Chocolate Box Girls: Sweet Honey (19 page)

A kiss can’t fix my messed-up life,
sadly.

The next morning I wake as usual at 4
a.m., drifting out of a dream about Ash. Reality seeps in, and I remember yesterday
in all its gory detail. I open up my laptop. There are four new private messages on
SpiderWeb, and my heart lurches; they’re not from Tara or Bennie, but the
girls at school. I force myself to read:

What is WRONG with you, Honey? Stay
away from Tara and Bennie. With friends like you, who needs enemies?

If you think Willowbank is such a
dump, why don’t you go back to England? We don’t want you here.

Classy. I don’t know how you
behave back in Britain but here in Aus we don’t stab our friends in the
back. You have a lot to learn.

You really are a bitch,
aren’t you?

That last one makes me flinch. Is this
what they’re thinking behind the silence, the glares? I am used to being
dramatic, rebellious, notorious even, but I am not used to being hated. Back home I
had a bad reputation, sure, but I never knowingly hurt anyone. When the other kids
looked at me there was admiration, awe even, in their eyes. It’s only since I
started to clean up my act that things have gone so badly downhill. Kind of
ironic.

I cannot face school today; I
don’t think I can face it ever again. When I hear Dad and Emma get up I wander
out into the kitchen, the sheet wrapped round me.

‘I’m not well,’ I
whisper. ‘My head’s sore, I feel sick and I’ve hardly
slept …’

Well, it’s the truth.

‘Two days back at school and
you’re taking a sickie already?’ Dad begins, but Emma hushes him,
putting her hand against my forehead.

‘No temperature,’ she says.
‘But one day off won’t hurt, Greg. Stay in bed, Honey, snuggle
up … you’ll feel much better tomorrow.’

I seriously doubt it, but Emma promises
to call the school and I am off the hook, for today at least. I go back to bed and
pull the sheet over my head. One thought keeps running through my mind – how could a
page from my private journal end up posted on my SpiderWeb wall? I check my page
again and something new has appeared, a picture of an old suitcase covered in labels
from around the world, apparently posted by me. The caption reads:
Australia
sucks … won’t miss it one bit.

Underneath, the comments have already
started.

Good riddance.

Yeah, we’ll miss you too.
Don’t come back.

I click Delete, but the post reappears a
minute later, right before my eyes, and that’s seriously scary. Am I going
crazy? Who would do something like this? Not Ash … I’ve seen for
myself the ancient computer in the corner of his living room. Not Tara or
Bennie … they’ve been around my laptop a couple of times, but they
wouldn’t have faked the shock and hurt of seeing that diary page. I can think
of someone who might have, though – Surfie16.

He is not the person he says he is, and
he seems to be enjoying my torment. I click through to his home page, but it gives
nothing away. There is the familiar profile picture, a close-up of bare feet and the
tip of a surfboard. There is the cover image, a cool Aussie beach. He has only six
friends listed, and each has a generic profile picture: a can of beer, a map of
Australia, a surfboard, a rock band CD cover. Some of them I recognize as people
who’ve posted nasty comments on my page, and now I begin to wonder if they too
are as fake as Surfie16.

It’s as if this profile is just a
way to access my SpiderWeb page and get at me. I go to my friends’ list and
delete him all over again, adding a ‘block from page’ sanction to make
sure he can’t do any more damage.

I pass the day making a frantic series
of self-portraits. The girl in the pictures looks exhausted, as if she might unravel
at any moment; it’s exactly how I’m feeling.

Emma comes back from work and offers me
paracetamol, iced water, buttered toast and kindness, but none of those things can
fix the mess I’m in. ‘Greg’s working late again,’ she tells
me. ‘I have my Pilates class – he was going to pick me up from there, but
I’m happy to cancel and stay home with you if you’d rather.’

I open my mouth to tell Emma
what’s going on in my life, but the words won’t come. ‘No, no,
just go,’ I say. ‘No worries.’

