Chocolate Box Girls: Sweet Honey (2 page)

Scanning through emails on my phone while
Dad pays at the till, I laugh out loud at the sickly sweet message. Friends one day?
Seriously, my stepsister has no idea.

I press Delete, but the email reminds me
to tread carefully. Making instant enemies out of Paddy Costello and his lying,
cheating daughter Cherry may not have been my smartest move ever, but what can I
say? I saw them for what they were, a small-time Willie Wonka wannabe and his
chancer kid who moved right in and made themselves at home in the life that used to
be mine. I told it like it was and my sisters slowly turned against me. Somehow I
was the bad guy.

I won’t make that mistake
again.

I am not wild about the idea of sharing
my dad with anyone, but I want my new life in Australia to work. I will turn on the
charm, be sweet and friendly, polite and helpful. I will get along with Emma if it
kills me.

When Dad’s fancy car with its
tinted windows and surround-sound CD system and sunroof finally draws to a halt
outside their modern villa bungalow, Emma is there on the doorstep, all smiles and
suntan and perfectly styled hair. I step out of the car and she throws her arms
round me, saying how glad she is to meet me. She is younger than Mum, and she
doesn’t look like she’d be seen dead baking cakes or mopping floors or
sitting at the kitchen table making linoprint Christmas cards. Emma looks sleek and
manicured. Her clothes are expensive, tailored, and her gold-hoop earrings are
understated, classy.

She fits with Dad’s high-powered
life in a way Mum never did.

‘We want you to be happy,’
she says, and I realize that she has an English accent, which jolts me a little.
Could she have come out here with Dad? I push the thought away.

‘This is probably very different
from what you’re used to,’ Emma is saying. ‘But it’s your
home now, and we’re glad to have you here. I hope we can be
friends!’

First Cherry, then Emma … what
is it with everyone wanting to be my friend all of a sudden? I drag up a polite
smile as Emma embarks on a guided tour of the gardens. I trail after her across the
patchy lawn as she points out a eucalyptus tree, a few scrubby shrubs and a
luxuriant honeysuckle clinging to a garden archway. We step through the archway and
round to the back of the house, and I stop short, catching my breath. A long strip
of glinting turquoise water lies before me – a swimming pool edged with marbled grey
tiles, a couple of sunloungers arranged beside it. I want to slide into the water
fully clothed right now, let go of everything, feel my plane-tangled hair float out
around me like a halo.

‘Like it?’ Dad asks.
‘Amazing, right? The beach is just a couple of blocks away too. It’s not
one of the busy ones, but there’s a cafe and a lifeguard and safe swimming. We
had Christmas dinner there last year … champagne and turkey cold cuts in
the sunshine.’

‘Wow,’ I say, trying to get
my head around the idea of that.

‘Come on,’ Emma says.
‘Let’s show you inside, get you settled.’

The house is much smaller than
Tanglewood, obviously, and it’s bright, airy, minimalist. I like that; I want
to wipe out the past, start everything fresh. My bedroom doesn’t have the
character of my turret room back home, but the walls are newly whitewashed and
there’s a small TV, a kettle and a mini-fridge. It’s like a student
bedsit and I have my own en suite shower room, which is pure luxury after the chaos
of sharing with four stressy sisters, Mum and Paddy. At Tanglewood, only the B&B
guests have their own bathrooms.

‘Take your time, freshen up a
bit,’ Dad suggests. ‘Once you’re sorted, we’ll go out and
take a look around Sydney, show you the sights, do the whole tourist
bit …’

The long flight is starting to catch up
with me and I’d rather curl up and sleep for a week, but I push the thought
away. ‘Sure!’ I say brightly. ‘Cool!’

‘That’s my girl,’ he
says approvingly. ‘Never give in to jet lag. You have to adapt from the very
start to the new time zone, or your body clock will be all over the place.
I’ve taken a couple of days off work; let’s not waste them!’

