Chocolate Box Girls: Sweet Honey (16 page)

Nausea rolls through me in waves,
threatening to sweep me away.

I go to my friends’ list, select
his name and press Delete. Relief replaces the sick feeling. I have had a lucky
escape, and I’ve learnt my lesson; I’ll never take risks with Internet
safety again.

Minutes later, the familiar jangly
call-tone of Skype starts up. When I see Mum, Summer, Skye, Coco, Cherry and even
Paddy jostling in front of the webcam all the bad stuff melts away and it is
finally, finally Christmas. I watch as they open the presents I’ve sent them,
then it’s my turn to open my gifts from home. There’s a cute boho
slip-dress, a jewellery-making kit, a hairslide adorned with feathers. Here too, at
last, are the silly little surprises that make Christmas magic back home: a snow
globe, chocolate-flavoured lipgloss, a book by my favourite YA author and a
fortune-telling fish that curls up on my palm to predict ‘true love’.
Yeah, right.

We talk for an hour, until Mum and Paddy
have to go to finish off the cooking, and Coco finally asks about Dad. I tell her
he’s gone out, that he said to say Happy Christmas. ‘He did send
presents, didn’t he?’ I check.

‘Money,’ Summer tells
me.

‘Did you find out who hacked your
SpiderWeb?’ Coco whispers.

‘Not exactly, but it turned out my
privacy settings were way off … and let’s just say there were a few
people on there who weren’t exactly friends. It shouldn’t happen
again.’

When the call ends, I take a deep
breath. I kept it together, just about. I didn’t cry, I didn’t fall to
pieces, I didn’t let on that Christmas dinner at the beach wasn’t a
patch on the fabulous, familiar chaos of Tanglewood. I didn’t say that all I
really wanted was to be there, with them.

I notice one last present, slightly
squashed, hidden away behind the torn tissue-paper wrappings. A box of Paddy’s
chocolates, six Sweet Honey truffles that haven’t travelled well, sticky,
melted, messy, spoilt.

     1
January, 4 a.m.

     I resolve
to start a SpiderWeb journal (starting now!)

     I resolve
to make the most of life in Australia

     I resolve
to get fit; get tanned; stop being homesick

     I resolve
to paint more

     I resolve
to have more fun

     I resolve
to stop waking at 4 a.m.

Last night was New Year’s Eve,
and I went out with Dad and Emma. We went to a posh restaurant, then on to a party
on a boat thrown by yet another of Dad’s business contacts. The boat chugged
its way round and round the harbour while everyone partied; it would have been cool
if I hadn’t been the youngest person there by a decade or so. At midnight the
sky lit up with the best fireworks I’ve ever seen, and some old bloke with a
comb-over tried to kiss me but I ducked out of the way at the last moment and locked
myself in the ladies’ toilet.

Today, I’ve been working on my art
project. A few days ago I asked Mum to dig out a whole bunch of family photographs,
school reports and letters, then scan and email them over. I’ve spent days
turning them into collages and painting self-portraits over the top; in the images I
look like I am wearing the past just beneath my skin.

My resolution to start writing in my
SpiderWeb journal is linked to that – the project has got me thinking more about the
past and the future, and writing stuff down might just help me sort out my messed-up
head. I won’t be sharing my diary entries with anyone, of course … I
double-check to make sure the privacy settings are in place.

I rang home briefly from the boat party
last night, but now Happy New Year messages begin to appear on my mobile as midnight
strikes back home in Britain. One message comes from much closer, and makes my heart
sink.

Change of plan – my gran’s had
a fall and broken her ankle, so Mum and I are heading to Tas to help out for a
couple of weeks. First Tara wimps out, now me … really sorry, Honey.
Was so looking forward to the holidays too. We’ll definitely be back the
weekend before term starts. Let’s do a sleepover and catch up on all the
gossip, OK?