I want her to turn round at the last
minute and ask me what’s wrong, to look at me and see that the problem is not
a twenty-four-hour bug but something much more serious. She doesn’t, of
course.

Once I’m alone again, I check my
SpiderWeb page; another picture has appeared, an old one where I’m sticking my
tongue out at the camera. It was a joke, something Coco took on my phone one day
last year, but out of context it just looks crazy, confrontational. As for the
status I’m supposed to have written, it’s vile.

Unbelievably, Surfie16 has made the
first comment.

Nice. Showing your true colours,
Honey.

My hands shake as I hit Delete. How can
this be happening?

Somewhere in the distance, the doorbell
rings; I panic a little; the shrill ringing sound seems scary, threatening. When it
rings a third time, I swear under my breath. ‘OK, OK!’ I yell.
‘Wait a minute!’

Raking a hand through my tangled hair, I
open the door a crack and there on the doorstep is Ash, with two small princesses
and a dragon in tow.

The most amazing thing about small
children is that they don’t notice that you’re wearing crumpled sleep
shorts and a vest top with toast crumbs on the hem, or that your hair hasn’t
been combed, that your eyes are pink from crying and shadowed with lack of sleep.
They just barge right in and hug you round the waist and jump up and down on your
bed as if it’s a trampoline.

Being caught looking like death by the
boy who kissed you just yesterday afternoon is not so great. I pull on a kimono wrap
and some sunshades to hide behind.

‘Sorry,’ Ash says, not
looking sorry at all. ‘The only way I could get out was to bring the whole
tribe. Coming out to play?’

‘Can’t,’ I whisper.
‘Not feeling so good, as you can see.’

‘You look pretty awesome to
me,’ he says.

I smile. I look like death and I feel
almost as bad, but Ash isn’t judging me. He takes my hand and we sit side by
side on the window sill as the kids explore the en-suite bathroom, switch the fairy
lights on and off, hang bracelets from the dressing table over their ears.

‘So,’ Ash says quietly.
‘You skipped school today.’

‘Been ill,’ I say with a
shrug. ‘As you can see. Some weird Aussie bug. Maybe I’m just allergic
to the land of sunshine and opportunity? Besides, I only have one sandal.’

‘You can’t blame me for
that,’ he says. ‘I did my best. It’s probably floating along the
coast of Papua New Guinea by now.’

I shrug. ‘Can’t say I miss
it.’

The kids drift over to join us.
‘Is your house a palace?’ Sachi asks, eyes wide. ‘How many
mattresses have you got? Because a real princess needs ten or twenty, and even then
she might not sleep at night if someone’s put a pea underneath the bottom one.
That’s how you can tell if someone’s really a princess.’

Ash laughs. ‘You’ve been
reading her too many fairy tales.’

‘I don’t sleep at night, now
that you mention it,’ I tell Sachi. ‘I am nocturnal. Like an owl or a
fox or … well, whatever you have over here. Only instead of flying around
or rummaging through your dustbins, I paint pictures until the sun comes
up.’

‘You might need another mattress
then,’ Sachi says. ‘Can we play dressing-up?’

After some frenzied ransacking of
drawers and wardrobe, the girls gallop around in wedge sandals and bright skirts and
scarves while Ravi performs a hip-swinging dance with a pair of my best polka-dot
knickers on his head. It is the best distraction ever from being stalked by a mad
Internet troll, trust me.

‘Your friends came into the beach
cafe asking after you,’ Ash comments. ‘Said you hadn’t answered
their texts or SpiderWeb messages.’

‘Tara and Bennie?
But … they haven’t texted or messaged me!’ I look at my iPhone
for the hundredth time today; there are no messages at all.

‘They have,’ Ash says with a
frown. ‘They said you’re not answering, that you think somebody’s
messing with your SpiderWeb page.’