An hour later I am showered and changed,
my hair flying out behind me as Dad drives the three of us into the heart of the
city with the roof of his car opened up to catch the sun. We park beside the
skyscraper office block where his agency is based, just a stone’s throw from
the botanical gardens and Sydney Cove.

‘This is where I work,’ he
tells me casually, nodding up towards the shiny-sleek building. ‘We’re
on the fifth floor. I’m run off my feet usually – ask Emma, she hardly ever
sees me. I can always find time for my beautiful daughter, though – we’ll do
lunch some time, shall we?’

‘OK!’ I grin.

‘As long as you book him a week or
so ahead,’ Emma says. ‘He works long hours!’

Dad laughs. ‘Hey, the money has to
come from somewhere! C’mon, Emma, you can’t call me a workaholic –
I’ve taken time off to help Honey settle in, haven’t I?’

‘You have indeed,’ Emma
agrees, and my cheeks glow pink with pleasure. I feel valued, wanted, loved.
Finally.

Dad grins. ‘Well, I’ll
resist the temptation to call in and see how they’re coping without me. How
about we show you this beautiful city?’

We walk through the Royal Botanical
Gardens, past the flower gardens and fountains, with the sun beating down on us,
white cockatoos squawking overhead and fruit bats hanging from the branches of the
trees. It doesn’t quite feel real, as if I might wake up at any moment and
find I’m back home at Tanglewood with the same old family madness going on
around me. Instead I am here, with Sydney Harbour spread out before me like a
present I’ve wanted all my life and hardly dare to open.

I stop for a moment just to pinch myself
and to soak up the view as we head down to Circular Quay. We walk round the famous
opera house with its roof that looks like gigantic folded wings, and I hand Emma my
camera and ask her to take some pictures of Dad and me in front of it, tourist
style. I get pictures of some cool Aboriginal guys wearing bodypaint and not much
else, playing didgeridoo for the tourists at the quayside; I photograph the amazing
Sydney Harbour Bridge, and Dad points out the tiny figures making their way along
the curving arc of it; we catch a ferry, and I photograph the churning water, the
blue sky, the sweeping curves of Sydney Cove. At Manly, I photograph shark nets on
the beach, lifeguard lookout towers, bright boulevards busy with schoolkids trailing
home from class in peaked caps and cut-off shorts, streaks of zinc sunblock striped
across their cheeks. On the walkway teenagers shoot past on rollerblades, and a
young man with a surfboard and blond dreadlocks walks down to the water’s edge
and paddles his board into the waves, while tanned girls in tiny bikinis play
volleyball in the sand.

If that’s not surreal enough, I
notice strings of fairy lights draped from the trees and a giant artificial
Christmas tree in one of the main shopping areas. Piped Christmas carols drift out
from one of the shops. It’s the end of November and the heat is tropical, but
hey, you can’t stop Christmas.

Later, back at Circular Quay, we eat
dinner and sit looking out across the harbour. Emma and I choose salad and potato
wedges and Dad tucks into a kangaroo steak, which seems pretty gross to me, but I
don’t say so. It’s lucky my little sister Coco can’t see him. We
sip white wine spritzers – even me because Dad says I am pretty grown-up now, and
the wine is watered down so it’s no big deal. It makes me feel good that Dad
and Emma are treating me as an adult; I know for a fact that Mum would have ordered
me lemonade.

‘So,’ Dad says. ‘What
d’you think, Honey? Ready for a new start in beautiful Sydney?’

‘Totally,’ I say. ‘I
love it already!’

He shrugs. ‘Well, it’s not
just about loving it. It’s about making a go of it. We’re giving you a
fresh start here – are you up for the challenge?’

The smile slips from my face. ‘Of
course,’ I say. ‘You know I am. I’ll change, I promise. I’ve
been unhappy, mixed up, a little bit off the rails …’

‘Time to grow up,’ Dad says
firmly. ‘Draw a line under the mistakes. We’re taking a risk, Honey,
having you here. Don’t let us down.’

‘I won’t!’

