke it, now you’d better pay for it. Full price.’

‘Can’t,’ the kid says,
smirking. ‘No money.’

This is the boy Lawrie found trying to steal
crispy cakes
from a Year Five girl, though I can’t remember his
name. His sticky little hand pushes down on the last remaining scone, reducing it to a
mess of crumbs and jam. I start to get angry.

‘This is a charity sale,’ I
point out. ‘Where’s your compassion?’

‘Lost it,’ the kid quips.
‘Careless, me …’

‘Just push off,’ Sarah says
crossly. ‘Loser!’

I pick up the broken rocky road and hold it
out to the Year Six boy. ‘Want it?’ I offer. ‘You can have it, I
guess. Why not?’

‘Don’t,’ Sarah frowns.
‘He doesn’t deserve it.’

‘Oh, but he does,’ I say.
‘He really, really does. What’s your name, anyhow?’

The boy looks uncertain. ‘Look,’
he says, ‘I don’t really want your stupid cake. It was just a
joke.’

‘Your name?’ I repeat, grabbing
hold of his sleeve so he can’t run away. ‘Don’t be shy, you can tell
me.’

‘Darren,’ he mutters. ‘Let
me go!’

‘You were the one who hoisted my panda
hat up the school flagpole, weren’t you?’ I ask him. ‘And the one who
tried to steal a tin of crispy cakes from a Year Five
kid, until
Lawrie Marshall stopped you. I guess you deserve that cake because you’re so
big
and so
brave
, right?’

I wave the rocky road slice in front of his
nose, and he jerks his head away.

‘Don’t you want it any
more?’ I tease. ‘You seemed so sure a minute ago. And it’s not like we
can sell it, not now you’ve put your sticky paws all over it.’

‘Get off!’ he snarls, and as he
opens his mouth I shove a corner of cake in. It breaks and leaves a smear of chocolate
across his face. He squirms away from me but I hang on to his sleeve, unshakeable. I may
be smaller than this boy by a couple of inches, but I am stronger than I look.

‘Not hungry?’ I persist.
‘Or have you changed your mind? Would you rather have a scone?’

‘Gerroff me!’ he yells.
‘You’ve got the wrong person, OK? It was a misunderstanding. She offered me
a crispy cake, and that Lawrie kid got the wrong idea. Mnnnnfff!’

I score a direct hit with the mashed-up
scone. A shower of crumbs falls to the floor and Darren wipes his face, leaving a trail
of strawberry jam across one cheek.

‘Leave the little kids alone from now
on,’ I tell him. ‘Nobody likes a bully. OK?’

‘OK …’

‘Quick,’ Sarah hisses.
‘It’s Wolfie!’

Mr Wolfe cuts his way through the crowd just
as Darren ducks free at last, wriggling out of his blazer completely and leaving me
holding the sleeve.

‘Everything all right here?’ the
history teacher asks.

‘Fine,’ Darren splutters through
a mouthful of cake. ‘Mnnnfff. Perfect, Sir.’

‘Coco?’ Mr Wolfe presses.
‘Darren not bothering you, is he?’

‘Not at all,’ I say sweetly,
handing back the crumb-speckled blazer. ‘Not at
all.’

‘Are you crazy?’ Lawrie demands
when I bring my bike to a wobbling halt beside the hazel trees at the moor’s edge.
‘You’re taking all those bags up to the cottage? Seriously?’

I roll my eyes and refuse to answer.

‘Are you moving in?’ he goes on.
‘Got your favourite knick-knacks and fluffy floor rugs? Did you pack a kitchen
sink and a mattress, just in case? And more to the point, are you expecting me to help
you carry all that junk?’

‘No,’ I tell him, wheeling my
bicycle through the trees. ‘Hoping, yes; expecting, no …’

‘I worry about you,’ Lawrie
growls. ‘We are in the middle of a very serious situation, and you spend your time
carting great bags of stuff around and baking cupcakes for some imaginary pony
sanctuary.’

I grit my teeth and fish out the cake-sale
cash from my shoulder bag, stuffing it into Lawrie’s pocket. ‘Thirty-seven
pounds, almost,’ I tell him. ‘The caramel cupcakes were a big hit. Enough to
buy feed for the ponies for a week or two, anyway. Unless you already found the money
some place else …’

‘No,’ Lawrie admits.
‘Well, OK. That’s good then. Thank you.’

‘Hurt to say that, didn’t
it?’ I ask.

‘A bit,’ he grins, and I think
again that Lawrie could be a whole lot nicer to be around if he just smiled more.

He takes the bicycle handlebars from me and
begins pushing slowly uphill. ‘The easiest way to carry it is to leave it all
strapped to the bike,’ he says. ‘I did it yesterday, bringing up more hay
from the stables after work.’

‘All I’m doing is trying to help
too, you know,’ I say.

‘I know,’ Lawrie admits.
‘I suppose we just go about things differently. I’ve been trying to make the
place a bit more liveable as well. And the money will be useful. I’m just worried
about those ponies, that’s all.’