‘Seriously? They believe
me?’ A flicker of hope stirs inside me.

‘They’re worried,’ Ash
says. ‘I am too. If there’s some Internet bullying thing going on, tell
someone about it!’

‘Who?’ I fling back at him.
‘Dad’s never here, and Emma just brushes stuff under the carpet,
pretends life is great. Well, it isn’t. Look at me … I’m a
wreck. Things keep popping up on SpiderWeb, stupid photos with nasty taglines that
look like I’ve posted them when I really haven’t. And there are all
these hateful comments from kids at school, and some from strangers.’

Ash is on his feet, opening up my
laptop, clicking on to the web browser.

‘You leave yourself logged in all
the time?’ he asks as my SpiderWeb opens. ‘That’s crazy. Anybody
could have got hold of this. If they can access your page, they can change the
settings, post things in your name. Tara and Bennie said they definitely messaged
you on here as well, so what if whoever is doing this is deleting stuff
too?’

I bite my lip, leaning over his
shoulder.

‘Actually … I
haven’t had a message from home for days,’ I say. ‘Nothing from my
mum or my sisters. That’s a bit weird – if they’d seen the things on my
home page they’d have been in touch, wouldn’t they?’

‘This is serious, Honey,’
Ash says. ‘I think you’ve been properly hacked. Someone’s blocking
your real friends and family as well as posting all this … this
rubbish.’ He scrolls down the page, disbelieving, and my cheeks flood with
shame as he sees the pictures. How can anyone look at those images and not think
badly of me?

I watch as he deletes the posts again
and adjusts the privacy settings to maximum, but there’s a feeling of dread
inside me. Each time I delete something, the image comes back.

‘Remember I told you that Riley
added me on SpiderWeb?’ I ask. ‘I used to chat to him online lots before
Christmas, but it turns out it was never Riley at all – his username is Surfie16 and
I think he might be the hacker. I keep deleting him, but he just comes back. Oh,
Ash … I’ve been so stupid!’

He frowns. ‘Look,’ he says,
‘if some creep has control of your computer you need proper backup – tell your
dad, OK? Promise?’

He shuts the laptop lid firmly. All
three kids have stopped cavorting now and are staring at us, wide-eyed. ‘Has
somebody been mean to you, Honey?’ Ravi asks. ‘Shall I bring my sword
next time?’

I dredge up a smile. ‘It’s
nothing,’ I say. ‘Just silly people playing a silly practical joke.
I’m fine, really.’

I break out a picnic supper of TimTams
and orange juice and we sit out beside the honeysuckle arch as the light fades. The
kids nag me for a story, and because there are no picture books at Dad’s house
I invent one, all about a princess who lives in a turret room. Her prince runs off
with a wicked witch disguised as the princess’s sister, so she chops off her
beautiful hair and flies away to a land where everything is upside down and nobody
is quite what they seem.

‘It’s not a very happy
story,’ Dineshi points out. ‘How does it end?’

‘I don’t know, yet,’ I
admit.

‘Do you need a prince to rescue
you?’ Ravi asks. ‘I could do it, when I’m not actually being a
dragon. Or Ash could, maybe.’

I smile, and tell Ravi that princesses
these days like to rescue themselves, but that it can take time to figure out who
are the goodies and who are the baddies.

‘We’re the goodies,’
Sachi says firmly, threading honeysuckle blossom into my hair like a crown.
‘OK?’

It takes a while to wipe chocolate from
mouths and remove random skirts and shawls and jewellery from the kids, but in the
end my visitors are ready to head off. I try not to feel abandoned.

Ash leans over and kisses my cheek when
the kids aren’t looking, and I resist the temptation to grab on to him and
never let go.

‘Don’t let this idiot hacker
win,’ he says. ‘Tell your dad. Get some help. Then delete the whole
account. That should do it.’

I’m glad I’m wearing
sunshades. I wouldn’t want him to see the tears in my eyes.