Bennie x

Without Tara or Bennie around, the
holidays no longer feel like fun – especially since Ash seems to have disappeared on
me too. Who will I hang out with now? January stretches ahead like a blank page with
the paint just out of reach. It feels empty, barren, a missed opportunity. I
don’t want to be stuck at the bungalow, watching DVDs with Emma and listening
to the hushed rows that follow every time Dad stays out late.

Today, Dad and Emma sleep in for hours,
and once they do surface it’s clear they won’t get any further than the
sunloungers beside the pool. I pack away my art materials and take a walk down to
Sunset Beach in the hope that this time, Ash
will
be there.

Thankfully, I see him as I walk in,
whizzing up smoothies behind the counter, whistling while he works. He looks up and
waves, his face creasing into a grin.

‘Hey!’ he calls.
‘Where’ve you been? Thought you’d abandoned me!’

‘Christmas,’ I say with a
shrug. ‘And New Year, and all the madness in between. I did pop by a couple of
times, but you weren’t here.’

‘Holiday hours,’ Ash says.
‘Everything’s upside down. We’ve taken on extra staff, but
today’s guy hasn’t turned up. Don’t suppose you’re any good
with a tray?’

I laugh. ‘I’m the
best,’ I tell him. ‘You’d better believe it.’

After Dad left, Mum turned Tanglewood
into a B&B and we all learnt how to wait tables and carry a loaded breakfast
tray. It was never my favourite job, but I don’t mind helping when I have to.
I grab an apron from behind the counter, find the spray-cleaner and cloth, pick up a
tray and head out to start clearing tables. Like I told Ash, I’m good. I know
how to chat and schmooze the customers while I work, making old ladies smile, making
little kids laugh, squeezing a last-minute tip from harassed mums and dads.

I am enjoying it so much I don’t
notice the time slide past; I clean and wipe and clear dirty dishes, stack the
dishwasher and head out to clear tables again. By the time it’s all under
control, two new workers have arrived to take the evening shift and I seem to have
landed myself a part-time job because one of them happens to be the manageress.

‘Just temporary, mind,’ she
tells me. She’s a sinewy, darkly tanned woman with a ponytail of multicoloured
dreadlocks and a pierced nose. ‘We’ve been left in the lurch and we do
need someone … someone who’s not scared of hard work. I’ve
been watching you, and I think you’re a natural.’

In the absence of anything more
thrilling to do with my summer holiday, I take all of ten seconds to weigh up the
offer. ‘OK,’ I say. ‘Why not?’

Why not indeed? I asked for more fun in
the New Year, and a job at the beach cafe could be the answer. It’s a great
way to meet new people and earn some pocket money too.

Ash hangs up his apron and the two of us
walk down to the water’s edge. ‘It was a bit manic there for a
while,’ he says. ‘Thanks for the help.’

‘No worries,’ I reply.
‘It was fun. And now it looks like you’re stuck with me.’

‘I like being stuck with
you,’ he says. ‘We’ll make a great team – it’s going to be
cool. So … how was your Christmas and New Year?’

I frown. ‘It was OK. But Christmas
on the beach? Just weird …’

I consider telling him about seeing
Riley and how he wasn’t on my SpiderWeb page after all, but the story is sad
and twisted and I want to forget it ever happened.

‘Maybe it’s just because my
mum and my sisters are so far away,’ I conclude. ‘I felt a bit homesick.
I miss them.’

Ash laughs. ‘Wish I could escape
my lot sometimes,’ he says. ‘I think that’s why I like the beach
cafe – I get to be off-duty for a bit. I’m babysitting now. You’d be
really welcome to come along and help … meet everyone … if you
want to?’

‘Babysitting?’ I repeat.
‘Seriously?’

‘I’ll throw in a free dinner
if that’ll swing it,’ he says. ‘Come on. My family – guaranteed to
cure you of all homesickness. Ten minutes with them and you’ll want to be a
hermit for the rest of your life.’

‘OK then!’

We turn away from the ocean and pick our
way across the beach, through the wide streets that head up to Willowbank and
onwards along narrower, less leafy ones. The houses are smaller now; there are no
gardens with swimming pools, no silver cars with retractable sunroofs.