‘You and me both,’ I tell him.
‘The police came to our house this morning, warning us that horse thieves were
in the area – I swear, I nearly fainted with terror. I didn’t
think they would actually make a big thing of it – I mean, it’s not exactly a
murder or a gang war, is it? I suppose that’s what happens when you live in a
place where nothing ever happens.’

‘Maybe,’ Lawrie says.
‘Seddon was always going to make a fuss, that’s just the kind of bloke he
is. You don’t make an enemy of a thug like him.’

‘Well, I have,’ I say briskly.
‘And I don’t care. Besides, I’ve been thinking about the ponies, and I
reckon I’ve come up with a plan …’

I tell Lawrie my ideas as we hike upstream
together in the fading light, the wind ruffling our hair and pinching our cheeks raw.
With Caramel, the plan is simple; I want to keep her. If I really work on Mum and Paddy
– and if the chocolate order comes good and the cash starts rolling in – there’s a
chance it could happen. I would just have to wait a while, then set up a fake ad for an
easy-going bay pony. I could say I’d seen it on the riding school noticeboard –
who would ever know? If the price was right, Mum might just go for it.

‘Caramel’s not exactly
easy-going, though, is she?’
Lawrie points out. ‘And your
mum was dead against you buying her, so …’

‘That’s the point,’ I
explain. ‘She won’t know it’s her – she’s never actually met
Caramel, only heard about her. We’ll make up a new name – I was thinking maybe
“Cupcake”.’

‘No surprises there,’ Lawrie
says.

‘Then we invent a new history for
her … reluctant sale, child’s pony, now outgrown … needs
loving home. Simple but brilliant!’

‘I think you’ve forgotten
something,’ he says. ‘Half of Somerset is looking for Caramel. You
can’t just move her into Tanglewood – people will put two and two
together!’

‘I don’t think so,’ I
reply. ‘Sometimes, the best place to hide something is in full view, right under
everyone’s noses. It’s all about confidence. Nobody’s going to expect
her to turn up just down the road, and it’s not as if Seddon knows my family or
anything. The police were warning us to look out for thieves, not searching for missing
horses. If we give Caramel a new identity, it’ll stick, I’m sure of
it!’

‘You’re going to ask your mum to
pay money for her?’ Lawrie checks.

‘Yes, it has to be plausible. If I was
suggesting we take in a pony for free, that would be way more suspicious!’

‘So … how do we arrange the
actual sale?’ he wants to know. ‘Your mum will want to talk to
Caramel’s “old owners”. She won’t just give you the cash and
wait for you to come home with a horse, will she? She’ll want to meet the owners,
do it properly.’

I adjust my rucksack, stopping for a moment
to catch my breath. ‘That’s where you can help,’ I tell him.
‘Mum doesn’t know you, or your family. I thought maybe you could get your
mum or dad to pretend to be Caramel’s owners?’

‘You thought wrong,’ Lawrie
snaps. ‘Forget it!’

We walk on in silence for a few moments,
following the stream, and even in the dusk I can see Lawrie’s lips are tight, his
knuckles white on the bicycle handlebars. I know better than to argue – something has
upset him, something I’ve said. Talking to him is like walking through a minefield
– put the slightest foot wrong and everything blows up in your face.

‘Dad left us,’ he says into the
silence eventually. ‘Couple of years ago. We haven’t heard from him since –
no phone calls, no maintenance, nothing. So no, I can’t ask him to help out with
your little scheme, Coco. And my mum can’t help either, OK? She has enough
problems of her own right now.’

‘OK,’ I tell him.
‘I’m sorry.’

There is no sound except for our footfalls
through the heather, the whirr of dynamo lights on my bike in the falling light.

‘My dad left too,’ I whisper.
‘Sucks, right?’

‘Just a bit.’

‘Mine lives in Australia now,’ I
explain. ‘Like London wasn’t far enough – he had to go and move to the other
side of the world. Makes you feel really wanted, y’know? Mum got married again in
June, though, and I have a new stepdad now. Paddy – he’s nice.’

I am surprised at how easy it is to say all
this out loud – talking about Dad has always been off-limits for me, except with my
sisters. Maybe it’s the darkness closing around us, the cold wind, the fact that
Lawrie’s face is hidden beneath a fall of dark wavy hair, his eyes facing
forward as he pushes the overloaded bike. Maybe it’s because I
think, crazy though it may seem, that the prickliest boy in the school might just
understand.

Or not.

‘Look, Coco, I can’t talk about
this,’ he mutters. ‘Not right now. I’m glad things are getting better
for you, but – sheesh – what’s in all these bags? Bricks?’

I roll my eyes. ‘That’s right.
Thought we could rebuild the tumbledown walls and maybe install a ski-lift at the same
time, make it easier to get up and down …’

‘Ha,’ he says. ‘I knew
you’d get fed up with it.’

‘Did I complain?’ I argue.
‘I did not. But we both know this hiding place is only temporary – we need to move
the ponies to safety. If we can’t get any adults to pretend to be selling
Caramel … OK, change of plan; you can pretend to be the son of the owners.
Mum’s never met you, so it could work.’

‘She’ll never take any notice of
a kid!’