I have spent the last couple of years
messing up, but if Dad had still been around I’d never have dared step out of
line. I was unhappy, lashing out, but all that is behind me now. I’ve moved
on. My transformation from convict girl to all-star Aussie student is about to
begin.

‘A few rules,’ Dad says.
‘No boys, no parties, no trouble. Deal?’

‘Deal,’ I echo. I
didn’t expect rules or demands from Dad, but I know I don’t want to let
him down. I know I have to change if I’m going to make a success of my new
start in Australia.

‘I can do it,’ I promise.
‘How can I fail? This new progressive school you and Mum found sounds amazing.
I know I’ll need help to turn things around, but Kember Grange offers that,
right? It sounds perfect!’

Dad frowns. ‘About that. We had a
slight change of plan.’

I blink, and Emma shakes her head,
refusing to catch my eye. ‘You didn’t tell her?’ she asks.
‘Greg, we agreed …’

‘I didn’t want to worry
Charlotte.’ Dad shrugs, dismissing Emma’s comment. ‘Our plans
changed a little at the last minute, Honey, but I had the impression you were keen
to come out here no matter what. Was I right?’

Panic unfurls inside me, but I try to
seem calm. ‘You were right,’ I say. ‘So … I’m not
going to the progressive school after all? What happened?’

Dad leans back in his chair. ‘Your
mum was very set on that place. She seems to think you need counselling and
kid-glove treatment, but I disagree. You’re my daughter – you’re bright,
confident, clued-up – why would you need all that New Age nonsense?’

Because I’m lost
, a small
voice says inside of me.
I’m lost and I’m not sure I can find myself
again.

‘Mum always exaggerates,’ I
say out loud. ‘I’m fine!’

‘Kember Grange couldn’t fit
you in as a day-pupil this term,’ Emma explains. ‘I don’t know if
you’re aware, but here in Australia the school year ends in December.
There’s a break for the summer holidays – just imagine, summer in January –
then the new term begins. We might be able to secure a place for you
then …’

‘But it’s not practical to
keep you out of school until the end of January,’ Dad chips in.
‘You’ve missed enough schooling as it is. You need to get back to
classes as soon as possible, and the last thing you need is a bunch of counsellors
on your tail, asking how you feel every step of the way. You don’t need
therapy; you need discipline and routine!’

I bite my lip. Discipline and routine
were in plentiful supply at my old high school, but they didn’t stop me from
going off the rails. Will Australian discipline and routine be any different?

‘There’s a very good
all-girls’ school ten minutes from the house,’ Dad is saying.
‘Willowbank gets excellent exam results, and they’ve agreed to take you
on. Why pay out a fortune for a private school with a fluffy, feel-good ethos when
you can have a perfectly good education for free?’

‘Right,’ I say.

‘I didn’t mention it to
Charlotte because I thought she’d make a fuss,’ he sighs.
‘She’d assume it was all about the money, when in fact it’s a
question of available places … and a difference of opinion on the school
ethos.’

‘If you don’t settle, we can
always look again at Kember Grange,’ Emma says.

‘It won’t come to
that,’ Dad insists. ‘Honey’s my daughter – she’ll adapt,
rise to the challenge. So what if she’s pushed a few boundaries, broken a few
rules? All teenagers do that, right? It’s a lot of fuss over nothing. Honey
doesn’t need a specialist school. All that touchy-feely therapy stuff is for
losers.’

I take a sharp breath in. Back home, my
sister Summer is having therapy to help her fight an eating disorder. Does that make
her a loser? I don’t think so. Before we left she talked to me for ages about
being brave enough to open up and let someone help.

‘If I can do it, you can do
it,’ she’d said.

Summer is not a loser; she’s the
bravest girl I know. Dad hasn’t even asked about her; or any of my sisters,
come to that. Perhaps he thinks that talking about them might make me homesick?

Maybe Dad is right, anyhow – maybe I
don’t need Kember Grange. I straighten my shoulders.

‘I’ll be fine,’ I say
carelessly. ‘School’s school, isn’t it?’

‘Exactly,’ Dad says.
‘That’s my girl!’