‘I think I told you I live with my
sister and her family,’ Ash says as we walk. ‘Dad went back to Sri Lanka
when I was born – he’s been out of the picture so long it’s as if he was
never there to start with. And then … well, Mum died when I was twelve. My
sister Tilani had just got married; she took me in, looked after me.’

My eyes widen. How many times have I
moaned to Ash about broken families, how painful it was to choose between Mum and
Dad, how annoying to have to put up with Paddy and Cherry? He never had that choice
to begin with.

‘Ash,’ I whisper.
‘I’m so sorry, I had no idea.’

‘Long time ago now,’ he says
briskly. ‘It’s just the way things are. And it’s why I try to
babysit when I can, y’know? Make myself useful. So … here we are.
This is home.’

Ash’s house is a bungalow with a
small yard to one side, a frazzled tree standing guard over a mess of toy trucks and
scooters and abandoned dolls. The French windows are open and a cacophony of
yelling, screeching and singing can be heard above the sound of the radio. He goes
inside.

‘Hey, kids,’ he says.
‘I’ve brought a friend over.’

I step through the French windows and
into chaos. Two girls dressed in high-heeled shoes and curtain cloaks blink at me,
suddenly shy, while a boy wearing a cowboy hat and a feather boa jumps forward,
bringing a wooden sword down in front of me.

‘What’s the password?’
he demands.

‘Caramelized kangaroo,’ I
say, not missing a beat.

‘That’s two words,’
the boy tells me solemnly. ‘It’s actually just kangaroo.’

‘Just testing,’ I say, and
he lifts the sword and grins at me.

‘These are my nieces and
nephew,’ Ash says. ‘The beautiful princesses Dineshi and Sachi, and Ravi
with the sword …’

The eldest girl, who looks about six,
swirls her curtain cloak around her. ‘We’re playing make-believe,’
she tells me. ‘D’you want to be a dragon or a princess?’

‘She’s a princess,
silly,’ the smaller girl says, slipping a hand into mine. ‘A real one.
Can’t you tell?’

I feel my heart begin to melt, just a
little, just round the edges. The kids are like smaller versions of Ash, with their
nut-brown skin and blue-black hair and long-lashed, mocha-dark eyes. They could melt
an iceberg, seriously.

By the time Ash’s sister comes
through from the kitchen, Dineshi and Sachi are dressing me in a plastic tiara and a
silk dressing gown, while Ash gallops around on all fours with a tail made from a
long green sock tucked into the waistband of his jeans. Tilani is a paramedic, like
her husband, and is about to leave to start her shift.

‘Sam will be home just after
ten,’ she tells us. ‘Is that OK? I hope you can handle the chaos,
Honey!’

‘I am used to chaos,’ I tell
her. ‘I have a big family too. It’ll be fun!’

It is fun, too. After an hour of
dressing-up games the kids collapse on beanbags, quizzing me about my life as a real
princess and how I flew here across many oceans from a kingdom far, far away. Then
Ash makes macaroni cheese for tea and I fashion a backyard tent by pegging bedsheets
to the washing line, and we huddle inside as the sun goes down and eat by
torchlight, picnic style. Eventually all three kids are in bed, only half washed,
the girls still wearing tiaras and Ravi still clutching his sword. They lean against
Ash as he reads fairy stories and make me promise to come again soon, not to fly
away home.

‘I won’t disappear,’ I
promise.

When Sam gets back from his shift, Ash
walks me home. We leave behind the shabby streets and crowded houses and he slips
his hand into mine and holds on, tight, as if I really am a fairy-tale princess who
might fly away at any moment.

In the end, my summer holiday scores
low on wild beach parties and late nights. It scores high on princesses, dragons,
wiping tables and serving smoothies; there’s a fair bit of art project here
and there too, although maths and French have fizzled a bit. It also scores high on
hanging out with Ash, talking with Ash, walking home with Ash under the stars. I
think I am starting to fall for him, and I guess I’d score that very highly
indeed.